A seventeen-inning marathon delivered record numbers for the Women’s College World Series.
Oklahoma-Florida earned a 1.0 final rating and 1.6 million viewers in Monday’s Game 1 of the WCWS final, up 43% in ratings and 58% in viewership from Oklahoma-Auburn last year (0.7, 1.0M) and flat and up 6% respectively from Florida-Michigan on ESPN2 in 2015 (1.0, 1.5M).
The Sooners’ extra-inning win delivered the largest Game 1 audience since the WCWS final expanded to a best-of-three format in 2005. The previous high was set in 2015. Overall, it was the ninth-most watched WCWS game, of any kind, ever on ESPN (dates back to 1990).
Viewership peaked at 2.2 million from 11:45 PM-Midnight ET and remained above two million during the final quarter-hour from 12:15-12:30 AM. Figures do not include the streaming audience on WatchESPN, which boosted the audience to 1.7 million viewers.
Monday’s game earned a larger audience than all-but-one weeknight Major League Baseball telecast this season, trailing only the Cubs’ home opener in April (1.8M).
Tulsa led all markets with a 7.4 rating, followed by Oklahoma City (6.6).
[Mon. numbers from ESPN PR 6.6, Programming Insider 6.6]
