In just one year at Duke, Zion Williamson is already impacting the ratings like LeBron James or Tiger Woods.
Thursday’s Duke-Syracuse ACC Tournament quarterfinal earned 2.45 million viewers on ESPN, up 42% from the same window last year (North Carolina-Notre Dame: 1.73M), up 105% from 2017 (Virginia-Notre Dame: 1.19M), and the most-watched ACC quarterfinal on record. Ratings were not immediately available.
The previous high was set by last year’s UNC-Notre Dame game.
Duke has now played in 12 of the 20 most-watched college basketball games this season, with Thursday’s game ranking 14th.
Earlier in the night, North Carolina-Louisville scored 1.55 million — down 9% from last year (Duke-Notre Dame: 1.71M) and up 26% from 2017 (Duke-Louisville: 1.22M).
In Thursday’s nightcap, the Oregon-Utah Pac-12 Tournament quarterfinal had 823,000 viewers on ESPN — up 288% from the same matchup last year on FS1 (212K), but down 21% from 2017 on ESPN (UCLA-USC: 1.04M).
In other Championship Week action, Tuesday’s St. Mary’s-Gonzaga WCC Tournament final had a 0.65 rating and 1.00 million viewers on ESPN — up 16% in ratings and 14% in viewership from last year (Gonzaga-BYU: 0.56, 877K), but down 25% and 29% respectively from the same matchup in 2017 (0.9, 1.42M).
Outside of the ACC Tournament, the Gaels’ upset win ranks second among Championship Week games. Last Sunday’s Bradley-Northern Iowa MVC Tournament final holds the top spot with a 0.8 and 1.28 million on CBS.
Earlier Tuesday, the Northern Kentucky-Wright State Horizon League final had a 0.30 (-3%) and 450,000 (+2%).
As for the regular season, ESPN averaged 1.20 million for men’s games this season (+15%), with that average dropping to 410,000 with ESPN2 and ESPNU included (+6%). The network averaged 2.14 million for Duke games, up 30% from last year.
Over on Fox Sports, regular season games averaged 894,000 on the FOX broadcast network (+3%) and 171,000 on FS1 (+19%), with the two networks combining to average 285,000 (+12%).
According to Sports Business Daily, CBS led all college basketball broadcasters with an average of 1.54 million, but that was down 6% from last year (1.65M).
[Numbers from Nielsen via ShowBuzz Daily 3.15, ESPN PR 3.14, Fox Sports, Sports Business Daily 3.15]
