Despite featuring the nation’s top four teams, college basketball’s season opening Champions Classic hit a three-year low.
Tuesday’s Champions Classic college basketball doubleheader averaged 2.35 million viewers on ESPN, marking the smallest average for the event in three years (2016: 2.23M). Viewership declined 3% from last year (2.41M) and 17% from 2017 (2.82M).
The individual games were mixed. Duke-Kansas averaged a 1.6 rating and 2.42 million viewers, up 28% in ratings and 21% in viewership from last year (MSU-Kansas: 1.2, 2.00M), but down 12% and 18% respectively from 2017 (Duke-MSU: 1.8, 2.97M).
It was Duke’s lowest rated and least-watched Champions Classic appearance since the Blue Devils last played Kansas in the event — 2016 (1.5, 2.36M).
The Michigan State-Kentucky nightcap averaged a 1.45 and 2.27 million, down 16% in ratings and 20% in viewership from Duke-Kentucky last year (1.7, 2.85M) and down 13% and 15% respectively from 2017 (Kentucky-Kansas: 2.66M).
Despite the #1 vs. #2 matchup, it was Kentucky’s least-watched Champions Classic appearance since the Wildcats last played Michigan State in the event — 2016 (1.3, 2.08M).
Both games trailed the intervening College Football Playoff Rankings Show (1.8, 2.76M). That is not unusual. In each of the past three years, the CFP Rankings Show has averaged a larger audience than the Champions Classic games it aired between.
[Nielsen estimates from Programming Insider 11.6, ESPN PR/Twitter 11.6]
