College basketball delivered the three largest sports audiences of Wednesday night.
An ESPN college basketball tripleheader delivered the three largest sports audiences of the day on Wednesday, topped by North Carolina-Oklahoma in the Jumpman Invitational at 1.29 million. Baylor-Duke followed with 1.18 million and Alabama-Arizona rounded out the night with 634,000. ESPN aired one game on the comparable night last year, averaging 1.32 million for Michigan-North Carolina in the same Jumpman Invitational.
Elsewhere in the college game, Villanova-Creighton drew 230,000 on FS1 and UMBC-Iowa chipped in 113,000 on BTN. On the women’s side, Florida-Michigan drew 91,000 in the Jumpman Invitational on ESPN2 and a special matchup between UConn and Toronto Metropolitan averaged just 68,000 on FS2.
Shifting to the pros, NBA TV averaged 499,000 viewers for Celtics-Kings — the network’s largest audience in more than a month and third-largest of the season — and 404,000 for Timberwolves-Sixers. In the NBA G-League, Cleveland against G-League Ignite averaged 52,000 on ESPN2 and Greesnboro-Iowa scraped together just 7,000 on ESPNU.
Outside of basketball, TNT averaged 247,000 viewers for its usual Wednesday NHL doubleheader — off a fraction of a percent from last year (248K). In particular, Islanders-Capitals drew 307,000 viewers (+15%) and Kraken-Kings 182,000 (-19%). A Barcelona-Almeria La Liga match averaged 61,000 on ESPN Deportes.
Finally, college football signing day specials averaged 90,000 on ESPN2 and 16,000 on BTN.
Wednesday, December 20 sports ratings
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