The Duke-North Carolina rivalry topped a busy sports day that included Lakers-Knicks, Caitlin Clark and NASCAR’s rescheduled Clash at the L.A. Coliseum.
Saturday’s Duke-North Carolina men’s college basketball game averaged a 1.6 rating and 3.20 million viewers on ESPN, marking the rivals’ most-watched regular season meeting since Mike Krzyzewski’s final home game two years ago (3.98M). Excluding that matchup, it was the most-watched since the Zion Williamson season of 2019.
The Tar Heels’ win was the most-watched sporting event of the day and the second-most watched college basketball game of the season. A Michigan State-Arizona Thanksgiving Day game, which benefited both from an NFL lead-in and a large out-of-home holiday audience, holds the top spot with 5.18 million.
Duke-North Carolina was the second of three-straight top-ten matchups on ESPN. The Tennessee-Kentucky lead-out averaged a 1.2 and 2.53 million, up 30% and 47% respectively from Florida-Kentucky last year (0.9, 1.72M), and the Houston-Kansas lead-in drew a 0.9 and 1.63 million — actually down 19% from Purdue-Indiana a year ago (1.1, 2.03M).
Placing second for the day, a Lakers-Knicks NBA regular season game on ABC averaged a 1.6 and 2.74 million — up 20% and 16% respectively from Mavericks-Warriors on the same February night last year (1.3, 2.36M). (Compared to Lakers-Celtics on the equivalent date of last season, January 30, ratings and viewership fell 22% and 26% respectively from a 2.1 and 3.69 million.)
The Lakers’ win was the top game of a packed Saturday night window that also included the aforementioned Tennessee-Kentucky game, Caitlin Clark, and NASCAR’s rescheduled “Clash” at the L.A. Coliseum.
Clark and Iowa’s game against Maryland averaged a 0.9 and 1.58 million on FOX, trailing only Iowa-Ohio State on NBC last month as the most-watched regular season women’s game since 2010. The three largest audiences since 2010 have occurred this season, and the four largest have come within the past year, with this year’s South Carolina-LSU game third (1.55M) and last year’s matchup of the teams fourth (1.47M).
Ratings and viewership tripled a Villanova-Creighton men’s game in the same window last year (0.33, 567K).
NASCAR’s Clash at the Coliseum, which was moved up from Sunday on FOX to Saturday on FS1, averaged a 0.8 and 1.51 million — not surprisingly the smallest audience for the preseason event in at least two decades. The “Clash” still outdrew the day’s other exhibition, the NHL All-Star Game on ABC (0.7, 1.40M).
In other action, third round coverage of the PGA Tour Pebble Beach Pro-Am — which turned out to be the final round after Sunday’s play was canceled — averaged a 1.2 and 1.95 million, up 5% and 9% respectively from 2022 (1.1, 1.79M). (Last year’s third round action was washed out.) LIV Golf had only a fraction of the audience with a 0.10 and 168,000 on The CW.
College football’s Senior Bowl drew a 0.32 and 552,000 on NFL Network, a three-year high and up 40 and 45 percent respectively from last year (0.23, 380K).
Saturday, February 3 sports ratings
