College basketball was dominant, as expected, on the Saturday of Championship Week.
Saturday’s NC State-North Carolina ACC Tournament final averaged a 1.8 rating and 3.24 million viewers on ESPN, the largest sports audience of the day and the most-watched ACC title game since 2019. Ratings increased 23% and viewership 20% from last year’s Duke-Virginia final.
College basketball dominated the day in sports with nine of the top 12 live sports audiences. Most of the day’s college basketball ratings were previously chronicled in an earlier post. To briefly recap: the Big Ten Tournament semifinals ranked second and fourth for the day with modest increases over last year; the Big East and Mountain West Tournament finals were the most-watched in years; the Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC posted declines.
Shifting to the pro game, ABC averaged a 1.6 and 2.97 million for Warriors-Lakers on the season finale of NBA Saturday Primetime — up 8% in ratings and 12% in viewership from its Bucks-Warriors finale last year. Including the NBA In-Season Tournament Final in December, ABC had its most-watched Saturday Primetime season in five years. Additional details are available in this article.
Beyond the hardwood, third round coverage of The Players Championship drew a 1.4 and 2.42 million on NBC — down 20% in ratings and 15% in viewership from last year (1.8, 2.83M) and the least-watched third round of the tournament going back at least a decade.
A Guadalajara-Club America Liga MX match drew a 0.53 and 1.34 million on Telemundo, easily topping the day in soccer. The English Premier League topped out at a 0.36 and 715,000 for Tottenham-Fulham across USA (0.22, 394K), Telemundo (0.11, 230K) and Universo (0.03, 29K). The NWSL season opened with a 0.37 and 614,000 for Portland-Kansas City on ABC, with ION averaging a 0.12 and 218,000 for Chicago-Utah later in the night. MLS was further back at a 0.16 and 277,000 for Seattle-Colorado on FOX (0.15, 261K) and Fox Deportes (0.01, 16K).
Further down the dial, ABC averaged a 0.45 and 798,000 for a Rangers-Penguins NHL regular season game — down from the same matchup in primetime last year (0.52, 901K). NBC averaged a 0.27 and 421,000 for Six Nations Rugby, the largest rugby audience since last fall’s Rugby World Cup, but down from the same event in the same window last year (0.28, 466K).
Saturday, March 16 sports ratings
