A one-day postponement took a bite out of the audience, but the LSU-South Carolina rivalry still ranks among the season’s top women’s college basketball games. Plus: figures for the US Figure Skating Championships, Australian Open and NHL.
LSU-South Carolina takes hit from postponement, still among top games
Friday’s LSU-South Carolina women’s college basketball game, which was postponed from primetime Thursday to a late afternoon window, averaged 841,000 viewers on ESPN — the second-most watched game on the ESPN networks this season and fourth-most watched overall.
The Gamecocks’ win, which peaked with 1.1 million viewers, ranks behind UConn-Notre Dame on ESPN December 12 (847K), USC-Indiana on NBC last weekend (1.0M, including Adobe Analytics) and UConn-USC on FOX following an NFL game December 21 (2.2M).
The postponement from Thursday night kept viewership far below last year’s comparable matchup of the teams, which averaged 1.56 million.
In place of LSU-South Carolina last Thursday, ESPN averaged 521,000 for a Tennessee-Texas game.
Declines for women’s competition at US Figure Skating Championships
The women’s free skate of the U.S. Figure Skating Championships averaged a 1.2 rating and 2.03 million viewers on NBC Friday night, down from last year (1.4, 2.21M) and the second-smallest audience for the women’s free skate since the event moved to NBC in 2008. Coverage two years ago averaged 1.87 million.
The event was still the most-watched sporting event of the night, doubling the competing college basketball window on FOX (1.07M).
The prior night, the women’s short program averaged a 0.17 and 284,000 on USA — down from last year’s 0.22 and 358,000.
Abbreviated Aussie Open men’s semifinal unsurprisingly down
Thursday’s abbreviated Australian Open men’s semifinal between Alexander Zverev and Novak Djokovic — which ended after the first set when the latter retired from the match — averaged a 0.27 rating and 497,000 viewers on ESPN. Both figures unsurprisingly trailed last year, when Djokovic’s upset loss to Jannik Sinner averaged a 0.48 and 760,000.
Softer outing for NHL on ESPN
Friday’s Golden Knights-Stars NHL regular season game averaged a 0.23 rating and 424,000 viewers on ESPN, down 15% and 25% respectively from Golden Knights-Rangers last year (0.27, 569K).
Keep in mind this year’s game had a direct lead-in from the above-mentioned LSU-South Carolina game, while last year’s game had a lead-in only from “SportsCenter.”
