The latest edition of the North Carolina-Duke rivalry was unusually uncompetitive on the court and less of a draw in the ratings.
Saturday’s North Carolina-Duke men’s college basketball game averaged 2.29 million viewers on ESPN, the rivals’ least-watched matchup in three years, but still the second-largest audience of the college basketball season. Illinois-Arkansas averaged 5.1 million on CBS Thanksgiving Day.
The Blue Devils’ blowout win, in which they led at one point 40-13, declined 28% from the rivals’ first meeting last season (3.20M).
Though the blowout is an obvious culprit for the decline, Saturday’s numbers are the latest data point indicating that Duke freshman phenom Cooper Flagg has yet to break through onto the national stage. When Duke last boasted the presumptive #1 NBA draft pick — Zion Williamson in the pre-COVID era of 2019 — its first matchup with North Carolina averaged 4.34 million.
As one would expect, the Tobacco Road rivalry still topped all other college basketball games for the weekend. For the day, it ranked second only to a Lakers-Knicks NBA game on ABC (2.5M).
Later in the night, Arkansas-Kentucky — which marked Razorbacks coach John Calipari’s return to his old stomping grounds — averaged 1.94 million, down 23% from Tennessee-Kentucky last year (2.5M).
In other Saturday action, ESPN drew 1.35 million for Florida-Tennessee — up nearly threefold from Virginia Tech-Miami last year (511K) — 1.34 million for Auburn-Mississippi (+85%) and 1.28 million for Kansas-Baylor (-22%).
ESPN’s Saturday slate accounted for five of the week’s eight largest college basketball audiences. The top game outside of the ESPN networks was Ohio State-Illinois on CBS Sunday, which averaged 1.58 million — down 29% from Purdue-Wisconsin a year ago (2.2M).
CBS also averaged 864,000 for Arizona-Arizona State on Saturday, up 43% from Wichita State-Memphis last year (604K).
