For the third time this season, Duke and North Carolina delivered one of the five largest audiences of the college basketball season.
Friday’s Duke-North Carolina ACC men’s basketball tournament semifinal averaged a 1.1 rating and 2.26 million viewers on ESPN, marking the fifth-largest audience of the college basketball season to that point. All three meetings of Duke and North Carolina rank in the top five, with their second matchup ranking second (3.0M) and their first meeting placing fourth (2.29M).
Overall, Duke played in four of the ten most-watched games this season as of Friday, more than any other team.
The Blue Devils’ narrow win delivered the largest ACC Tournament audience, excluding the final, since the same matchup in the 2019 semifinals (4.15M). At the same time, it was also the least-watched ACC Tournament matchup of Duke and Carolina since their matchup in the 2011 final (four telecasts).
Figures for the Louisville-Clemson nightcap were not immediately available.
In other conference tournament play, Friday’s Creighton-UConn Big East Tournament semifinal drew a 0.8 and 1.48 million — making it the most-watched Big East semifinal since the final year of the “old Big East” in 2013, when the event still aired on ESPN. It was preceded by St. John’s-Marquette at 1.3 million, the second-most watched since ’13.
Prior to this year, only one other Big East tournament semifinal had aired on broadcast television, last year’s St. John’s-UConn game on FOX (1.28M).
Further down the dial, Michigan-Purdue led the Big Ten Tournament quarterfinals with a 0.39 and 840,000 on BTN — down from Nebraska-Indiana last year (914K). Maryland’s rout of Illinois led in with a 0.27 and 526,000, less than half of the 1.13 million who watched Illinois-Ohio State a year ago.
In the Big 12 Tournament, a Houston-BYU semifinal averaged a 0.21 and 396,000 on ESPN2 — down from Texas Tech-Houston last year (0.25, 449K). Figures for the Arizona-Texas Tech nightcap were not immediately available.
