Featuring a full three-game final for the first time in four years, the NCAA Women’s College World Series hit multiple viewership highs on ESPN.
The three-game Texas-Texas Tech NCAA Women’s College World Series Final averaged 2.2 million viewers across ESPN and ESPNU, the highest average on record for the event and up 13% from the previous high set by last year’s two-game Oklahoma-Texas series.
Friday’s winner-take-all Game 3 averaged 2.41 million viewers, marking the largest college softball audience on record — surpassing the previous mark of 2.33 million for Tennessee-Arizona Game 3 in 2007. All three games of this year’s series rank among the top ten, with Game 2 ranking sixth (2.13M) and Game 1 seventh (2.11M). (Keep in mind out-of-home viewing was not tracked in Nielsen’s estimates prior to 2020.)
Compared to the previous Game 3 — Oklahoma-Florida State in 2021, which aired in a Thursday afternoon window due to rain — viewership jumped 54% from 1.57 million.
Overall, four games of this year’s WCWS rank among the top ten, with a UCLA-Tennessee game on ABC earlier in the tournament placing fifth (2.19M).
Most-Watched Women’s College World Series Games
The full, 15-game WCWS averaged 1.3 million — up 24% from last year and a new record for the event, surpassing the previous high set in 2021. The complete NCAA softball tournament averaged 591,000, up 3% from last year and the highest in four years.
