Clemson’s upset of North Carolina topped a TNT NBA doubleheader on a quiet night of sports viewership.
Tuesday’s Clemson-North Carolina men’s college basketball game averaged 1.15 million viewers on ESPN, the largest sports audience of the day and up 63% from North Carolina-Wake Forest on the same night last year (699K).
The Tigers’ upset of the #3 ranked Tar Heels comfortably outdrew the competing Mavericks-Nets NBA game on TNT, a rarity for college basketball in the regular season.
The NBA game averaged just 830,000 viewers, followed by Bucks-Suns at a not-much-better 940,000 — down 31 and 68 percent respectively from the same night last year, when TNT averaged 1.21 million for Suns-Nets and 2.98 million for a Thunder-Lakers game in which LeBron James set the all-time NBA scoring record. (Versus the equivalent date of last season, January 31, viewership fell 51 and 19 percent respectively from Lakers-Knicks at 1.70 million and Pelicans-Nuggets at 1.16 million.)
Returning to college action, ESPN’s Texas Tech-Baylor nightcap averaged 576,000, down 31% from Arkansas-Kentucky a year ago (831K). Elsewhere, Butler-UConn averaged 297,000 on FS1, preceded by DePaul-St. John’s at 73,000 (-58%) and followed by San Diego State-Air Force at 86,000 (-11%). Oklahoma State-Houston had 138,000 on ESPN2 (-57%), followed by Charlotte-USF at just 67,000 (-78%) and Saint Mary’s-Pacific at 73,000. BTN chipped in 80,000 for Rutgers-Maryland, followed by a women’s matchup of the same two teams at 64,000.
Elsewhere, a Bayern Leverkusen-VFB Stuttgart Bundesliga match drew a combined 80,000 viewers across ESPN2 (44K) and ESPN Deportes (36K). A pair of Carribean World Series matches followed on ESPN Deportes at 38,000 (Curacao-Dominican Republic) and 37,000 (Panama-Venezuela). An afternoon Towson-Johns Hopkins college lacrosse match averaged just 9,000 on ESPNU, the same as a Puerto Rico-Panama Concacaf U-17 women’s soccer match on FS2 at the same time.
Tuesday, February 6 sports ratings
Updated chart:
Original chart below:
