A rare Monday ESPN NBA doubleheader topped the sports viewership charts for March 18.
Monday’s Knicks-Warriors NBA regular season game averaged 1.48 million viewers on ESPN, preceded by Heat-Sixers at 1.20 million, the two largest sports audiences of a particularly quiet day. It has become a tradition of sorts for ESPN to air an NBA doubleheader on the night following NCAA Selection Sunday. Compared to that night last year, viewership declined 21 and 1 percent respectively from 1.88 million for Suns-Warriors and 1.22 million for Grizzlies-Mavericks.
The NBA games were the only sporting events of note on a day bereft of live events. The only other live sports programming was MLB Spring Training on MLB Network, as Angels-Brewers averaged 98,000 viewers and Red Sox-Twins 79,000. A 9 AM ET re-air of a Basketball Africa League game averaged 10,000 on NBA TV, while ESPNU drew 2,000 for an 11 AM re-air of a Navy-Johns Hopkins college lacrosse match.
Shifting to studio programming, ESPN’s “Pardon the Interruption” scored its largest audience since the day after the Super Bowl with 755,000 viewers, edging the previous Monday edition (754K). ESPN’s Jay Bilas-hosted “My Bracket is Better Than Yours” special averaged 161,000 on ESPN2, followed by an ESPN Bet tournament special at 107,000. Both specials trailed last year’s equivalent studio programs, a SportsCenter special (180K) and a “Daily Wager” betting special (187K).
Monday, March 18 sports ratings
Original chart below (including WWE):
