It is one of top rivalries in college football, but Auburn-Alabama delivered a big basketball audience for their #1 vs. #2 matchup over the weekend.
Saturday’s Auburn-Alabama men’s college basketball game, a matchup of the nation’s top ranked teams, averaged 2.76 million viewers on ESPN — trailing only Illinois-Arkansas on CBS Thanksgiving Day as the most-watched game of the college basketball season, regardless of gender.
The Tigers’ win — which peaked with 3.5 million — outdrew the two previous #1 vs. #2 matchups in men’s college basketball, Gonzaga-UCLA in November 2021 (1.59M) and Michigan State-Kentucky in the 2019 Champions Classic (2.33M). The last #1 vs. #2 men’s game to deliver a larger audience was Duke-Michigan State in the 2017 Champions Classic (3.02M).
It also delivered the largest SEC-controlled college basketball audience since 2019.
As one might expect, viewership more-than-doubled Kansas-Oklahoma in the same window last year (1.37M)
North Carolina-Syracuse led out with 1.75 million (+1%), followed by Kentucky-Texas at 1.54 million. The SEC accounted for three of the ESPN networks’ top four men’s college basketball audiences last week, with Tennessee-Kentucky last Tuesday ranking fourth (1.47M).
Earlier in the day, ESPN drew 1.26 million for Houston-Arizona — up 30% from Duke-Florida State last year (971K) — and ABC turned in 1.08 million for Stanford-Duke, which marked Dick Vitale’s second assignment this season.
Moving beyond the ESPN networks, CBS averaged 1.76 million for Michigan-Ohio State on Sunday (+2%) and 1.57 million for Wisconsin-Purdue on Saturday (+102%).
Shifting to women’s action, ABC averaged 1.8 million viewers for UConn’s blowout of South Carolina on Sunday afternoon, followed by LSU-Texas at 1.7 million — the two largest regular season women’s audiences on the ESPN networks since Stanford snapped UConn’s 90-game winning streak in 2010 (2.1M).
Overall, the games rank third and fourth all-time among women’s regular season games on the ESPN networks and among the top eight overall.
UConn has played in two of the top three women’s games this season, with their December matchup against USC — which aired on FOX immediately following an NFL game — holding the top spot.
Note: Nielsen as of this month expanded its out-of-home viewing sample to cover 100 percent of markets (up from two-thirds previously). As a result, viewership figures will generally compare favorably not only to past years, but even to past weeks.
