The Big East has yet to recover its mojo.
Villanova-Creighton scored a 0.7 final rating and 1.1 million viewers in Saturday’s Big East Tournament final on FOX, down 22% in ratings and 21% in viewership from Seton Hall-Villanova last year (0.9, 1.4M) and up 250% and 162% respectively from Villanova-Xavier on Fox Sports 1 in 2015 (0.2, 414K).
The Wildcats’ win was beaten head-to-head by Big 12 final on ESPN (2.3M) and the Mountain West title game on CBS (1.3M). It also earned a smaller audience than the Cincinnati-SMU American Athletic final (a.k.a. the “old Big East”) the following day on ESPN (1.2M).
The Big East title game, once the crown jewel of championship week, has yet in four years on Fox Sports to attract even half of the audience it earned in its final year on ESPN — 3.4 million for Louisville-Syracuse in 2013. That is despite boasting the defending national champion Wildcats, the #1 overall seed in this year’s NCAA Tournament bracket.
(Wknd. numbers via ShowBuzz Daily 3.16)
