The College World Series delivered multiple multi-year highs on ESPN.
Florida-LSU earned a 1.2 final rating and 2.0 million viewers in Game 2 of the CWS final on ESPN Tuesday night, up 20% in ratings and 28% in viewership from Coastal Carolina-Arizona last year (1.0, 1.6M) and up a third and 51% respectively from Virginia-Vanderbilt in 2015 (0.9, 1.3M).
The Gators’ title-clinching win, which peaked with 2.6 million viewers from 10:45-11 PM ET, was the most-watched Game 2 of the CWS since Arizona-South Carolina in 2012 (2.1M). Including streaming viewership on WatchESPN, the game had 2.07 million viewers — still the largest Game 2 audience since ’12 (2.08M).
The two-game CWS averaged 1.9 million viewers on TV, up 74% from Coastal Carolina-Arizona last year (1.1M), with the caveat that last year’s deciding Game 3 was postponed to the afternoon on ESPNU. Compared to Virginia-Vanderbilt in 2015, viewership increased 34% from 1.4 million.
Including streaming, the series averaged 1.95 million viewers. With or without streaming included, it was the most-watched CWS final since Vanderbilt-Virginia in 2014 (2.01M) and the second-most watched CWS sweep on record — dating back to 2002 — trailing only South Carolina-Florida in 2011 (2.2M).
The complete College World Series averaged 1.1 million viewers on TV and streaming, a three-year high. New Orleans was the top market for the tournament as a whole (8.9) and for the final (19.3), topping out at a 20.1 for Tuesday’s finale.
