Duke continues to move the college basketball ratings needle.
Last Wednesday’s Gonzaga-Duke Maui Invitational final earned 2.30 million viewers on ESPN, up 366% from last year (Wichita State-Notre Dame: 493K) and up 142% from 2016 (North Carolina-Wisconsin: 948K). Those games aired in late night windows on ESPN2. Ratings were not immediately available.
The Bulldogs’ win ranks as the most-watched Maui Invitational final since 2010, when Connecticut-Kentucky had 2.39 million. It trails only the 2010 game as the most-watched on record.
The last time Duke played in the Maui Invitational final — 2011 against Kansas — the game had 2.20 million.
Last week’s game delivered the second-largest audience of the early college basketball season, behind Duke-Kentucky in the Champions Classic (2.85M). Duke has played in the top three games this season, with their semifinal win over Auburn ranking third (2.17M).
To put the numbers in perspective, no weeknight college football game this season has exceeded 1.74 million viewers.*
In other college basketball action, Wednesday’s Kansas-Marquette NIT Tip-Off Semifinal had 784,000 viewers on ESPN2 and Friday’s Kansas-Tennessee final had 766,000 — up 124% and 131% respectively from last year’s comparable windows on ESPN2. The same tournament last year aired on ESPNU and ESPNEWS.
* Excludes Virginia Tech-FSU in Week 1, which aired on Labor Day.
[Numbers from ESPN, Nielsen via ShowBuzz Daily 11.26, 11.27]
