The season’s third meeting between UNC and Duke set a Championship Week record in the overnight ratings. Also: ESPN posted an increase for women’s college hoops this season, and a drop to cable sank NASCAR’s Xfinity Series.
Duke-UNC overnights set Championship Week record
Friday’s Duke-North Carolina ACC Tournament semifinal earned a 3.0 overnight rating on ESPN, up 58% from the same matchup last year (1.9) and the highest Championship Week overnight ever on the network. The previous high was 2.5 for the 2009 Syracuse-Louisville Big East Tournament final.
The Blue Devils’ narrow win, which peaked at a 3.6, tied the second-highest college basketball overnight of the season. It matched Duke-UNC the previous week and trails only UNC-Duke in February (3.2).
Greenville, NC, led all markets with a 9.9 rating, followed by Raleigh-Durham (9.7), Greensboro, NC (8.9), and Charlotte (8.5). Norfolk, Va., was the top market outside of North Carolina (7.7).
Earlier Friday, Florida State-Virginia had a 1.3.
Uptick for ESPN women’s hoops coverage
ESPN averaged 180,000 viewers for regular season women’s college basketball coverage, according to The Athletic reporter Richard Deitsch, up 5% from last year. The network’s Thursday Showcase games, which included multiple #1 vs. #2 matchups, averaged 549,000 (+28%).
As for Championship Week, the Mississippi State-Arkansas SEC Tournament final topped the charts with a 0.26 rating (-10%) and 424,000 viewers (-1%) on ESPN2 last Sunday. The Stanford-Oregon Pac-12 Tournament final ranked second with a 0.26 and 418,000 (+60%).
Shift to cable sinks NASCAR Xfinity Series at Phoenix
NASCAR Xfinity Series racing from Phoenix delivered a 0.7 rating and 1.06 million viewers on FS1 last Saturday, down 22% in ratings and 26% in viewership from last year’s rain-delayed coverage on FOX (0.9, 1.43M), and down 42% and 43% from 2017, also on FOX (1.2, 1.85M).
[Numbers from ESPN PR 3.16, Richard Deitsch/Twitter 3.14; ESPN PR 3.14; ShowBuzz Daily 3.12]
