The final game of the Women’s College World Series hit a four-year viewership high.
Tuesday’s Game 2 of the UCLA-Oklahoma Women’s College World Series final earned a 1.1 rating and 1.80 million viewers on ESPN, up 18% in ratings and viewership from Florida State-Washington last year (0.95, 1.52M) and flat and up 3% respectively from Oklahoma-Florida in 2017 (1.1, 1.74M).
The Bruins’ win delivered the largest WCWS audience in four years, since Michigan-Florida Game 3 in 2015 (2.27M).
It also delivered the fourth-largest baseball or softball audience on cable this year, behind three Sunday Night Baseball games — Red Sox-Yankees last weekend (1.97M), Braves-Phillies in March (1.87M) and Cardinals-Cubs last month (1.81M).
Game 1 on Monday night had a 0.9 and 1.34 million, up a tick in ratings and 9% in viewership from FSU-Washington (0.8, 1.23M), but down a tick and 18% respectively from Oklahoma-Florida (1.0, 1.63M).
The full series averaged 1.57 million viewers (+13%).
In other WCWS action, the second game of Sunday’s Oklahoma-Alabama doubleheader had a 0.8 (+73%) and 1.43 million (+86%) on ESPN2. Game one had a 0.9 (+23%) and 1.37 million (+32%) on ESPN. UCLA-Washington started the day off with a 0.8 (+25%) and 1.28 million (+32%) on ESPN.
The final six games of the WCWS increased over last year, with Saturday night’s Oklahoma State-Washington starting the streak off with a 0.7 (+16%) and 1.26 million (+25%).
The complete WCWS averaged 1.05 million viewers, up 20% from last year. That includes an average of 962,000 for the 13 round robin games preceding the WCWS final (+23%).
[Numbers from Nielsen via Programming Insider 6.6 a, b; ShowBuzz Daily 6.4; ESPN PR 6.6]
