From Sports Media Watch, a one-stop page for sports ratings news.
Three of the six most-watched college basketball games all season aired last weekend, with FOX averaging a 1.4 rating and 2.76 million for Michigan-Michigan State last Friday night and ESPN drawing a 1.2 and 2.39 million for Kentucky-Arkansas and a 1.1 and 2.10 million for BYU-Kansas last Saturday — ranking fourth, fifth and sixth for the season.
The three games were also the most-watched of the season that did not have a direct lead-in from the NFL.
Men’s college basketball viewership is now up 31 percent across all networks this season. The ESPN networks are up 21%, with the ESPN flagship network up a more modest 6% to 913,000.
On the women’s side, last Sunday produced the two largest audiences of the season as Tennessee-UConn drew a 0.7 and season-high 1.21 million on FOX. ABC followed with 1.1 million for Oklahoma-Texas later in the afternoon. ESPN’s viewership for women’s games this season is up 39%.
Tuesday’s Jimmy V Classic men’s college basketball doubleheader averaged 1.1 million viewers on ESPN, up 36% from last year (791K) and the highest average for the event since 2020. (Nielsen methodological changes would not explain a year-over-year increase of that size, but could make a difference in comparisons to past years.)
Florida-UConn averaged 1.3 million to rank as the most-watched sportscast on a day that included NBA Cup quarterfinals on Amazon. Clemson-BYU led in with 906,000.
On Wednesday, the women’s Jimmy V Classic between Iowa and Iowa State averaged 1.0 million — the largest women’s audience of the season on any network.
The ESPN networks are averaging 460,000 viewers for college basketball games so far this season, up 113% from last year. Keep in mind that the early season schedule has included six more ESPN games and 13 fewer ESPNU games than a year ago, which would obviously skew the average.
On an individual network basis, ESPN is averaging 723,000 viewers — up 15% from last year. That includes an average of 1.7 million for last week’s Champions Classic, up 5% from last year (albeit well within the margin that could be explained entirely by Nielsen’s methodological changes this year.)
In particular, Kansas-Duke averaged a 1.0 and 1.87 million viewers, the largest audience of the young season thus far.
ESPN2 is averaging 266,000, up 23%.
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