ESPN posts most-watched Champ Week since 2019, up 11% YoY
Colin Bradley
Men’s college basketball Champ Week Presented by Principal delivered its largest audience since 2019. The 69 games across ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU averaged 641K viewers, up 11% year-over-year.
The ACC Championship game (Virginia vs. Duke) drew 4.1M viewers, up 33% YoY. This is the second most-watched ACC Championship game on record and third best ACC Tournament game on record. The full tournament on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU averaged 1.1M viewers, up 11% YoY and the best since 2019.
The Big 12 Championship game (Houston vs. Arizona) averaged 3.1M viewers, the most-watched Big 12 Championship game on record and up 39% YoY. The full tournament averaged 1.0M viewers, up 25% YoY and the best since 2011.
The SEC Championship game (Vanderbilt vs. Arkansas) averaged 2.6M viewers and was the second most-watched SEC Championship game since 2017. The five SEC Tournament games on ESPN drew 1.9M viewers.
The Big West (+23%), Horizon League (+20%) and Ivy League (+34%) Championship games all delivered double-digit growth.