To the surprise of no one, the North Carolina-Duke rivalry continues to bring viewers in by the boatload. UNC’s 76-72 victory in Durham on March 5th drew 3.174 million viewers, one of two games this season to crack the three million viewer mark for ESPN. The other came on November 17th, when Kentucky beat Duke 74-63.
In fact, the Blue Devils were featured in three of the four most-watched games this season for ESPN, with their 74-73 win over the Tar Heels on February 17th picking up 2.863 million viewers, the fourth most-watched game of the season. The third most-watched game of the year came on January 30th when Kansas topped Kentucky 90-84 in overtime.
WatchESPN also had their five most-watched games ever this season – the four aforementioned games, along with the triple OT Oklahoma-Kansas game on January 4th. But in a sign of how far streaming really needs to come, none of those games even averaged an audience of 80,000 viewers, with the Kentucky-Duke game topping the list at 78,000 viewers.
And in case anyone is wondering, a third Duke-UNC game would take place in the ACC Tournament semifinals on Friday and would require Duke to get by NC State and Notre Dame while UNC would need to top the winner of Pitt-Syracuse. It’s not out of the question, and ESPN would love to get the two teams facing off one more time on their airwaves.
[ESPN]
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About Joe Lucia
I hate your favorite team. I also sort of hate most of my favorite teams.