The Oklahoma gymnastic team Credit: Jerome Miron-Imagn Images
By Drew Lerner on

Women’s college gymnastics is proving to be a solid viewership sport for ESPN.

Oklahoma’s win over UCLA, Missouri, and Utah during Saturday’s National Championship meet averaged one million viewers on ABC, according to ESPN PR. That places it as the second most-watched gymnastics championship on-record, falling just shy of the 1.02 million viewers ABC drew in 2023. Saturday’s telecast was up 18% versus last year’s championship on ABC, which drew 808,000 viewers. The audience peaked at 1.5 million viewers, the highest ever for a gymnastics broadcast on ESPN platforms.

Thursday’s national semifinals were a bit more of a mixed bag. The primetime session averaged 212,000 viewers, down 5% from last year’s audience, while the daytime session averaged 154,000 viewers, up 48% from last year, according to Sports Media Watch. Both sessions aired on ESPN2.

Notably, the audience for this year’s championship meet skewed 57% female, one of the most female-skewing events ever aired on an ESPN platform, per ESPN PR.

ESPN has seen great returns since moving the championship from ESPNU to ABC in 2021. Each year has seen viewership average at least in the high six figures, with two years hovering just under one million viewers. For a niche sport, that’s a solid track record. It goes to show the importance of a platform; being on a broadcast network, as opposed to a little-watched cable channel, has done wonders for the sport.

Expect ESPN to stick with its ABC strategy for college gymnastics going forward.

About Drew Lerner

Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.

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