ESPN Champ Week coverage of Conference Tournaments around the sport have been one of the staples of the network over the years. And after another successful year of Champ Week coverage from a viewership perspective, that will seemingly remain the case for many years to come.
The three major conference tournaments that the ESPN has the broadcast rights to, the SEC Tournament, the ACC Tournament, and the Big 12 Tournament, were of course the highlights of ESPN’s Champ Week coverage. And while not all of these tournament finals exceeded the viewership numbers from last year, all three produced positive results for ESPN.
On Tuesday, ESPN issued a press release that included the viewership numbers of all three tournament finals. Perhaps most notably, the SEC Tournament final between the Tennessee Volunteers and the Florida Gators on Sunday brought in an average viewership of 3.1 million, an increase of 74% in year-over-year viewership from last year’s Auburn-Florida tournament final matchup.
The ACC Tournament Final, meanwhile, was unable to match last year’s NC State-North Carolina championship game that brought in 3.24 million viewers. But it did come close, with an average of 3.1 million fans tuning into Saturday’s Louisville-Duke final.
Saturday’s Big 12 Tournament Final between Arizona and Houston supplanted last year’s championship matchup between Houston and Iowa State by 6%, with an average of 2.2 million viewers tuning into the game. This was perhaps to be expected consider Iowa State’s victory last year was largely a one-sided beating.
Overall, viewership of the entire week of coverage was up 21 percent across ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPNU from last year’s coverage, per the ESPN press release on the matter.
ESPN’s ‘25 #NCAAMBB Champ Week finished as the most-watched in 6 years!
🏀 Games on ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU up 21% over ’24
🏀 #ACCMBB Champ Game | 3.1M viewers
🏀 #Big12MBB Champ Game | 2.2M viewers
🏀 #SECMBB Champ Game | 3.1M viewers pic.twitter.com/iR3V82dBtO— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) March 18, 2025
While CBS was perhaps the big winner of the week thanks to their broadcast of the Big Ten Championship Game between Michigan and Wisconsin, which brought in 4.53 million average viewers, the second-most of any game this season, ESPN certainly represented themselves adequately as one of the leaders in college basketball coverage.
Now, the network will largely shift to coverage around the 2025 Women’s NCAA Tournament, which is exclusively on the ESPN family of networks.
About Reice Shipley
Reice Shipley is a staff writer for Comeback Media that graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in Sports Media. He previously worked at Barrett Sports Media and is a fan of all things Syracuse sports.