Unrivaled, the new 3-on-3 women’s basketball league airing on TNT Sports, saw an expected drop off in viewership during its second week.
After eclipsing the 300,000 viewer mark on its opening night, Unrivaled failed to crest the 200,000 viewer threshold during its games on Monday night. Per Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch, Monday night’s doubleheader averaged 166,000 viewers across TNT and truTV, down 10% versus the previous Monday night doubleheader (184,000 viewers).
The opener between the Lunar Owls and Vinyl at 7:30 p.m. ET averaged just 134,000 viewers while the second game one hour later between the Laces and Rose increased the audience by 43% to 192,000 viewers.
Through two weeks, the new league is averaging 194,000 viewers per telecast. That average jumps to 238,000 viewers when excluding games that only aired on truTV, per Lewis.
So far, Friday seems to be the most successful night for the league. Last Friday’s pair of games averaged 281,000 viewers exactly one week after the league debuted.
Compared to the other new-age sports league that also debuted this month, TGL, Unrivaled is off to a modest start. Perhaps that’s to be expected when Unrivaled doesn’t have the Tiger Woods of women’s basketball (Caitlin Clark), while TGL has the Tiger Woods of golf on their side.
Still, it’s impossible to judge a league’s future success based off just two weeks of viewership data. Unrivaled still has plenty of time to grow its audience, and might even convince the sport’s needle-mover to join in future seasons.
But without a Clark-spark, Unrivaled will have to rely on a more organic growth trajectory this season.
