North Carolina’s win over Duke on Saturday night saw viewers return for what is traditionally college hoops’ most-watched regular-season matchup. ESPN drew 3.2 million viewers for the game, behind only the same matchup in March 2022 (Mike Krzyzewski's finale at Cameron Indoor Stadium) as the network’s second-best men’s college hoops game since the Zion Williamson-fueled campaign of 2019 (each UNC-Duke game in 2019 was over 4 million). Along with UNC-Duke, ESPN had Tennessee-Kentucky (2.5 million) and Houston-Kansas (1.6 million) among its slate on Saturday, helping the network to its second-best day of men’s college hoops since 2019.
Meanwhile, Iowa's Caitlin Clark delivered Fox its best women’s college hoops audience on record on Saturday night. The Iowa-Maryland matchup was featured in Fox’s primetime window, drawing 1.59 million viewers. That is the second-best game this season for women’s hoops, behind only Ohio State-Iowa on Jan. 21 on NBC (1.93 million). Clark and Iowa have now played in three of the five best women’s college hoops games this season to date (and each has drawn over 1 million viewers, likely a first for the sport).
