ESPN had its best men’s college basketball regular season since 2014-15 and its best women’s season since 2008-09.
Viewership of men’s games across ESPN, ABC, ESPN2 and ESPNU were up 25% from the 2024-25 campaign, highlighted by the best “Big Monday” window on record (which started in 1987). For all games on ESPN and ABC, the average viewership was 1.1 million viewers, which is the best for those two networks since 2018-19 (there were just five games on ABC this season). When ESPN2 and ESPNU are factored in, the company average dips well below 1 million. The 12 games on “Big Monday” averaged 1.6 million viewers on ESPN this season, up 78% from last season. That slate also had the nine best Monday men’s college hoops games on any network since 2018-19.
The ACC saw its best season on ESPN in five years, and Commissioner Jim Phillips talked about the gains on this week’s SBJ Sports Media Podcast.
ESPN drew 3.4 million viewers for North Carolina-Duke on Saturday night, marking the fifth-best men’s college hoops game this season (the first matchup was No. 4 with 3.5 million). That also means Duke played in four of the five most-watched games this season. The two UNC-Duke games were the best for the regular-season series since Zion Williamson was on campus in 2019. Overall, ESPN networks had 12 of the top 20 most-watched games this season.
ESPN networks saw a 19% increase for women’s hoops this season, with 89 games averaging 333,000 viewers in 2025-26. ESPN had six of the 10 best women’s games and a record four games over 1 million viewers. South Carolina-LSU on Valentine’s Day led the way with 1.7 million on ABC. There were 20 games over 500,000 viewers, which is an ESPN record.
