Monday (1/29) sports viewership: College hoops leads slow night

A pair of college basketball games lead the way on a low night for sports viewership.

Monday’s Houston-Texas men’s college basketball game averaged 959,000 viewers on ESPN, the largest sports audience of the day and up 7% from Baylor-Texas (895K) last year. Earlier in the evening, Duke-Virginia Tech averaged 894,000 viewers on ESPN which was down 11% from Virginia-Syracuse (1.01M) one year ago. Over on ESPN2, LSU-Mississippi State led the way for women’s college basketball netting 351,000 viewers, up 1% from Tennessee-LSU (347K) last season.

Shifting to the professional game, Suns-Heat averaged 309,000 in the evening time slot for NBA TV and was down 38% from Lakers-Nets (498K) in last year’s comparable window. The night cap on NBA TV decreased slightly from last year — Sixers-Trail Blazers averaged 302,000, down 6% from Hawks-Trail Blazers (323K) with the LeBron James lead-in last season.

Also of note Monday, ESPN2 began its new daytime podcast simulcast strategy in the 2PM ET hour by airing First Draft with Mel Kiper Jr. and Field Yates. The hour averaged 77,000 viewers, 30,000 fewer than a re-air of The Pat McAfee Show in the following hour on ESPN2.

Monday, January 29 sports viewership