Duke-UNC draws second-largest college hoops audience of season

As one could reasonably expect, college basketball’s biggest rivalry delivered one of its largest audiences of the year.

Saturday’s game between Duke and North Carolina averaged 3.0 million viewers on ESPN, per Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch. That audience is good for the second most-watched game of the season, behind only Illinois-Arkansas on Thanksgiving Day that had an NFL lead-in and drew 5.1 million viewers on CBS.

While the Blue Devils’ win slots high up on this year’s overall charts, it declined slightly from the second edition of the rivalry game last season, which averaged 3.1 million viewers. The first meeting between Duke and UNC this season averaged 2.3 million viewers, which ranks as the fourth most-watched game of the year, per Lewis.

The day’s other high-profile rivalry game between Alabama and Auburn averaged 2.1 million viewers on ESPN, down substantially from their meeting earlier this season (2.8 million viewers) in which the schools were ranked No. 1 and No. 2.

All told, seven of the 10 most-watched college basketball games of the year have featured either Duke or Alabama, with four of those games being against their biggest rivals.

Of course, the viewership numbers that really matter for college basketball start next week. CBS and TNT Sports will hope interest in this year’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament tops recent seasons, where the competition has drawn ho-hum audiences in the Final Four and Championship.