2024/25 Wbb TV Eyeballs

[BigTenGuy]

8.5 million is a legitimately impressive viewership number, showing the floor has been substantially raised, especially when the two biggest WBB brands are both involved. Still, I wish ESPN wouldn’t compare it to the ESPN-only era (1996-2022) that ended in 2022. Network+cable beating just cable proves little.

While there is reason for skepticism about the early WBB viewership numbers on CBS before Nielsen’s people meters began (1988 for WBB), this year’s 8.5 million viewers ranks 6th out of the 17 network WBB championship games:

2024-18.882M Iowa-South Carolina
1983-11.84M USC-La Tech
1986-11.22M USC-Texas
2023-9.92M Iowa-LSU
1982-8.79M La Tech-Cheyney
2025-8.5M UConn-South Carolina

 

[cancontent]

Some interesting numbers to chew on. The comparison to the 2008-2009 regular season is an eye opener.

 

[BigTenGuy]

At this point it appears that Fox (and others?) will not publish the viewership numbers for 10 of the 18 regular season games shown during the 2024-25 season on Fox:

11/28/24 South Carolina v. Iowa State
12/28/24 Creighton v. St. John’s
1/4/25 UCLA v. Indiana
1/19/25 Iowa State v. West Virginia
1/20/25 Baylor v. UCLA
1/20/25 Maryland v. Texas
1/25/25 UConn v. Creighton
2/17/25 Iowa v. Ohio St
2/17/25 Kansas St. v. West Virginia
2/22/25 Iowa State v. Baylor


Fox made a big deal about increasing the number of games shown on big Fox to 18. A good thing. But assume the silence about more than half the Fox schedule means that the Fox ratings as a whole for 2024-25 were dramatically down from the inflated 2023-24 ratings. Would love to see the actual Fox viewership numbers for 2024-25.