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Saturday evening, the No. 1 and No. 3-ranked teams in the country faced off in a late non-conference showdown. It became ESPN’s most-watched game of the 2025-26 men’s basketball season to date with strong TV ratings.
No. 3 Duke’s thrilling victory over No. 1 Michigan averaged 4.3 million viewers, the network announced Tuesday. That not only made it ESPN’s top game of the season so far, but it also is now the third-most watched game of the year, according to Nielsen Big Data + Panel data compiled by On3.
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Saturday’s game – a 68-63 Duke win – marked ESPN’s most-watched game in seven years and the network’s seventh-most watched game on record. It was part of a monster day of men’s college basketball for the network, which also got a TV ratings win on ABC.
No. 4-ranked Arizona took down No. 2 Houston 73-66 on Saturday with 2.4 million viewers tuning to ABC, ESPN said. The game peaked at 3.2 million in ABC’s most-watched game since 2002.
All told, ESPN’s family of networks aired nine of the Top 10 games of the week from Feb. 16-22, ESPN said. A full breakdown of TV ratings data for the week was not available as of time of publication.
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Duke, Michigan remain big TV ratings draws
With Saturday’s game, Duke has now played in three of the four most-watched men’s college basketball games of the season, according to TV ratings data compiled by On3. That includes the most-watched game of the year, which came on Thanksgiving in a victory over Arkansas on CBS.
Michigan, meanwhile, has also been a big draw this year. The Wolverines also played in front of 2.8 million viewers on Jan. 30 in a thrilling win over Michigan State in FOX’s primetime window, and their Jan. 10 upset loss to Wisconsin averaged 2.0 million viewers on CBS.
In addition, the two teams are also among the most-watched teams in college basketball, according to Nielsen. Duke sat atop the rankings as of the last update…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/college-basketball-tv-ratings-duke-235753241.html
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Publish date : 2026-02-24 23:57:00
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