ESPN's presentation of NCAAs reaches nearly 8 million fans

Derek Volner, ESPN

3/22/2018

The 2018 NCAAs took place at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland (Photo/Tony Rotundo, WrestlersAreWarriors.com

ESPN's presentation of the NCAA Wrestling Championships from Cleveland reached nearly eight million fans over the course of the three days (March 15-17) as ESPN televised all six sessions of the high energy event for the fifth straight year.

Second round draws record numbers; semifinals audience among best ever

Fans tuned into the first night of competition in record numbers, as ESPN averaged 308,000 viewers (March 15, 8 p.m. ET), the network's best viewership for the second round ever.

The audience increased the next two nights, as the semifinals (March 16, 8 p.m.) averaged 451,000 viewers on ESPN and the finals (March 17, 8 p.m.) averaged 628,000 viewers on ESPN2. The semifinals are the third best audience ever for the round and up from last year's semifinals (443,000 viewers).

The medal round, airing on ESPNU (March 17, 11 a.m.), averaged 153,000 viewers, up 6% from last year and was the most-watched since 2015.

Comments

Bebe1993 (1) about 7 and a half years ago

Happy ESPN did this, but don't like sticking a microphone in a guy's face as soon as he steps off the mat. Also didn't care for the "interviews" of people while a match was going on. As I said, happy ESPN is doing this, but keep the focus on wrestling and quit going off on tangents like ESPN has a bad habit of doing. All in all, I'd give them a C- overall.

hcraig4 (1) about 7 and a half years ago

I agree, they could've got in other matches, especially in the earlier rounds. I'd also add that they didn't necessarily need to always show the No. 1 seed, some of the other matches were more compelling

shudog75 (1) about 7 and a half years ago

Great news! Awesome for the sport and athletes that compete at the highest level! Wrestling is a great sport and I am pleased to see ESPN giving college wrestling the exposure it deserves! Well done!

Monsieur Tarzan (1) about 7 and a half years ago

I thought ESPN did a great job. It was good to be able to watch two matches at once online. The only negative was the interviews during the matches. I like to hear David Taylor and Kyle Dake talk about wrestling, but not while the NCAA Finals are being wrestled. They were distracting. While I agree that's it's not a great idea to stick a microphone in a wrestler's face the minute after a tough match, I think ESPN was in a bit of a time crunch. How else could ESPN interview the wrestlers for a live broadcast and maintain the pace of the event? I loved pace of the event - one match right after another with one commercial break in between. Compare that to an NFL game, with all the timeouts, replays, halftime and endless commercials.