Oklahoma’s College World Series Three-Peat Scores TV Ratings Win
Oklahoma completed its two-game sweep of Florida State on Thursday night to clinch its third consecutive Women’s College World Series national championship in front of more than 12,000 fans at Oklahoma City’s USA Softball Hall of Fame Stadium. The Sooners became just the second program in NCAA history to win three straight titles—the program’s fifth in the last seven seasons, sixth in the last 10 and seventh all-time—but their fans haven’t grown jaded. The WCWS finale drew an average audience of nearly 1.9 million viewers on ESPN, according to Nielsen, up 7% over last year (1.74 million on ESPN2).
Viewership of the title-clinching matchup peaked at 2.3 million viewers, one of the most-watched WCWS games on record. That’s despite competition from Game 3 of the NHL’s Stanley Cup Finals, which saw an audience of 2.69 million viewers the same night across TNT, TBS and truTV.
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In all, the two-game championship series averaged 1.6 million viewers, on par with the 1.58 million that watched the Sooners’ 2022 sweep of Texas but down from the 1.84 million viewers in ’21. (Despite the somewhat predictable nature of their finals appearance and a series of weather delays pushing the game late into the night, Game 1 still averaged 1.3 million viewers.)
The full 14-game WCWS slate averaged just under 1.1 million viewers across ABC, ESPN and ESPN2, also down from the high set in 2021 but up 4% over last year’s 16-game tournament. The modest spike comes as TV usage is down 11% year-over-year.
OU’s dominance on the playing field continues to boost the audience for the sport. The Sooners finished the season with a 61-1 record that ended with a record 53 straight wins, the longest in streak in college softball history.
The TV numbers are a win for the NCAA, and not just from a publicity perspective. Right now, the NCAA softball season finale is part of a larger package of more than 20 NCAA championships that ESPN holds the rights to as part of a 14-year, $500 million deal that runs through 2023-24. With its viewership growth, the WCWS has become an increasingly valuable asset for the governing body.
As the NCAA prepares to negotiate a new deal for that package, there is a push to untangle women’s March Madness from the grouping. This year’s hoops title clash between LSU and Iowa averaged 9.9 million viewers, good for the most-viewed college women’s basketball game on record and a significant outlier compared to the other championship assets included in the deal. For example, an average of just 808,000 viewers watched the 2023 men’s NCAA ice hockey title tilt—a 100% jump in TV audience over 2022 for the Frozen Four final—on ESPN2, which was held just days after the women’s basketball tournament wrapped.
The audience that women’s basketball now commands could change how the NCAA thinks about packaging and valuing many of its more popular tournaments, and the 2023 WCWS’ showing leaves softball in a strong position in future deals.
–With assistance from Anthony Crupi.
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