University of Connecticut Athletics
UConn Women’s Basketball Delivers Strong Ratings Once Again in 2020-21
3/19/2021 3:00:00 PM | Women's Basketball
STORRS, Conn. – The 2020-21 season featured many unprecedented events in the world of college basketball but the UConn women's basketball program's ability to deliver strong television ratings remained steadfast for both FOX Sports and SNY.
The addition of UConn to the BIG EAST Conference has driven a significant increase to the women's basketball overall performance for FOX Sports, highlighted by the Huskies' win over No. 1 South Carolina on February 8, which averaged 466,000 viewers on FS1 and marked the most-watched women's college basketball game ever on FS1.
In fact, the viewership for the No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup that featured a dramatic finish, peaked at 823,000 during the last quarter-hour.
The UConn game at DePaul on January 31 marked the first women's basketball contest broadcast on FOX and delivered 516,000 viewers. The viewership was a 23 percent increase from last year's average of 421,000 viewers for UConn games on ESPN.
FOX Sports also saw large increases in viewership during the entirety of the BIG EAST Women's Basketball Tournament, as the seven games televised by FS1 or FS2 averaged 124,000 viewers. This marked a 202 percent increase from last year's tournament, which averaged 41,000 viewers over seven games.
The final three games of the BIG EAST Tournament (semifinals and finals) averaged 204,000 viewers, which was a 162 percent increase over the same three contests last year. Additionally, UConn's three tournament games rank as the three most-watched BIG EAST Tournament games ever and all three rank in the top-10 women's basketball performances on FS1 ever.
The BIG EAST Championship game was the second-most-watched contest ever on FS1, falling short of only the aforementioned No. 1 vs. No. 2 showdown against South Carolina.
The program's partnership with SNY grows stronger with age as ratings increased by 20 percent from the 2019-20 season to a 5.75 household rating in the Hartford-New Haven designated market area (DMA). In its ninth season on SNY, ratings in the New York DMA increased by 95 percent over the previous eight-season average, while pregame and postgame show ratings each increased by over 100 percent in the New York DMA.
The Huskies are preparing to compete in the 2021 NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Championship and sport a 24-1 overall record. The team is set to compete against High Point on Sunday evening at 8 p.m. in the First Round.
