Providence’s Game at Villanova Had Record Audience for Fox Sports

Providence’s win on January 24th at the Well Fargo Center in snowy Philadelphia against a Villanova team that had won it’s previous 22 Big East conference games was great for the Friars. It was a win against a top 5 ranked team nationally. It was a road win. It was a conference win. Fox Sports also announced today that it was a ratings win.

The network sent out a press release on Thursday indicating that the average viewership of 905,000 people watching the game televised on FOX is the most-watched Big East game on any network since the Big East and Fox partnered up before the 2013-14 season. It should be noted the record applies only to conference games featuring two Big East teams. This shattered the prior record set last season of 721,000 viewers for Villanova’s game at Marquette on February 21, 2015. The only men’s basketball game with a better viewership than the 905,000 for Providence at Villanova this season was last season’s game featuring Duke playing St. John’s at Madison Square Garden. That was the game that Coach K notched his 1,000th career win. That game had 2.2 million viewers.

I’ve been tracking Providence’s TV numbers this season to compare with the first two seasons of the Big East/Fox Sports deal and I’ll have more detailed information on those numbers in a separate post. But, I will say that this game smashes any of Providence’s other conference games from the 2013-14 season through the current year. Providence’s biggest audience this season for a Big East game on a Fox Sports network was Tuesday night’s top 10 matchup against Xavier. The viewership for that game? 177,000. To give some comparison, ESPN’s best viewed game on Tuesday night was the 7pm game pitting Big Ten rivals Indiana and Wisconsin. The viewership for that game? 1.3 million. Fox Sports still has a ways to go to catch ESPN, but the numbers are improving.

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Mike Hopkins

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