Millions Watch ESPN's College Baseball Regionals Coverage
Audience Grows for ESPN's College Baseball Post-Season
30 Million Watch Regionals & Super Regionals; Most-Viewed Super Regionals on ESPNU; New Orleans Top Market on ESPN & ESPN2
ESPN's complete coverage of the NCAA Division I Baseball Championship continues to generate large audiences, reaching nearly 30,000,000 viewers through the Super Regionals across ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU. Highlights of the Super Regionals:
· ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU combined to televise every game from the eight Super Regional sites, averaging 404,000 viewers over the 22 telecasts for a nine percent increase over last season (369,500 viewers).
· ESPN posted its most-viewed Super Regionals coverage since 2010, averaging 680,000 viewers.
· ESPNU averaged 279,000 viewers for six telecasts, marking the network's most-viewed Super Regional coverage and a 41 percent increase over the first season it offered games (198,000 viewers in 2010).
New Orleans was the highest-rated metered market for both of ESPN and ESPN2's Super Regional telecasts. Nine of ESPN's top 10 markets were also among the top 10 markets for ESPN2: Louisville (2nd on ESPN & tied 6th on ESPN2), Greenville-Spartanburg (4th & 2nd), Greensboro (tied 4th & 3rd), Raleigh-Durham (6th & tied 4th), Charlotte (tied 7th & tied 8th), Birmingham (tied 7th & tied 4th) and Memphis (tied 9th & tied 10th).
Nashville (3rd) and Indianapolis (tied 9th) were in the ESPN top 10 and not ESPN2; Richmond (tied 6th), Tulsa (tied 8th) and Portland (tied 8th) were only among ESPN2's top 10 markets.
Beginning Saturday, June 15, ESPN and ESPN2 will combine to televise the entire College World Series (up to 17 games), including the best-of-three College World Series Finals, for the 11th straight year. Action from Omaha will conclude with prime-time telecasts of the best-of-three Finals on Monday, June 24, through Wednesday, June 26.
ESPN's 2013 college baseball season includes more than 270 regular-season and conference tournament games, and every NCAA Division I Baseball Championship contest for the first time. This year's schedule of up to 153 Championship games across ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPN3 surpasses the previous high of a possible 83 scheduled contests last year. The additional games come from coverage of all 16 Regional sites, an increase over six sites in 2012, four in 2011 and two each of the previous six years.
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