Wednesday, July 1, 2009

2009 College World Series sets more television/media records


RT Staff Note: We were so excited about this news, we had to reprint it. This story is from Kendall Rogers at Rivals Baseball. The Rivals site is just as responsible for the increase in fan participation and awareness as ESPN is in our opinion.

By Kendall Rogers
The NCAA and fans of college baseball have even more reasons to be pleased with the sport's growth the past few seasons.

The NCAA and ESPN released television figures for the '09 College World Series on Monday, and the figures present good news.

Overall, ESPN averaged 1.45 million households and 1.928 million viewers. The entire CWS received a 1.5 rating. The figures for '09 was an increase of 33 percent over last season in households, 37 percent in viewers and 36 percent in television rating. In '08, 1.091 million households and 1.408 million viewers tuned in for the CWS for a rating of 1.1

Ratings also vastly improved for the CWS Finals between LSU and Texas.

The CWS Finals reached an average 2.059 million households, 2.762 million viewers and had a 2.1 rating to become the highest rated CWS Finals ever. It was a marked increase over last year's figures of 1.664 million households, 2.193 million viewers and a 1.7 rating. That means percentage increases of 24 percent, 26 percent and 24 percent.

Also worth noting, the three CWS Finals games were three of the top four highest rated CWS games in ESPN history. Game 3 between LSU and Texas was the most viewed game ever for the CWS and the second highest-rated game ever.

Game 3 averaged 2.303 million households, 3.160 million viewers and had a 2.3 rating.

Game 2 averaged 1.964 million households, 2.62 million viewers and had a 2.0 rating.

Game 1 averaged 1.905 million households, 2.50 million viewers and had a 1.9 rating.

ESPN2 showed a 6 percent increase for viewers and households during the CWS.

As for internet media, our college baseball site here at Yahoo! Sports experienced a growth of approximately 40 percent in views from last season to this season.


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