Womens Hoops Championship Up 34%, Tourney ESPN's Most-Viewed

ESPN's coverage of Tuesday's NCAA women's basketball championship game featuring Tennessee-Stanford earned a 3.0 coverage area rating (2.9 million HHs), up 34% from a 2.3 (2.1 million HHs) for Tennessee-Rutgers last year. Overall, the '08 women's tournament was the most-viewed ever on ESPN and ESPN2. ESPN averaged a 1.4 coverage rating (1.4 million HHs), up 40% from a 1.0 coverage rating last year (965,000 HHs), while ESPN2 recorded a 0.6 coverage rating (560,000 HHs), up slightly from a 0.5 coverage rating and 427,000 HHs last year. For the three Final Four games, ESPN averaged a 2.6 coverage rating (2.5 million HHs), up 23.8% from a 2.1 coverage rating (2.0 million HHs) last year, making it the most-viewed Final Four since '04 (2.5 million HHs) and highest-rated since a 2.5 coverage rating in '05 (ESPN).