ESPN BracketBusters Sees Viewership Jump With Butler-Davidson

This year's six NCAA men's basketball ESPN BracketBusters telecasts averaged 367,000 viewers, up 55.5% from 236,000 viewers for the seven telecasts last season. The '09 BracketBusters got a boost from Butler-Davidson airing on ESPN, with the game averaging 1.1 million viewers last Saturday afternoon. By contrast, last year's Davidson game against Winthrop on ESPN2 only drew 284,000 viewers in the Friday night slot, and the Drake-Butler game last year drew only 648,000 viewers for a late Saturday afternoon slot. Excluding the ESPN Classic telecast last year, this year's six games are also up 32.5% from 277,000 viewers on ESPN2's six telecasts last year. The chart below lists game-by-game cable ratings and viewership for the '09 iteration of ESPN BracketBusters, with comparisons to last year's telecasts. Ratings for all telecasts on ESPNU remain unavailable (THE DAILY).