Ohio State’s win over Wisconsin in the men’s Big Ten Championship yesterday led all conference tournament finals in ratings with a 3.0 overnight on CBS. That figure is up 11% from a 2.7 overnight for Michigan State-Ohio State last year. CBS also saw strong gains for the semifinal matchups on Saturday. Both Wisconsin-Indiana in the early afternoon window and Ohio State-Michigan State in the late window drew a 2.3 overnight, up from the respective semifinals last year. The Louisville-Syracuse Big East Championship led all of ESPN’s games from the weekend. The net drew a 2.1 overnight for the matchup on Saturday, up from a 1.6 for Louisville’s win over Cincinnati last year. Meanwhile, ESPN last night earned a 1.2 overnight for the premiere of its latest “30 for 30” documentary, “Survive And Advance.” That figure is down from a 1.4 overnight for the premiere of "The Announcement" on Selection Sunday last year, and down from a 2.0 rating for "The Fab Five" in '11 (Austin Karp, Assistant Managing Editor).
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WEEKEND MEN'S CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME OVERNIGHTS
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DATE
|
START
|
NET
|
GAME |
RATING
|
|
3/17
|
3:30pm
|
CBS
|
Big Ten: Ohio State-Wisconsin |
3.0
|
|
3/16
|
8:30pm
|
ESPN
|
Big East: Louisville-Syracuse |
2.1
|
|
3/16
|
6:15pm
|
CBS
|
MWC: New Mexico-UNLV |
1.7
|
|
3/17
|
1:00pm
|
ESPN
|
ACC: Miami-North Carolina |
1.6
|
|
3/16
|
6:00pm
|
ESPN
|
Big 12: Kansas-Kansas State |
1.5
|
|
3/16
|
11:00pm
|
ESPN
|
Pac-12: Oregon-UCLA |
1.2
|
|
3/16
|
11:30am
|
CBS
|
C-USA: Memphis-Southern Miss |
1.2
|
|
3/17
|
1:00pm
|
CBS
|
A-10: Saint Louis-VCU |
1.2
|
|
3/17
|
1:00pm
|
ABC
|
SEC: Ole Miss-Florida |
0.9
|
|
3/16
|
6:30pm
|
ESPN2
|
MAC: Akron-Ohio Univ. |
0.3
|
|
3/16
|
11:30am
|
ESPN2
|
America East: Albany-Vermont |
0.2
|
|
3/16
|
4:30pm
|
ESPN2
|
SWAC: Southern-Prairie View A&M |
0.2
|
|
3/16
|
8:30pm
|
ESPN2
|
Southland: Northwestern State-Stephen F. Austin |
0.2
|
|
3/16
|
10:45pm
|
ESPN2
|
Big West: Pacific-UC Irvine |
0.1
|
| |
|
|
|
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CASE OF THE MONDAYS: In Virginia, David Teel reported ACC Commissioner John Swofford Saturday confirmed that the conference is looking into "taking over the Big East's 7 p.m. game on ESPN's Big Monday regular-season telecasts." Swofford said, "It’s likely that we will be part of Big Monday. I think fans can anticipate that." Teel noted with the ACC "retaining its Sunday night package on ESPNU, the league will have a basketball presence every day except Friday." Swofford said he did not know if the conference would play on six different days every week during the season, but it would happen "certainly in some weeks." The Big East's "move to Fox also opens ESPN’s prime-time Saturday championship game window." Swofford said, "That would be going back to the future, if you will, because ironically we moved to a championship day on Sunday afternoon (in 1983) for television and exposure. Either one can work, so we’ll see if it comes up" (DAILYPRESS.com, 3/16).
