{"id":611636,"date":"2026-02-19T12:58:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T12:58:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/611636\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T12:58:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T12:58:20","slug":"south-carolina-womens-basketball-gamecocks-tigers-draws-record-ratings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/611636\/","title":{"rendered":"South Carolina women’s basketball: Gamecocks-Tigers draws record ratings"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Carolina\u2019s thrilling 79-72 win over LSU on Valentine\u2019s Day delivered monster ratings for ABC and ESPN.<\/p>\n

An average of 1.7 million viewers, with a peak of 2.2 million, made it ESPN\u2019s fourth most-watched regular-season game ever.<\/p>\n

The game is also the most-watched women\u2019s basketball game of the season on all networks. It surpassed South Carolina\u2019s 93-50 win over Tennessee on February 8. That game\u00a0averaged 1.5 million viewers and peaked at 2.1 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The big ratings included College GameDay, which preceded the game. 1.2 million viewers watched GameDay, up 66% from the same week last season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

NEW! Message board for South Carolina Women\u2019s Basketball<\/a>! \ud83c\udfc0<\/p>\n

There have been five women\u2019s basketball games that drew over one million viewers this season. The others are Tennessee-UConn on February 1 (1.2 million), Oklahoma-Texas on February 1 (1.1 million), and Iowa-Iowa State in December (1.0 million).<\/p>\n

According to Nielsen, through February 8, South Carolina was the fourth most-watched women\u2019s basketball team in the country across ABC, CW, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, FOX, FS1, FS2, ION, NBC, TruTV, TNT, and USA Network. Ohio State, Tennessee, and Iowa were the top three teams, but that will change once last weekend\u2019s ratings are factored in.\u00a0<\/p>\n

South Carolina played in the most-watched women\u2019s basketball game of all time, the 2024 national championship game. That game drew 18.9 million viewers, surpassing the men\u2019s title game and any NBA game since 2020.<\/p>\n

Ratings for women\u2019s basketball are up 33% year over year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Beginning in September 2025, Nielsen, the company that calculates ratings, changed how numbers are determined. The new methodology has boosted live sports across the board. But that doesn\u2019t account for the entire increase.<\/p>\n

\ud83c\udfc0 GamecocksW newsletter: WBB coverage delivered straight to your inbox<\/a>!<\/p>\n

ESPN bet big on the matchup and was rewarded. The game was moved to Saturday night and put on ABC. The 40-minute edition of College GameDay, which included the first Top 16 Reveal of the season, preceded the game.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The rivalry between the Gamecocks and Tigers, including the fight at the 2024 SEC Tournament and MiLaysia Fulwiley switching sides, was heavily promoted as the jewel of \u201cNo Love Lost Saturday,\u201d playing off Valentine\u2019s Day and lead-in men\u2019s basketball games featuring Kansas at Iowa State and Kentucky at Florida.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Carolina\u2019s thrilling 79-72 win over LSU on Valentine\u2019s Day delivered monster ratings for ABC and ESPN. An…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":611637,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,465],"class_list":{"0":"post-611636","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-womens-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116097417568377708","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}