What ACC Team Is the Biggest TV Draw?

There were 222 ACC games broadcast nationally this basketball season. The total audience was 177,662,000, or about 800,000 viewers per game. 

The entire population of the United States is just under 314 million, meaning that more than 56% of America watched some ACC basketball this year. 

The biggest draw? Duke, with a total audience of 43,156,000 viewers. That means that nearly one in four ACC viewers were watching a Duke game. 

BUT another school has a claim to the “most watched” title too. Duke’s viewership came over 30 games, by far the most in the conference. That’s an average of 1,392,129 viewers per Duke game. 

Syracuse had a total audience of 30,193,000 for it’s 19 TV appearances, giving it an average audience of 1,589,105.

Here’s a look at the league’s attendance figures. 

School         Audience (000s)      Average (000s)

Duke           43,156                      1,392

Syracuse     30,193                      1,589

UNC            23,831                      1,036

Virginia       14,806                      779

Pitt              11,396                     633

NC State        9,617                     641

Notre Dame   9,421                    554

Maryland       9,346                    584

Boston Coll   6,685                    393

Clemson       4,644                    516

FSU               4,061                    406

Ga Tech        3,305                   275

Wake Forest  2,937                   420

Miami           2,896                   724

Va Tech        1,368                   228

 

The February 1 Duke at Syracuse game had more viewers (4.745 million) than six ACC teams did all season. 

The Blue Devils had 17 games with more than a million viewers. Syracuse (12) was the only other team in double digits. 

Wondering about next year?  Louisville had a combined audience of 15,183,000 viewers, or 799,105 per game.