Viewership Soars: ESPN’s Top 3 2025 NCAA Softball Regional Games Pull 492K Viewers
ESPN recently published its viewership data from the past weekend's NCAA Division I Softball Regionals. The top three games averaged 492,000 viewers, with Sunday's matchup between the Liberty Lady Flames and No. 1 overall seed Texas A&M Aggies capturing 518,000 viewers on ESPN2.
Check out the top 3 games from the '25 @NCAASoftball Regionals this past weekend 📈 pic.twitter.com/y5Zn92os2H
— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) May 20, 2025
ESPN saw its overall audience for regional games increase by 5 percent from 2024 on ESPN+. The numbers from this year's regionals mirror that of 2023, when the final game between Florida State and Auburn on ESPN2 drew 566,000 viewers, ESPN's best regional audience since 2019.
Additionally, the 2023 matchups between Kentucky and Oklahoma State averaged 551,000 viewers, and Oregon and Oklahoma drew 522,000 viewers on ESPN.
However, what was most impressive about this year's numbers was the presence of two mid-major teams in Liberty and Southeastern Louisiana at the heart of the records.
It seems softball fans are deeply entrenched in the underdog story, luckily, these fans will have the opportunity to see if Liberty's cinderella story continues. The Lady Flames face off with the No. 16 seeded Oregon Ducks on Friday, May 23 at 7 p.m. PST/10 p.m. EST on ESPNU.
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Allison Smith is an expert in leadership and organizational behavior in collegiate and professional women’s sports. Smith is a professor (Georgia State University), researcher, and writer. Smith holds a Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee in Kinesiology and Sport Studies. Smith’s research centers on combatting the underrepresentation of women leaders in sport, lack of organizational structure for work life integration for sport employees, and lack of programming and oversight for preparing athletes to transition to life after sport. Since graduating with a bachelor’s in journalism in 2011, Smith has sought opportunities to write about sports as a contributing writer focused on the growth of women’s collegiate, Olympic, and professional sports in this new age and movement for multiple outlets including Athletic Director U, and now Forbes.com. As a former Division I and II pitcher and Division III pitching coach Smith will bring unique insight and expertise to Softball on SI.
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