2026 NCAA Baseball Tournament: ESPN draws best TV ratings for Super Regionals since 2009

After its success in Regionals, ESPN continued to score strong TV ratings through Super Regionals of the 2026 NCAA Baseball Tournament. The network announced more strong viewership during the second weekend of games.

Two Sunday games helped lead the charge through Super Regionals. USC vs. North Carolina averaged 1.3 million viewers to become the most-watched Super Regional game on record. Meanwhile, the slugfest between Georgia vs. Mississippi State averaged 1.2 million – the second-highest viewership ever for a Super Regional game.

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Texas vs. Oregon also topped 1 million viewers, averaging 1.1 million for their Sunday matchup. That gave ESPN three of the six most-watched Super Regional games on record and five of the Top 10 games in the round in history, the network said.

On the whole, Super Regionals saw a 31% year-over-year increase in viewership, ESPN announced Wednesday. An average of 608,000 viewers tuned in for the most-watched round since 2009.

The Super Regional TV ratings came after ESPN saw a 38% year-over-year increase during the regional round of the 2026 NCAA Baseball Tournament. Tennessee’s season-ending loss to VCU drew the highest viewership of the opening round with 804,000 viewers to lead the way through the first weekend.

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ESPN also saw TV ratings surge during the college baseball regular season, the network previously announced. The family of networks saw viewership increase 49% year-over-year for the company’s best regular season since 2012. Texas A&M vs. LSU held the top two spots during the regular season with 382,000 viewers on April 17 and 375,000 on April 15.

With Super Regionals in the books, it’s now on to the College World Series, which gets underway Friday from Omaha. There’s plenty of SEC flare to this year’s CWS with five teams from the conference competing at Charles Schwab Field.

Of course, there’s also some history in the bracket. West Virginia and Troy are both gearing up for their first-ever College World Series appearances, and they will square off in the first game Friday at 1 p.m. ET. Georgia is also back in Omaha for the first time since its 2008 national championship appearance after winning the Athens Super Regional.