Jan. 30th’s match up between the Kentucky Wildcats and Kansas Jayhawks garnered 2,984,000 viewers, making it the highest rated game in the three-year-old event. Kansas ended up winning the game in overtime 90-84 in Lawrence resulting in a 40 percent increase in viewership vs. the event’s previous best, last season’s Texas- Kentucky matchup (2,127,000 viewers) on December 5, 2014.
Across all ESPN networks, viewership for the Big 12/SEC Challenge is up 46 percent vs. the 2014Challenge (846,000 vs. 579,000 viewers) and up 61 percent vs. the 2013 event (846,000 vs. 525,000 viewers). 2015 was the first year that all 10 Big 12 members played an SEC opponent.
For the third year in a row, the Big 12 proved to be the better conference, winning the majority of its match ups. This year the Big 12 won seven of the ten games after winning six in 2014 and another seven in 2013.
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*Featured Photo (above) credit to USA TODAY Sports