Things are looking up for Georgetown basketball. Georgetown junior guard D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera opted to return for his senior season after initially declaring for this June’s NBA Draft. The Hoyas got past their March stigma by defeating a double-digit seed in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2008 this past season. And now the Hoyas can point to good news off the court.
According to Sports Media Watch, an outlet that tracks television ratings for professional and college sports, the television ratings for the Georgetown men’s basketball team increased from last year. Georgetown’s 25 nationally televised games this past regular season averaged 261,880 viewers. During the 2013-14 season, which saw the Hoyas fail to make the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2009, the Hoyas averaged 222,654 viewers. The most watched regular season telecast was the Hoyas’ Dec. 28 game against Indiana at Madison Square Garden, which drew 1.25 million viewers on ESPN2. The highest rated game on the Fox Sports 1, which broadcasts the majority of Georgetown games, was their Jan. 24 game against Marquette, drawing in 233,000 viewers.
On March 5, the Voice published a feature regarding how the new Big East has affected Georgetown athletics, including the men’s basketball program, both competitively and financially. The feature showed that television ratings for the men’s basketball team dropped significantly between the 2012-13 season, when the Big East’s games were primarily broadcast on ESPN, and the 2013-14 season, the first year of a 12-year $500 million contract between Fox Sports 1 and the Big East Conference.
Georgetown Athletic Director Lee Reed is pleased with the higher television ratings.
“We’re pleased with having FOX as our broadcast partner. As a member of the Big East and because of FOX, every Georgetown basketball game is televised nationally,” he wrote in an e-mail to the Voice. “The addition of two national FOX games this year, as well as cross promotion by the network through other sports such as the NFL and UFC, are also a plus. We remain confident that Fox Sports 1 will continue to grow in the coming years and we appreciate the partnership.”
