{"id":328118,"date":"2026-06-08T21:35:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T21:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/328118\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T21:35:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T21:35:12","slug":"texas-texas-tech-womens-college-world-series-finals-set-viewership-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/328118\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas-Texas Tech Women\u2019s College World Series finals set viewership record"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>College softball continues to soar in popularity, and the television ratings from the 2026 Women\u2019s College World Series, released Monday, validate that.<\/p>\n<p>ESPN, which broadcast the tournament, announced that the WCWS championship series between Texas and Texas Tech was the second-most-watched Women\u2019s College World Series finals in history, with an average of 2.2 million viewers.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Game 2, which the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/7334618\/2026\/06\/04\/womens-college-world-series-texas-texas-tech-champions\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Longhorns won 4-1 to secure their second consecutive national title;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Longhorns won 4-1 to secure their second consecutive national title&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Longhorns won 4-1 to secure their second consecutive national title<\/a>, averaged 2.5 million viewers, making it the most-watched college softball game on record, according to the network and Nielsen numbers. ESPN\u2019s broadcast of the game peaked at 3 million viewers.<\/p>\n<p>The championship series opener drew an average of 1.9 million viewers, making it the third-most-watched Game 1 on record, despite going head-to-head with Game 1 of the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n<p>ESPN had previously announced that its coverage of the 14 WCWS games leading into the finals averaged 1.5 million viewers, a 33 percent increase from the year before. That included three straight 2 million-viewer games involving Texas Tech.<\/p>\n<p>The Longhorns were led by junior Katie Stewart, who hit home runs in four consecutive games during one stretch of the WCWS, and right-handed pitcher Teagan Kavan, who became the first player in Women\u2019s College World Series history to win Most Outstanding Player honors twice.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>It marked the second straight year Texas defeated Texas Tech and its million-dollar pitcher, NiJaree Canady.<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/7342435\/2026\/06\/08\/womens-softball-world-series-tv-ratings-2\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:The Athletic;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;The Athletic&quot;}\" class=\"link \">The Athletic<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Texas Longhorns, Texas Tech Red Raiders, Texas Tech Lady Raiders, Texas Longhorns, Sports Business, College Sports, Women&#8217;s College Sports<\/p>\n<p>2026 The Athletic Media Company<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"College softball continues to soar in popularity, and the television ratings from the 2026 Women\u2019s College World Series,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219429,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[46014,67002,2470,168,170,169,27,537,1769],"class_list":["post-328118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-college-softball","tag-college-world-series","tag-longhorns","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news","tag-texas","tag-texas-longhorns","tag-texas-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}