The Women’s College World Series is up three percentage in viewership year-over-year through the semifinals, according to ESPN. The most-viewed game of 2023, before the title series, was University of Tennessee versus the Oklahoma Sooners which had 1.4 million viewers and was broadcast on ABC. The top six games of the semifinals all had over one million viewers.
The Sooners went on to win it all, making it the third time in a row Oklahoma has taken home the national championship, only the second team in history to complete the feat.
The championship series was between the Sooners and the Florida State Seminoles, who last met in the title series back in 2021, where Oklahoma started its national title winning streak.
The Sooners defeated the Florida State Seminoles in two games and extended their win streak to 53 games, which is the longest winning streak in collegiate softball history.
Even though the championship series wasn’t drawn out, the social media impressions and viewership numbers were quite impressive. Game 1 of the series boasted 1.3 million viewers with a peak at 1.5 million. While Game 2 had 1.9 million viewers with a peak of 2.3 million with an average viewership for the championship series at 1.6 million viewers. The viewership for the series was up seven percent year-over-year.
Game 2 of the 2023 @NCAASoftball #WCWS Championship Series averaged 1.9M viewers with a peak audience of 2.3M
🥎The two game champ series between @FSU_Softball and @OU_Softball averaged 1.6M viewers#NCAASoftball | #Team40 | #ChampionshipMindset pic.twitter.com/qzF4614XBd
— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) June 9, 2023
The social media numbers were impressive as well with the series garnering almost one hundred million impressions in just two days, according to Zoomph.
3rd straight @NCAASoftball title. 53rd straight win. @OU_Softball can't be stopped.
Oklahoma Softball made quick work of the #WCWS Championship, but in just two days Twitter conversation around the series still generated 26K+ Tweets and almost 100M impressions. pic.twitter.com/aWs4h4SqgE
— Zoomph (@Zoomph) June 9, 2023