‘The Grantland Basketball Hour’ debuted on ESPN on Thursday October 23 at 7p to 549,000 viewers. After a 3 week break, it returned for its second episode last Thursday (also on ESPN at 7p) having perked up to 702,000 viewers. Not wildly fantastic, but not shabby either.
It came in ahead of that day’s ‘Around the Horn’ (690,000) and also ahead of the previous day’s NBA pregame show (685,000).
I make no predictions about how it would’ve performed if it was paired with, you know, actual NBA basketball instead of college football pregame for USC vs. Cal. USC vs. Cal was ESPN’s top telecast on Thursday with 1,268,000 viewers, but the pregame for it only averaged 569,000.
The 1:30 a.m. encore on ESPN2 drew another 111,000 viewers.