IOWA WRESTLING

Last Friday’s Iowa-Penn State dual was the most-watched wrestling broadcast in BTN history

Cody Goodwin
Hawk Central

Turns out, people really like watching Iowa and Penn State wrestle each other.

On Tuesday, Big Ten Network announced that last Friday’s dual meet between No. 2 Iowa and No. 1 Penn State averaged 363,000 viewers, making it the most-watched wrestling broadcast in network history, according to Nielsen Media Research.

“It was a privilege to be part of a record breaking night!” wrote Shane Sparks, BTN’s lead wrestling commentator, who shared the news on Twitter on Tuesday. “Incredible!!”

The previous record just so happens to be the last time the Hawkeyes and Nittany Lions met, back in January 2020, for a broadcast that averaged 342,955 viewers, per Nielsen Media Research.

That means last Friday’s dual garnered a 5.5% increase in total viewership. Iowa topped Penn State, 19-17, in that 2020 meeting. The Nittany Lions scored revenge last Friday, winning 19-13.

“It’s great for the sport,” Iowa coach Tom Brands said Tuesday. “We love the attention, but those things earn themselves. We have great guys that take pride in competing hard.

“When you do that and you have a team that comes in that embodies those same things in their wrestling, you’re going to have two titans that are going to be watched by a lot of people.”

BTN’s live wrestling coverage continues this weekend with a Friday doubleheader: Penn State-Ohio State at 6 p.m. CST, then Nebraska-Michigan at 8 p.m. CST. On Saturday, Iowa hosts Wisconsin at 2:30 p.m. CST. On Sunday, Penn State hosts Nebraska at 11 a.m. CST.

Here’s some additional context for those viewership numbers:

BTN also announced Tuesday that 175,000 viewers tuned in for “The B1G Story: The Brands Brothers” following last Friday’s dual. The documentary details the lives and wrestling careers of Iowa coaches Tom and Terry Brands.

That is also a new viewership record for BTN original programming. The previous mark was held by an episode of “On The Mat” with 146,000 viewers. The documentary will re-air on Friday, Feb. 4, at 12 p.m. CST.

“Kevin Ritchie, the producer, is awesome,” Tom Brands said last week. “It’s good. Kevin Ritchie did a good job.”

BTN has seen its wrestling viewership jump significantly in recent years. Last season, BTN said the average audience for dual broadcasts grew to 150,262, up 23% from the 122,073 average from the 2019-20 season.

To compare: The 2019-20 men’s basketball season averaged 223,749 viewers per game on BTN, the most-watched regular season in BTN history.

The 2021 Big Ten Wrestling Championship finals was previously the most-watched wrestling telecast in BTN history, with 324,322 viewers — a 29% jump from the 2020 Big Ten Championships, the prior record. That also more than doubled the viewership of the Big 12 Championship finals, which aired the same day in a different time slot on ESPN2.

Again, to compare: The 2021 Big Ten men’s basketball tournament averaged 528,220 viewers per game, peaking with that Iowa-Wisconsin quarterfinal game.

Last season was unique because the COVID-19 pandemic limited overall attendance numbers for these events. But Brands gave BTN credit for playing a role in wrestling’s overall growth in popularity in recent years.

“I think Big Ten Network has a lot to do with that,” Brands said Tuesday. “There is a lot of access for viewing. This is linear. This is real TV. This isn’t a subscription.

“This is something you can sit down in your living room and you’re scrolling through channels and all of a sudden, something comes across your screen and there’s some craziness going on, and it catches people’s attention.”

In addition to broadcasting more duals and developing more wrestling documentaries, BTN has increased its wrestling coverage across all of its digital platforms over the past several years.

BTN has grown its YouTube presence with full matches, duals and its storytelling series called “On The Mat.” BTN also launched an in-studio wrestling show called "B1G Wrestling and Beyond" that airs once a week and features Sparks and Rick Pizzo talking all things Big Ten wrestling.

It helps, too, that the Big Ten houses the nation’s best teams. In InterMat’s latest Division I poll, five Big Ten teams are in the top10 — No. 1 Penn State, No. 2 Iowa, No. 3 Michigan — and 10 are in the top 20.

“We’re big wrestling fans at the network,” Michael Calderon, BTN’s senior vice president of programming and digital media, previously told the Register. He added that wrestling is BTN’s third-highest rated sport, behind football and men’s basketball.

“We view ourselves as caretakers of the sport, from a media perspective,” Calderon continued, “and we want to see it succeed and grow and we’re going to do our part.”

Their work is being noticed by all.

“The Big Ten Network is doing a really, really good job of putting content out there,” Iowa wrestler Alex Marinelli said Tuesday. “The Big Ten, in general, is the best conference in college wrestling. They lead the country as far as social media presence.

“(The record viewership numbers) is huge for Iowa, but also wrestling in general and the Big Ten. It’s big for our guys, putting us on the big screen. That’s a big deal, putting our wrestling in a lot of people’s living rooms. It’s pretty cool.”

Cody Goodwin covers wrestling and high school sports for the Des Moines Register. Follow him on Twitter at @codygoodwin.