Lion Athletics Enjoys Record Reach, Captures Global Audience in 2023-24
COMMERCE – The Texas A&M University-Commerce athletic footprint grew at a rapid pace during the 2023-24 academic year, setting new records in all metrics.
The Lions saw record viewership on ESPN+, while setting a new standard for views in a calendar year on LionAthletics.com as well as significant growth in social media accounts operated by the Lion Athletics department.
“A&M-Commerce is the fastest-growing university in the fastest-growing state in the country, and these reach numbers are a continued reflection of the overall trajectory of the university and our athletics programs,” said Director of Athletics Jim Curry.
“We will continue to be aggressive and strategic in leveraging the platform that Division I athletics affords us to position our teams and student-athletes for comprehensive excellence, communicate the exceptional quality of the university and our academic programs, and advance our institutional mission to transform lives.”
This past year marked the second season that ESPN+ was the exclusive home of all broadcasted events originating from A&M-Commerce. There were a total of 84 broadcasts produced by Lion Athletics on ESPN+ of the 88 possible home events, marking the second straight year that the Lions led the conference in most broadcasts, based on percentage of available inventory.
The total viewership was 262,196 viewers for the 84 broadcasts.
Six Lion programs had broadcasts on ESPN+, with all six seeing a year over year growth in total viewership. The most watched broadcast of the year was the Lion Football season opener against UC Davis, 30,804, while Lion Softball’s game against Arkansas drew 22,504 on Monday, March 20, in the afternoon, and Lion Men’s Basketball’s thrilling double overtime win over North Colorado on Monday, December 11, pulled in 17,949 viewers.
During the 2023-24 academic year, a total of 1,177,381 viewers visited LionAthletics.com, which includes 357,757 first-time viewers, while 840,306 users visited two or more pages on the website.
All 50 states in the United States had at least one viewer, while all but 12 countries in the world registered at least one viewer as well. The top countries outside of the US to visit LionAthletics.com in 2023-24 were Canada, Germany, United Kingdom, Mexico, Australia, and Spain.
As far as social media following, the department saw an overall growth of 10 percent of total followers across all platforms, with all Twitter/X accounts growing by seven percent, followers on Facebook seeing a growth of nine percent, and the department’s growth on Instagram was 23 percent. All Lion Athletics accounts can be found HERE.
Curry added, “there is no better time to be associated with A&M-Commerce, and we appreciate all those who engage, support, and partner with Lion Athletics.”
Businesses interested in partnering with Lion Athletics should contact Director of Ticket Sales and Sponsorship Heather Morgan ([email protected]).
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