There’s been a fair bit of hand-wringing in college basketball circles about the lack of Cinderella stories in this year’s NCAA men’s tournament. TV viewers, though, haven’t seemed to mind.
The first two rounds of the men’s tournament hit an all-time high with an average of 10.1 million viewers across CBS, TBS, TNT and TruTV. That’s up 7 percent from 9.4 million viewers last year — which was itself the best showing in more than 30 years.
ESPN’s coverage of the women’s tournament is also putting up solid numbers, with a 9 percent gain year to year for the first round at 401,000 viewers. The company is also touting the total amount of time viewers spent watching games — more than a billion minutes’ worth so far.
One caveat: This year’s numbers include Nielsen’s recently implemented big data component along with its traditional panel ratings. That has tended to result in higher ratings for live sports so far this season.
The early rounds of the men’s tournament peaked in Sunday’s first primetime window, when a combined 19.7 million viewers watched one big upset — ninth-seeded Iowa’s win over defending champ Florida — a buzzer beater by St. John’s over Kansas and a closely contested Tennessee victory over Virginia. That’s the most watched window on record for the first week of the men’s bracket and up 29 percent from a year ago. The second round as a whole averaged 11 million viewers across all four outlets, building on the 9.5 million for the first round.
The First Four preliminary round for the men’s tournament was also up a little year to year, led by Miami of Ohio’s win over SMU with 2.8 million viewers.
On the women’s side, the first round Friday and Saturday was led by undefeated UConn’s blowout over 16-seed UT-San Antonio; it averaged 981,000 viewers. South Carolina’s easy win vs. Southern was close behind with 972,000 viewers. Those two contests rank sixth and seventh all-time for women’s first round games.
ESPN also notes that viewers spent 1.3 billion minutes watching women’s first round games, the second highest total on record (behind 2024). Full numbers for the second round, which concluded Monday, aren’t available yet.
