Logo text
There has been a fair amount of concern in college basketball circles about the lack of Cinderella stories in this year’s NCAA men’s tournament. However, TV viewers don’t seem to mind.
The first two rounds of the men’s tournament reached all-time highs averaging 10.1 million viewers across CBS, TBS, TNT and TruTV. That’s up 7 percent from last year’s 9.4 million viewers — which itself was the best show in more than 30 years.
ESPN’s coverage of the women’s tournament also had strong numbers, with a 9 percent year-over-year increase for the first round at 401,000 viewers. The company also touts the total time viewers spend watching games, which equates to more than 1 billion minutes so far.
One caveat: This year’s numbers include Nielsen’s recently implemented big data component in addition to traditional panel ratings. This has led to higher ratings for live sports so far this season.
The early rounds of the men’s tournament culminated in Sunday’s first primetime slot, when 19.7 million viewers watched a huge upset — ninth-seeded Iowa’s win over defending champion Florida — a buzzer-beater from St. John’s over Kansas and Tennessee’s contested victory over Virginia. This is the most-watched first-week window ever in the men’s category and is up 29 percent from last year. The second round as a whole averaged 11 million viewers across all four outlets, based on 9.5 million viewers for the first round.
The men’s tournament’s top four preliminary round was also up slightly year-over-year, led by Miami’s win over SMU with 2.8 million viewers.
On the women’s side, the first round on Friday and Saturday was led by UConn’s undefeated blowout over No. 16 UT-San Antonio. It averaged 981,000 viewers. South Carolina’s easy win over South was far behind with 972,000 viewers. These two contests rank sixth and seventh all-time among women’s first round matches.
ESPN also reports that viewers spent 1.3 billion minutes watching women’s first-round matches, the second-highest total on record (after 2024). Full numbers for the second round, which concluded Monday, are not yet available.
THR Newsletters
Sign up to get THR news straight to your inbox every day
Subscribe subscription
