A successful NCAA Tournament for CBS and Turner Sports ended with one of the better title game ratings in recent years.
North Carolina-Gonzaga earned a 13.2 final rating and 23.0 million viewers in Monday’s NCAA Tournament National Championship on CBS, up 25% in ratings and 30% in viewership from Villanova-UNC on TBS, TNT and TruTV last year (10.6, 17.8M) but down 18% and 19% respectively from Duke-Wisconsin on CBS in 2015 (16.0, 28.3M).
The Tar Heels’ win, which peaked with 26.1 million viewers in the fast-nationals, ranks fifth out of the 15 national championship games since 2002 — behind Duke-Wisconsin in ’15, Louisville-Michigan in 2013 (14.0, 23.4M), Duke-Butler in 2010 (14.2, 23.9M) and UNC-Illinois in 2005 (15.0, 23.9M).
Monday’s game scored a 7.1 rating in adults 18-49, up 20% from last year (5.9) but down 22% from 2015 (9.1). The increase was narrower in adults 18-34, but ratings still rose 13% from 5.2 to 5.9.
Compared to other sports, UNC-Gonzaga was no match for the deciding games of last year’s World Series (21.8, 40.0M) and NBA Finals (15.8, 31.0M) or college football’s National Championship in January (14.2, 25.3M). Even so, it ranks as the sixth-most watched sporting event — outside of the NFL and Olympics — in the past 12 months.
Overall, the complete NCAA Tournament averaged a combined 10.8 million viewers across CBS, TBS, TNT and TruTV — up 16% from last year’s CBS/Turner low of 9.4 million, but down 4% from 2015 (11.3M). Ratings were not immediately available. Outside of 2015, it was the most-watched NCAA Tournament since 1994.
(Mon. numbers via Programming Insider 4.5, with additional info from CBS/Turner)
