The final win of Saint Peter’s historic run delivered the largest NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 audience in more than a decade.
Friday’s Saint Peter’s-Purdue men’s NCAA Tournament regional semifinal averaged 10.18 million viewers on CBS, surpassing Kentucky-Louisville in 2014 (10.09M) as the most-watched Sweet 16 game since Kentucky-Ohio State on CBS in 2011, the first year all games began airing in individual windows (10.71M).
The milestone does come with the caveat that figures prior to last year do not include out-of-home viewing. Given the small gap between this year’s game and Kentucky-Louisville in ’14 — or even Duke-Virginia Tech on CBS two years ago (10.07M) — it seems likely that previous games would have come out ahead if all things were equal.
The Peacocks’ win easily ranks as the most-watched NCAA Tournament game to involve a 15 or 16 seed since the current television format began. The previous high was 6.74 million for Florida Gulf Coast’s loss to Florida in the 2013 Sweet 16, a game that aired on TBS. It is likely that Saint Peter’s Elite Eight loss to North Carolina on Sunday will set the bar even higher.
Head-to-head, Friday’s game nearly quadrupled the competing Kansas-Providence matchup on TBS (2.65M). More impressively, it outdrew its CBS leadout — a tightly-contested match-up of bluebloods between North Carolina and UCLA (8.82M) — by 15 percent.
Through Friday, Saint Peter’s-Purdue ranks second among NCAA Tournament games behind only Duke-Michigan State on the first Sunday of play (11.22M). In addition to outdrawing North Carolina-UCLA later in the night, it also comfortably topped Duke-Texas Tech on CBS the previous night (8.23M).
It ranks sixth among all basketball games over the past two years, behind Baylor-Gonzaga (16.92M) and Gonzaga-UCLA (14.94M) in last year’s Final Four, Games 4 and 6 of last year’s NBA Finals (10.25 and 12.52M) and Duke-Michigan State. Keep in mind last year’s figures are pending revision.
Viewership surged 76% from the equivalent Friday night window in 2019, the last time the Sweet 16 aired on their usual days of the week (Michigan State-LSU: 5.79M). The ’19 game aired in an unusually competitive window with TBS turning in 5.62 million for Auburn-North Carolina. The ‘equivalent’ window of last year’s Sweet 16, Gonzaga-Creighton on a Sunday afternoon, averaged 6.66 million pending revision.
As for Friday’s other games, the 8.82 million viewers for North Carolina-UCLA declined 12% from Duke-Virginia Tech in ’19, but ranks as the seventh-largest Sweet 16 audience under the current format. Last year’s ‘equivalent’ Sweet 16 window, Michigan-Florida State on a Sunday evening, averaged 9.03 million pending revision.
It should be noted that North Carolina’s win topped Saint Peter’s-Purdue in each of the key adult demographics, edging the early window in adults 18-34 (1.7 to 1.6), 18-49 (2.4 to 2.3) and 25-54 (2.9 to 2.8).
The TBS figures of 2.65 million for Providence-Kansas and 2.55 million for Iowa State-Miami declined 53 and 25 percent respectively from 2019 (Auburn-North Carolina: 5.62; Kentucky-Houston: 3.41M). TBS aired three of its four least-watched Sweet 16 games ever this season. Last season, airing each game in a standalone weekend window, TBS scored audiences of 4.79, 5.52, 5.94 and 6.51 million for its regional semifinals.
Most- and least-watched NCAA men’s regional semifinals
Since every game began airing in its own standalone window in 2011
[Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 3.28]
