Men’s college basketball is heading into March Madness with some ratings momentum.
College basketball’s conference championship weekend produced seven of the ten largest audiences this season, led by the Michigan-Wisconsin Big Ten Tournament final at 4.53 million viewers on CBS — up 24% from Illinois-Wisconsin last year (3.65M) and the largest audience for the tournament since Michigan-Michigan State in 2014.
The Wolverines’ win, which peaked with 5.82 million viewers, delivered the second-largest audience of the college basketball season — trailing only Illinois-Arkansas on CBS Thanksgiving Day, which averaged 5.17 million immediately following a NFL game.
The Big Ten Tournament delivered the three of the season’s top nine audiences by itself, as Saturday’s Michigan-Maryland semifinal averaged 3.01 million — the fifth-largest audience of the season and the most-watched Big Ten semifinal since the same 2014 tournament. Wisconsin-Michigan State led in with 2.44 million, marking the ninth-largest audience of the season, but actually down 11% from Wisconsin-Purdue last year (2.74M).
The SEC Tournament final placed second for the weekend and third for the season, as 3.10 million tuned in for Tennessee-Florida on Sunday afternoon — the largest audience for the event since 2015 (3.31M). Both semifinals also placed in the top ten as Florida-Alabama drew 2.62 million and Tennessee-Auburn 2.40 million, ranking eighth and tenth for the season.
All three games increased dramatically from last year, with viewership rising 74, 75 and 100 percent respectively from last year’s equivalent games (Auburn-Florida: 1.78; Florida-Texas A&M: 1.50M; Auburn-Mississippi: 1.20M).
Placing third for the weekend and fourth for the season, the Duke-Louisville ACC Tournament final scored 3.07 million on ESPN Saturday night, actually down 5% from NC State-North Carolina last year (3.24M).
Duke entered championship week with more top-ten games this season than any other team, but with the Big Ten and SEC tournaments placing six games on the list, the Blue Devils finish the season with two games in the top ten — the same as Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida, Tennessee, Alabama and Auburn.
Most-watched college basketball games, 2024-25 season
Rounding out the power conference slate, the Arizona-Houston Big 12 Tournament final led into the ACC title game with 2.24 million on ESPN (+6%).
In other championship week action, the St. John’s-Creighton BIG EAST Tournament final averaged 1.69 million on FOX (+1%), the Colorado State-Boise State Mountain West Tournament final drew 1.46 million on CBS (-19%), the UAB-Memphis AAC Tournament final drew 1.40 million on ESPN (+59%), and the VCU-George Mason Atlantic-10 Tournament final drew 1.44 million on CBS (+24%).
Finally, Sunday’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament Selection Show averaged 5.71 million viewers on CBS, trailing only last year (5.91M) as the most-watched edition of the show since 2019 (6.2M). The telecast, which peaked with 6.16 million, faced competition from a long-running final round of The Players Championship on NBC.
Additional conference title game viewership is below:
NCAA men’s conference title game viewership, past weekend
