Featuring four #1 seeds for just the second time, the NCAA men’s Final Four hit a multi-year viewership high.
Saturday’s NCAA men’s basketball national semifinals averaged 15.3 million viewers on CBS, per Nielsen fast-nationals — up 19% from last year on TBS, TNT and truTV and the highest average for the Men’s Final Four since 2017. (Keep in mind Nielsen did not include out-of-home viewing in its estimates until 2020 and did not track such viewing in 100 percent of markets until this year.)
Houston-Duke averaged 16.0 million, up 13% from UConn-Alabama last year (14.1M), up 24% from UConn-Miami on CBS two years ago (12.9M) and the most-watched men’s college basketball game of any kind since the 2022 national championship (Kansas-North Carolina: 17.1M) — surpassing the past two national championship games (2024 UConn-Purdue: 14.8M; 2023 UConn-San Diego State: 14.7M). (The previous high was 15.1 million for Duke’s Elite Eight loss to NC State last year.)
The Cougars’ comeback victory was the most-watched men’s national semifinal since Duke last played in the Final Four three years ago — when the Blue Devils faced rival North Carolina in what ended up as coach Mike Krzyzewski’s final game (17.7M). Excluding that anomalous circumstance, it was the most-watched semifinal since North Carolina-Oregon in ’17 (18.8M).
Florida-Auburn led in with 14.6 million, up 27% from Purdue-NC State last year (11.4M), up 23% from San Diego State-Florida Atlantic two years ago (11.9M) and the highest for the early national semifinal since Gonzaga-South Carolina in 2017 (14.7M). Going back further, only the 2017 game and Duke-Michigan State in 2015 (15.3M) rank higher dating back to 2005 (Illinois-Louisville: 15.7M).
Entering Monday’s national championship, the NCAA men’s tournament is averaging a combined 9.9 million viewers per window across CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV, up 2 percent from a year ago.
