Viewers tuned in for Kentucky’s upset loss to a 15 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
CBS averaged a 3.1 rating and 5.46 million viewers for 15 seed Saint Peter’s Thursday night upset of Kentucky, trailing only Duke-North Dakota State in 2019 (6.22M) and Kentucky-Davidson in 2018 (5.92M) as the most-watched opening round NCAA Tournament game since 2015.
Ratings increased 21% and viewership as much as 23% from Wisconsin-North Carolina on a Friday night last year (2.6, 4.44M, pending revision).
In the same evening window, New Mexico State’s upset of UConn averaged 2.52 million on TNT, Indiana-St. Mary’s drew 1.60 million on TBS and Creighton-San Diego State 1.23 million on TruTV — making for a combined audience of 10.81 million, up as much as 9% from last year (9.88M, pending revision) and up 3% from 2019 (10.49M).
Later in the night, the four networks combined for 7.69 million viewers — down at least 9% from last year (8.41M, pending revision) and down 18% from 2019 (9.40M). CBS led the way with a 1.8 rating and 3.01 million for Murray State-San Francisco. Arkansas-Vermont led the cable games with 2.13 million on TNT, followed by Akron-UCLA at 1.69 million on TBS and Kansas-Texas Southern with 869,000 on TruTV.
As for Thursday’s afternoon windows, Gonzaga-Georgia State drew 2.29 million on TNT — up as much as 56% from last year (Oregon State-Tennessee: 1.47M) — followed by Richmond’s upset of Iowa on TruTV at 1.87 million (+188%, pending revision). North Carolina’s rout of Marquette drew 1.17 million, down as much as 31% from last year (Loyola Chicago-Georgia Tech: 1.70M).
Rounding out the opening day slate, Memphis-Boise State drew 814,000 on TNT (+12%, pending revision), Providence-South Dakota State had 800,000 on TruTV (-9%, pending revision) and Baylor-Norfolk State drew just 457,000 on TBS (-42%, pending revision). Figures for the afternoon games on CBS were not available.
Shifting to the First Four, Notre Dame-Rutgers was the top draw with 2.21 million on TruTV Wednesday night, followed by Indiana-Wyoming at 2.20 million on Tuesday, Bryant-Wright State at 1.28 million Wednesday and Texas Southern-Texas A&M Corpus Christi at 1.20 million Tuesday. The First Four games grossed 6.89 million viewers, down at least 11% from last year — when all four games took place on the same day and two aired on TBS (7.77M) — but up 28% from the last time they aired fully on TruTV in 2019 (5.39M).
[Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily, Programming Insider]
