If well short of last year's record pace, the NCAA women's basketball tournament is outdrawing all other years dating back to 2009.
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The first two rounds of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament have averaged 602,000 viewers per game across the ESPN family of networks, down 26% from the same point last year (812K), but the second-highest average since 2009. The top game thus far was Monday’s UConn-South Dakota State second round game at 1.7 million viewers, marking the fifth-largest audience on record for the round, but barely a third of the 4.9 million who watched Caitlin Clark-led Iowa edge West Virginia in the same year-ago window. Compared to Louisville-Texas in that window two years ago, viewership more-than-doubled from 783,000.
The full second round averaged 982,000, trailing only last year (1.4M) as the highest on record for the round. As for the first round, the ESPN networks averaged 367,000 — trailing only last year’s record (469K) as the most-watched opening round since 2013. The first and second rounds increased 43 and 60 percent respectively from two years ago.
An NCAA men's basketball tournament light on "Madness" is nonetheless trending at a multi-year viewership high.
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Coverage of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament is averaging a combined 9.4 million viewers per window across CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV, the highest two-round average since 1993 and up from 9.0 million at the same point last year. The previous high was 9.3 million in 2017. The second round averaged a combined 10.2 million per window, the highest since 2017. Saturday’s slate averaged 10.3 million, down 5% from last year (10.9M) but the second-highest average since 1992 (10.4M). Sunday’s slate averaged a combined 10.1 million (+13%).
The top two windows thus far were the early primetime slots on Saturday and Sunday. The Saturday window, which was led by CBS coverage of Michigan-Texas A&M, averaged 15.0 million across CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV — actually down 10% from last year (16.6M) but otherwise highest on record for the window. The Sunday window, which was led by CBS coverage of Kentucky-Illinois, averaged 15.3 million across CBS, TBS and TNT (+3%).
As for the CBS standalone windows, the network drew 9.6 million for Duke-Baylor and 7.8 million for Florida-UConn on Sunday afternoon — the highest in their respective windows since 2017 and 1998 respectively. On Saturday, it drew 9.2 million for Arkansas-St. John’s — up 11% from last year and the highest in the window since 2017 — and 5.2 million for Purdue-McNeese (-16%).
