Men’s NCAA title game lower than women, but tourney still sees year-over-year growth

Even with the second-lowest audience on record for a men’s championship game, the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament finished with a 3% viewership uptick this year as more well-known teams made deeper runs.

UConn’s title win on Monday over Purdue delivered 14.82 million viewers for TBS, truTV and TNT, up 1% from the record-low of 14.69 million last year for UConn-San Diego State on CBS. Two years ago, the Kansas-North Carolina title game on the three Warner Bros. Discovery networks averaged 17.05 million.

The women’s title game on ABC/ESPN2 on Sunday afternoon was 26% higher than this year’s men’s title game.

For all rounds across CBS, TNT, truTV and TBS, the men’s tourney averaged a combined 9.9 million viewers, up 3% from last year. There was growth in all key demos, including adults and males 18-34. Similar to many sporting events these days, the tourney grew its share of the overall U.S. TV audience, with that metric at its best level for the men's event since 1994.