NCAA Tourney Finishes With Second-Best Viewership In Last 23 years

The ’17 NCAA Basketball Tournament averaged 10.83 million viewers across TNT, TBS, CBS and truTV, marking the event’s second-best figure over the past 23 years, when the ’93 tourney averaged 12.7 million viewers. The figure is behind only the 11.3 million viewers seen in ’15, when CBS carried the title game and the semifinals aired on cable TV. This year’s average is up 16% from last year, when the complete Final Four aired on cable TV. The ’14 Tourney averaged 10.5 million viewers.

Last night’s North Carolina-Gonzaga title game finished with just under 23 million viewers on CBS, up 30% from last year, when TNT, TBS and truTV combined to average 17.75 million viewers for the Villanova-UNC matchup. However, UNC-Gonzaga is down from 28.26 million viewers for Duke-Wisconsin in '15.

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