Kansas State-UMBC on Sunday night on truTV is the top game on cable thus far with 4.6 million viewersGETTY IMAGES
The NCAA Tournament heads into the Sweet 16 with viewership down 4% from last season’s strong numbers. For a total audience delivery across CBS, TNT, TBS, truTV and March Madness Live (streaming), average viewership is 8.9 million viewers, down 4% from 9.3 million viewers at the same point in ’17. Last season was the best first week of the tourney in 24 years. The tourney viewership this year had been slightly up after Saturday’s action, but the eight games on Sunday were not at the level of the same Sunday last year. That first Sunday in ’17 featured big draws on cable in primetime with Duke and UCLA. This past Sunday also had increased competition in the afternoon from the Arnold Palmer Invitational with Tiger Woods in contention.
ONLY THE STRONG: The second-round Texas A&M-North Carolina game on CBS is the tourney’s best individual game audience to date with 9.4 million viewers on Sunday. Last year there were two games that topped 10.0 million viewers from the first week of the tourney. Meanwhile, the top game on cable thus far was the second-round Kansas State-UMBC on Sunday night on truTV with 4.6 million viewers. Not only was that a sports record for the net, but it was a record for any programming on truTV since its rebrand in ’14.
SOCIAL CLIMBERS: Through the second round of the tourney, there have been over 1.3 million social media engagements using #MarchMadness, according to data from measurement firm 4C. Michigan coming into the tourney led all teams in terms of overall social engagement, and that has continued after two rounds. UM has seen 162,257 engagements across Twitter and Facebook for the period of March 11-20, well above any school. West Virginia ranks second with 75,351 engagements during the same period. Among schools that have seen the biggest social media engagement lift during the first week of the tourney compared to the prior week, UMBC easily leads all schools, up 2,573%. Penn ranks second, up 1,665%. Meanwhile, among NCAA-affiliated brands, Capital One is seeing the biggest lift across Facebook and Twitter accounts, up 2,573%. Unilever ranks No. 2 at 1,665%, while Intel is third at 1,232%. Non-NCAA brands also are seeing strong returns for TV ads during the tourney. Sherwin-Williams is seeing a 1,521% TV social lift impact, meaning its TV spot increased the brand’s social engagements by an average of 1,521% in the two minutes following the start of one of its ads during the tournament compared to its normal average social media engagement rate (Austin Karp, Assistant Managing Editor).
CRY ME A RIVER: In N.Y., Andrew Marchand noted CBS "keeps showing crying children" at the end of tournament games, but the net has "no plans to change" how it covers the event. CBS Sports Exec Producer and Senior VP/Production Harold Bryant said, "It is part of the drama and the storytelling of the event. It is part of the emotion of the tournament. ... They are all part of the story. All of the people in the arena. We try to strike that proper balance, the good and the bad. We try to strike that proper balance, as we tell the story of the tournament" (N.Y. POST, 3/21). SI.com's Jimmy Traina wrote it "does seem like plenty of kids 13 and younger are being sought out for their tears, and CBS/Turner can't get enough." The backlash was "pretty significant this weekend, so it'll be interesting to see if the networks tone it down" when coverage starts again tomorrow (SI.com, 3/19).
