With the Final Four on the horizon, television viewership for the 2024 men’s NCAA basketball tournament has reached levels not seen in more than three decades, according to new data from Nielsen released Wednesday.
The tournament’s opening two weekends drew an average of 10.3 million viewers across CBS Sports and TNT Sports through the Elite Eight round, marking the highest-watched March Madness since 1993. This represents a 9% jump in audience numbers compared to the previous year.
The Elite Eight matchup between UConn and Duke proved particularly captivating for viewers, drawing 13.4 million people on average and reaching a peak audience of 18.9 million during the game’s dramatic finish.
Sweet 16 action during the early evening time slot last week also delivered impressive numbers, averaging 14.2 million viewers for games including Duke versus St. John’s and Michigan against Alabama. This 38% increase made it the most-watched early evening Sweet 16 broadcast since 1992.
Tournament organizers saw improvement across the board, with every Sweet 16 and Elite Eight contest outperforming last year’s corresponding games in terms of audience size.
The viewership data comes from Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel system, a measurement approach that received accreditation just over a year ago. This method combines traditional cable and satellite viewing information with data from internet-connected televisions, drawing from approximately 45 million homes and 75 million devices nationwide, according to industry publication Variety.
