NEW YORK — The college basketball championship competition has commenced with its most successful initial phase since 2011, the year all matches began airing on CBS and TNT.
Nielsen data indicates that the event drew an average audience of 9.8 million over its initial three-day period, which encompasses the Tuesday and Wednesday “First Four” matchups in addition to Thursday’s opening round. This represents a 5% rise compared to the previous year’s figures.
On Thursday, the initial round of games, broadcast across CBS, TBS, TNT, and truTV, attracted an average of 9.8 million viewers, a 6% uptick from the prior year’s viewership, as reported by Nielsen.
The evening broadcast segments — featuring VCU’s 82-78 victory against North Carolina — garnered an average of 12.5 million viewers. This establishes it as the highest-rated opening-round viewing period in the history of the NCAA tournament.
The “First Four” matchups on truTV during Tuesday and Wednesday amassed a combined audience of 7.5 million. Specifically, Wednesday’s 89-79 triumph by Miami (Ohio) against SMU achieved an average of 2.8 million viewers, marking it as the most-viewed “First Four” contest ever held in Dayton, Ohio. The 2021 “First Four” event was uniquely conducted across various locations in Indiana due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with all those games occurring on a single Thursday.
