This year’s NCAA Tournament is still smashing records

Even though three of the four Final Four teams are one-seeds, this NCAA Tournament is crushing records for CBS and Turner. Following Sunday’s games, the tournament is averaging a 7.2 overnight rating. That’s up 11% from last year, and is the highest average overnight for the tournament since 1991. That 1991 Tournament was the first time that every tournament game was aired regionally on CBS, and like 2015, it featured an undefeated juggernaut (UNLV, which fell to Duke in the national semifinals).

Sunday was another fantastic day for CBS. The pair of games drew an 8.6 overnight, up 10% from last year’s total. The early game between Louisville and Michigan State drew a 7.6, the highest rating in the window since 1993. Duke-Gonzaga drew an excellent 9.9 overnight, tying 2010 as the highest overnight in the timeslot in a decade. Bolstered by a record-setting Kentucky-Notre Dame game on Saturday, the Elite Eight as a whole averaged an 8.0 overnight, which is a 23% jump from last year and the highest average rating for an Elite Eight since 2005 (which featured three OT games).

So, for all that talk about the Tournament heading to cable and getting destroyed…things are looking pretty good right now for CBS, Turner, and the NCAA. And I don’t think the records are going to be stopping any time soon. The Wisconsin-Kentucky rematch in the Final Four is quite a compelling game, and the late start time shouldn’t be an issue given that Kentucky’s game with Notre Dame started at the same time.

With all due respect to my fellow Big Ten fans, imagine the ratings for Duke vs an undefeated Kentucky in the National Championship. It would be the perfect storm for a ratings bonanza that we haven’t seen in years. One undefeated team, two of the most popular teams in the country, and some mythology between the two teams that was brought back to life by an ESPN documentary earlier this month. It would be everything that the Notre Dame-Alabama BCS Championship Game a couple years ago should have been….except with more competition this time around.