NCAA Tournament posts best viewership ever through first weekend

The NCAA Tournament is still growing in popularity and showing no signs of slowing down.

March Madness is one of the great occasions on the annual sporting calendar and it’s becoming increasingly a cultural event thanks to the big-event feel and bracket pools across the nation. And with sports ratings seeing higher numbers thanks to the Big Data era of increased out of home viewership, the NCAA Tournament has been a huge benefactor.

One of the worries about this era of NIL is that Cinderella is becoming extinct. For the second consecutive year, no mid-major schools advanced to the Sweet 16. And 11th-seeded Texas is the highest ranked seed remaining in the tournament, hardly your prototypical underdog story. However, the lack of upstart teams hasn’t dampered the enthusiasm across the first and second rounds.

With games across CBS Sports. TBS, TNT, and truTV, the 2026 NCAA Tournament is the most-watched in history with an average of 10.1 million viewers through the second round according to a CBS/TNT Sports announcement. This represents a 7% increase versus last year and was led by an astonishing 19.7 million viewers in Sunday’s early primetime window, the biggest in tournament history.

CBS Sports & TNT Sports continue record-setting viewership for NCAA Tournament

🏀 Most-watched NCAA Tournament in history with 10.1 million viewers through Second Round

🏀 Record-breaking 19.7 million viewers for Sunday’s early primetime window led by St. John’s win over Kansas pic.twitter.com/D0MPs0bNFh

— March Madness Men’s Basketball TV (@MM_MBB_TV) March 24, 2026

To put it in perspective, that 19.7 million viewers surpassed Game 7 of the NBA Finals in viewership. Of course, the NCAA Tournament had three games happening simultaenously. But still, these are almost at NFL levels of viewership for a Sunday evening. Sunday Night Football averaged 23.5 million viewers for the 2025 season.

The prevailing wisdom has always been that fans enjoy upsets during the opening two rounds but want to see the blue bloods fight it out once the tournament gets to its closing stages. With all the top seeds (save for Florida) still alive, there should be plenty of titanic matchups ahead. And if these numbers keep pace, the NCAA Tournament could see even more historic viewership numbers next weekend.