Despite a 15-point win for UConn against Purdue, Monday’s national championship game was up from the Huskies’ win over San Diego State a year ago.
The game averaged 14.823 million viewers over TBS, TNT, and truTV, per Sports TV Ratings. It’s a slight increase from a year ago when UConn’s win over the Aztecs averaged 14.693 million viewers.
Overall, the 2024 NCAA Tournament averaged 9.9 million viewers across all windows, a 3% increase from 2023.
This year’s tournament started strong through the first round and first weekend. Once the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 came along, the gains were smaller, but the games and rounds were still up. The Final Four saw another small increase on Saturday, much as the title game did on Monday.
The women’s tournament, on the other hand, had a jet pack strapped to it from the first round on. It seemed like every round was drawing record viewership on both a collective and individual basis, culminating with Sunday’s record-setting title game that ended up outdrawing the men’s title game by nearly four million viewers.
The biggest win on the men’s side is that the title game didn’t slip below last year’s game and set a record low for the second straight season. It’s slightly surprising it avoided that mark with the shift from broadcast to cable this year, but replacing San Diego State with Purdue in the title game likely helped a lot.
