The 2023 NCAA Tournament started off with a bang on CBS, TBS, TNT, and truTV.
Per the NCAA, Thursday’s action averaged 8.4 million viewers per window, the best mark since the 2015 season.
CBS Sports and Warner Bros. Discovery Sports match most-watched opening day of NCAA Men's Tournament's First Round in 8 years. pic.twitter.com/v2hwyqC20w
— March Madness Men’s Basketball TV (@MM_MBB_TV) March 17, 2023
Viewership data for the first two games on CBS was not available, but of the remaining 14, only three (Furman-Virginia, Howard-Kansas, and UCLA-UNC Asheville) failed to draw a million viewers. Three games broke three million viewers – Auburn-Iowa (3.44 million on TNT), Duke-Oral Roberts (3.43 million on CBS), and Louisiana-Tennessee (3.48 million on CBS).
Overall, the tournament is off to a fine start. Thursday featured two significant upsets and a pair of smaller ones, while Friday has gone according to the seedings so far aside from Pitt’s win over Iowa State.
