The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament heads into the Final Four on Saturday with its best audience figure since 1993

The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament heads into the Final Four on Saturday with its best audience figure since 1993, as CBS Sports and TNT Sports are averaging 10.3 million viewers per window (the combo of games across a given window on CBS, TNT, truTV and TBS). The networks are also up 9% from the same point in 2025. Gains for CBS and TNT Sports have no doubt been aided by the introduction of Big Data and full out-of-home measurement from Nielsen. Every game window in the Elite Eight and Sweet Sixteen saw year-over-year audience gains this year.

Meanwhile, on the women’s side, ESPN networks averaged 1.6 million viewers for the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament, which is the best regional semifinal round on record for the network.