{"id":706056,"date":"2026-04-08T22:54:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T22:54:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/706056\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T22:54:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T22:54:15","slug":"michigans-win-over-uconn-averages-18-3-million-for-most-watched-ncaa-mens-final-since-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/706056\/","title":{"rendered":"Michigan&#8217;s win over UConn averages 18.3 million for most-watched NCAA men&#8217;s final since 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NEW YORK \u2014 Michigan&#8217;s 69-63 victory over Connecticut on Monday night averaged 18.3 million viewers on TBS, TNT, truTV and HBO Max, according to Nielsen, making it the most-watched men&#8217;s NCAA Tournament final since 2019. That year, Virginia defeated Texas Tech in overtime on CBS.<\/p>\n<p>The audience for Michigan&#8217;s first title since 1989 peaked at 20.4 million for the conclusion between 11-11:15 p.m. EDT. It was a 23% increase from the 2024 final on TNT. CBS and TNT started alternating the Final Four in 2016. This was the fifth time TNT had the final.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, the tournament averaged 10.9 million across CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV. It is the second-most watched March Madness since 1994, which aired entirely on CBS, and a 7% increase over last year.<\/p>\n<p>The Final Four averaged 14.2 million, an 11% jump from 2024.<\/p>\n<p>This year&#8217;s tournament had the most-watched first round and the most-viewed second round since 1993.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014 Michigan&#8217;s 69-63 victory over Connecticut on Monday night averaged 18.3 million viewers on TBS, TNT,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":706057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[32898,7,319,217,74,231,772,1544,2148],"class_list":{"0":"post-706056","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-ap-a-wire","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-college","11":"tag-college-basketball","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-ncaa","14":"tag-ncaa-basketball","15":"tag-ncaab","16":"tag-wires-bot"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116371551927378735","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=706056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/706057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}