2026 NCAA Basketball Finals TV Ratings Rise
Solo Ball (1) of UConn Huskies shoots over Yaxel Lendeborg of Michigan in the men’s NCAA basketball championship on April 6.
Patrick Smith/Getty Images
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A pair of powerhouse matchups in the NCAA basketball championships resulted in big audiences for the men’s and women’s finals.
Both games showed year-to-year ratings gains — which is particularly notable for the men’s side, as Monday’s final aired on TNT Sports rather than CBS; the broadcast network’s years with the title game typically bring in larger audiences. Michigan’s 69-63 win over Connecticut Monday night averaged 18.3 million viewers on TBS, TNT and TruTV, up a little from the 18.1 million who watched the 2025 title game on CBS (with the caveat that Nielsen has added a big data component to its ratings measurement this season). Monday’s telecast improved by about 23 percent over the last time TNT Sports carried the championship in 2024 and was the most watched men’s title game since 2019.
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The women’s championship game Sunday afternoon on ABC and ESPN, meanwhile, delivered 9.88 million viewers who watched UCLA thump South Carolina, 79-51. The game grew about 16 percent from 8.5 million viewers last year and finished as the third most-watched women’s final on record, behind the record-setting 2024 game (18.87 million viewers) and just off the 9.9 million for the 2023 championship.
The men’s Final Four averaged 14.2 million viewers, down about 8 percent from last year. Both games (UConn-Illinois and Michigan-Arizona) finished within a couple hundred thousand viewers of the average. The men’s tournament as a whole averaged 10.9 million viewers across CBS, TBS, TNT and TruTV, up 7 percent from 2025 and the second highest average since 1994.
Final Four games in the women’s bracket averaged about 5.2 million viewers, including altcasts on ESPN2, up 33 percent from a year ago. The two matchups (South Carolina-UConn and UCLA-Texas) rank in the top five women’s Final Four games since ESPN began airing the tournament in 1996.
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