The 2014 NCAA Tournament has been excellent, with many games going to the wire. I don’t know how many games have been decided at the wire or went to overtime. We even had a rivalry of Louisville and Kentucky playing in the Sweet 16.
With all the close games and great match up the NCAA Tournament TV Ratings are up according to Sports Media Watch.
Entering the Final Four, the NCAA Tournament has averaged a combined 6.2 U.S. rating and 9.8 million viewers on CBS, TBS, TNT and TruTV, according to Nielsen fast-nationals — flat in ratings and up 1% in viewership from last year (6.2, 9.7M), and up 9% and 12%, respectively, from 2012 (5.7, 8.7M).
The rating is tied as the best through the Elite Eight since 2008, and viewership is the highest at this point since 1993.Not including Sunday’s games, the top telecast window thus far was early evening coverage on March 23, which earned a combined 16.1 million viewers on CBS, TBS and TNT. The top individual game was Kentucky/Wichita State on March 23 (12.1M), followed by Iowa State/North Carolina the same day (11.6M), Kentucky/Louisville in the Sweet Sixteen (10.1M), Wisconsin/Arizona on TBS in the Elite Eight (9.9M), and Michigan/Tennessee in the Sweet Sixteen (8.3M).
I am really not shocked by this at all the NCAA Tournament is the greatest event in all of sports. Not anywhere in the other sports do you get upsets like Mercer over Duke. This still shows that college basketball is doing quite well despite a ton of players leaving early for the NBA. It’s more about the pride for the school than the players playing.
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