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NCAA Tournament was the most watched in 20 years

By Stanford Crissey

Mar 19, 2015; Seattle, WA, USA; General view of NCAA logo before the Iowa Hawkeyes practice before the 2015 NCAA Tournament at KeyArena. Mandatory Credit: Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 19, 2015; Seattle, WA, USA; General view of NCAA logo before the Iowa Hawkeyes practice before the 2015 NCAA Tournament at KeyArena. Mandatory Credit: Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports /
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Duke-Wisconsin caps most-watched NCAA tournament since 1993.

An exciting NCAA Tournament has come to a close with Duke’s win over Wisconsin in the title game. This tournament had everything: buzzer-beaters, first-round upsets, and great games between great teams.

It also had viewers, and plenty of them; according to the Nielsen ratings, this was the most-watched NCAA Tournament since 1993.

The tournament averaged 11.3 million total per game, which is an eight percent increase over last year’s tourney and the most since the ’93 Tournament averaged 12.7 million viewers per game.

Monday’s National Championship game, which saw Duke defeat Wisconsin, averaged 28.3 million total viewers, up 33 percent from last year (21.3 million) and is the most-viewed NCAA title game in 18 years (28.4 million; Arizona/Kentucky in 1997).

The NCAA also released final numbers on the March Madness Live website, which, according to them, generated 80.7 million live video streams. This is one category in which they didn’t need to compete with the ’90s, as this was exactly 80.7 million more video streams than the 1993 Tournament had.

Apparently people really watched a lot of college basketball in the ’90s, but considering the increase in online streaming, these are some impressive numbers.

The eight percent of people who watched this year’s tournament but not last year’s really tuned into the right March Madness; this was one of the best ever. Not that there was anything wrong with last year’s per se, but wouldn’t you rather see two number one seeds in the title game than a seven and an eight?

The specter of an undefeated Kentucky team certainly didn’t hurt the buzz surrounding this year’s tourney; and neither did the instant classic games the Wildcats played against Notre Dame and Wisconsin.

The national championship game was one of the best in recent memory as well, as Duke pulled out the comeback victory over Wisconsin and their high-powered offense in a game that was the best title game in a good few years, and roughly 9,000 times better than UConn vs. Butler in 2011. All basketball games are better than that game.

So the big takeaway is: a lot of people watched March Madness. Surprise! In all seriousness, sports’ best event continues to be exciting, fun, and highly-watched, as well as being nicely timed for northerners, to distract them from the fact that it’s still snowing in March.

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