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College Basketball TV Ratings: First Four draws record viewership led by Miami (OH) vs. SMU

ns_headshot_2024-clearby: Nick Schultz03/20/26NickSchultz_7

A highly anticipated First Four of the 2026 NCAA Tournament delivered for CBS Sports and TNT Sports. Tuesday and Wednesday’s games drew the highest viewership ever on truTV.

An average of 7.5 million viewers watched the four matchups in Dayton to get March Madness underway. Wednesday’s game between Miami (OH) and SMU led the way with 2.8 million viewers on average, which is a 17% increase from the previous top game. That figure would have ranked in the Top 10 among regular season games this year, according to data compiled by On3.

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This week’s games marked the first for the NCAA Tournament since Nielsen debuted its Big Data + Panel metric in September 2025. According to Awful Announcing’s Manny Soloway, Texas vs. NC State averaged 1.8 million viewers while Prairie View A&M vs. Lehigh drew 1.514 million and UMBC vs. Howard hit 1.352 million.

The 2026 First Four topped 2025, which averaged 7.4 million viewers and became the best on record. That number did not include Big Data, but marked a 20% increase from 2024. Miami (OH) vs. SMU also topped Xavier vs. Texas in 2025, which brought in 2.4 million viewers on average.

The First Four’s strong TV ratings came after a strong regular season for men’s college basketball. Household viewership increased by 10%, and the three major networks all saw surges, as well. FOX saw its best men’s college basketball season yet with a 38% increase while CBS had a 10% uptick from last season. ESPN also said its viewership was up 25% year-over-year, fueled by its best-ever “Big Monday” season.

That success continued into conference championship week. The Big Ten title game between Purdue and Michigan averaged 4.72 million viewers on CBS to become the most-watched championship game in conference history. It topped the ACC championship between Virginia and Duke, which ranked as the second-best TV ratings for the title game on record at 4.09 million viewers.

The First Four set the stage for a jam-packed Round of 64 across Thursday and Friday. Full TV ratings data is expected early next week as fans got two days of wall-to-wall college basketball across CBS, TNT, TBS and truTV.