Jon Lewis

2 weeks ago | basketball.realgm.com | Jon Lewis

Florida's 65-63 win over Houston in Monday's NCAA men's title game averaged 18.1 million viewers with a 9.2 rating on CBS. The number represents the highest rated men's title game since Baylor-Gonzaga in 2021 and the most-watched since Virginia-Texas Tech in 2019. The game peaked at 21.1 million viewers, the third largest college basketball audience in the past five years. It also represented a 22% increase in viewership from last year.

2 weeks ago | sportsmediawatch.com | Jon Lewis

The college basketball season ended on a strong note on the court — and in the ratings — as a compelling national championship delivered for CBS. Monday’s Florida-Houston NCAA men’s basketball national championship averaged 18.1 million viewers on CBS, marking the largest men’s college basketball audience since the 2019 national title game between Virginia and Texas Tech (19.4M). The previous high was 17.7 million for the 2022 Duke-North Carolina national semifinal.

2 weeks ago | basketball.realgm.com | Jon Lewis

UConn's 82-59 win over South Carolina on Sunday averaged 8.5 million viewers across ESPN and ABC. The number represents a 55% decrease from last year's Iowa-South Carolina matchup and a 14% decrease from the LSU-Iowa game from two years ago. It did represent a 75% increase in viewership from 2022, the last time Caitlin Clark didn't appear in the final. In 30 years, the largest audience prior to two years ago was UConn-Oklahoma in 2002, which averaged 5.7 million viewers.

2 weeks ago | sportsmediawatch.com | Jon Lewis

If less than half the audience of last year’s all-time record high, Sunday’s lopsided NCAA women’s basketball national championship delivered a sizable audience. UConn’s blowout win over South Carolina in the NCAA women’s basketball national championship averaged 8.5 million viewers across ABC and ESPN, per Nielsen fast-nationals, trailing only the past two years as the most-watched women’s college basketball game of the Nielsen people meter era (dates back to 1988).

2 weeks ago | sportsmediawatch.com | Jon Lewis

Sports Media Watch presents thoughts on recent events on the industry, leading with a noticeable difference between NHL and NBA studio coverage. NBA commissioner Adam Silver said recently that he is sometimes jealous of the coverage other leagues receive from their broadcast partners. One wonders if he was watching TNT’s NHL pregame on Sunday.