College basketball TV ratings for the 2023 season. Will be updated weekly throughout the season, typically on Tuesdays (Wednesdays in holiday weeks). College basketball numbers can also be seen in the the overall daily and weekly sports ratings charts.
2023-24 college basketball TV ratings
The following networks or services are not Nielsen-rated and thus are not included: SEC Network, ACC Network, CBS Sports Network, ESPN+, Pac-12 Network, Peacock.
Week 18: March 4-10
The Duke-North Carolina rivalry topped the college basketball viewership charts for the week ending March 10, while Caitlin Clark and Iowa placed a close second. The Women’s Big Ten Tournament final trailed only Ohio State-Iowa the prior week as the most-watched women’s regular season game since 1999, just one of four women’s title games on March 10 to post dramatic gains in ratings and viewership. The South Carolina-LSU Women’s SEC Tournament final was the most-watched regular season women’s game on the ESPN networks since 2010.
Week 17: February 26-March 3
Caitlin Clark’s final regular season home game, which saw her set the all-time collegiate scoring record, delivered the largest women’s regular season audience since 1999 with 3.4 million viewers on FOX. Iowa’s win over Ohio State also scored the second-largest audience of the college season regardless of gender, trailing only the NFL-fueled Michigan State-Arizona game on FOX Thanksgiving Day.
Week 16: February 19-25
CBS topped the charts with the three-largest college basketball audiences of the week ending February 25: 1.82 million for Alabama-Kentucky, 1.58 million for Ohio State-Michigan State and 1.51 million for Purdue-Michigan.
Week 15: February 12-18
A Purdue-Ohio State men’s game topped the college basketball ratings charts for the week ending February 18, as 1.73 million viewers tuned in for the Buckeyes’ narrow win. ESPN took second and third with a pair of back-to-back games on Saturday, as Kentucky-Auburn drew 1.73 million, preceded by Kansas-Oklahoma at 1.37 million.
Week 14: February 5-11
Gonzaga-Kentucky was easily the most-watched college basketball game of the week ending February 11 as 2.31 million watched the Bulldogs’ win on CBS. In addition to topping the week, it was the fifth-most watched game all season.
In other action, Caitlin Clark moved the needle once again as Iowa’s loss to Nebraska averaged 1.77 million on FOX Super Bowl Sunday — trailing only Iowa-Ohio State earlier this season as the most-watched regular season women’s game since 2010.
Week 13: January 29-February 4
The Duke-North Carolina rivalry delivered the largest college basketball audience of the week ending February 4 with 3.2 million viewers on ESPN, trailing only Michigan State-Arizona on Thanksgiving — which averaged north of five million viewers directly following the NFL — as the most-watched game of the season. The Tennessee-Kentucky lead-out ranked second for the week with 2.5 million.
On the women’s side, Caitlin Clark and Iowa’s game against Maryland averaged 1.58 million in primetime on FOX, trailing only Iowa-Ohio State last month as the most-watched regular season women’s game since 2010. The top three have come this season.
Week 12: January 22-28
A women’s game delivered the largest college basketball audience of a second-straight week as a matchup of the last two national champions — South Carolina and LSU — delivered 1.55 million viewers on ESPN. Women’s games now account for two of the five largest audiences this season (as of February 1).
Kentucky-Arkansas was the top men’s game of the week ending January 28 with 1.48 million.
Week 11: January 15-21
Caitlin Clark and Iowa topped college basketball viewership for the week ending January 21 as a Nielsen-measured audience of 1.86 million viewers tuned into their loss to Ohio State on NBC (1.93 million including streaming viewership tracked by Adobe Analytics). The game, which stretched into the timeslot reserved for NBC’s “Football Night in America” pregame show, delivered the third-largest audience of the college season, regardless of gender, and easily topped the competing Michigan State-Maryland men’s game on CBS.
Week 10: January 8-14
Kentucky-Texas A&M was the most-watched college basketball game for the week ending January 14 with an audience of 1.52 million on ESPN. Kentucky played in the week’s top two games, with their weeknight matchup against Missouri placing second (1.14M).
Week 9: January 1-7
TCU-Kansas delivered the largest college basketball audience in week nine of the season as 1.55 million tuned in on CBS. Kentucky-Florida placed a narrow second with 1.49 million earlier the same day.
Week 8: December 25-31
The week between Christmas and New Year’s was light on games — and viewership — as UCLA-Oregon topped the charts with just 782,000 viewers on CBS.
Week 7: December 18-24
North Carolina-Oklahoma delivered the largest college basketball audience in the week ending Christmas Eve as 1.29 million tuned in on ESPN. The preceding Baylor-Duke game placed second with 1.18 million.
Week 6: December 11-17
North Carolina-Kentucky in the CBS Sports Classic topped the college basketball charts for the week ending December 17 with an audience of 2.40 million — the second-largest of the season on any network (as of January 25).
Week 5: December 4-10
Illinois-Tennessee was the most-watched college basketball game of the week ending December 10 with 1.46 million viewers on CBS. North Carolina-UConn in the Jimmy V Classic placed second with 1.21 million on ESPN.
Week 4: November 27-December 3
The inaugural ACC/SEC Challenge scored the top college football audiences of the week ending December 3, with Duke-Arkansas (1.40M), Tennessee-North Carolina (1.24M) and Miami-Kentucky (1.15M) sweeping the top three.
Week 3: November 20-26
A lead-in from the NFL helped the Thanksgiving Day Michigan State-Arizona “Acrisure Classic” to 5.18 million viewers on FOX, the largest college basketball audience on any network since 2008.
Week 2: November 13-19
The annual Champions Classic scored the top two college basketball audiences of the week ending November 19, with Kentucky-Kansas scoring 1.54 million and Duke-Michigan State 1.51 million.
Week 1: November 6-12
Arizona’s win over Duke Friday night was the most-watched game in week one of the season. Women’s games accounted for four of the top six audiences in week one, with UConn-NC State ranking second for the week at 625,000 on ABC Sunday.
Why are there no ratings for SEC Network, ACC Network and more?
The television networks pay Nielsen to measure viewership for their events. In some cases, they may choose not to. In a statement to Sports Media Watch, ESPN explained its rationale for not subscribing to Nielsen measurement for SEC Network, ACC Network, Longhorn Network and more:
ESPN: “We regularly evaluate measurement options and currently use ComScore for all demographic, viewership and research data for ESPN’s college conference networks. We have found that this best suits our needs across the board.”
Nielsen ratings explainer
Rating: The percentage of television homes tuned to the game in the average minute. 0.6% of U.S. television homes were tuned to the November 10 Arizona-Duke game in the average minute. As of the 2023-24 TV season, Nielsen estimates there are 125 million TV homes.
Viewers: The number of viewers aged 2+ viewing the game in the average minute. Arizona-Duke averaged 1.19 million viewers per minute. (That does not mean 1.19 million viewers total watched the game. Nielsen uses a separate total viewing figure to estimate how many viewers watched at least six minutes of any given telecast. Typically, that figure is significantly higher than the average viewership listed here.)
Nielsen uses sampling data to estimate television audiences, which means your specific decision to watch or not watch a game does not have any direct impact on the numbers — unless you have been chosen by Nielsen to be part of its sample and agreed to do so.
Does viewership include streaming?
All Nielsen figures include streaming viewership through “virtual MVPDs” (ex. YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV, Sling, Fubo, DIRECTV STREAM) on television, computer and mobile devices.
Does viewership include DVR?
Yes, all Nielsen figures cited here include same-day DVR. Nielsen also releases viewership figures that include three, seven and even 35 days of DVR viewing, but those are not shown here as they are not particularly relevant for sporting events.
Does viewership include bars and restaurants?
As of August 31, 2020, all Nielsen figures include out-of-home viewing. Again, Nielsen uses sampling data to calculate the audience, meaning that your viewing of a sporting event outside of your home does not count unless you are in a “Nielsen family.”
How can I find the 2022-2023 women’s cbb ratings?
I didn’t publish anything like this for that year, unfortunately.
Just wondering why the Iowa State vs Kansas game isn’t listed in the Jan22-28
Thanks for catching that omission, I’ll add it and update the chart.
I’m not sure how much work it is for you, but it would be interesting to see historical ratings for college hockey. The games struggle to get on the air, and they typically aren’t above 100k, so it would be interesting to see how these games stack up to other lower rated basketball programming. There were more games televised going back the past few years, like when NBCSN and ESPNU were airing more games as well, but they were rarely reported, unfortunately.
Would not be able to do anything historical in nature, but I could probably do a breakdown of this season’s numbers at some point.
How can I get comparison to last years total numbers? just looking for this years NCAA basketball compared to last year as a total
Any additional weekly hoops ratings in the cards for this season?
Yes — I promise I’ll get this back going again. Just have to find the time to catch up.
Are we no longer doing a weekly hoops page?
I’ll get caught up on it — honestly it’s taken a backseat to the football-related pages.
Please do! This is just as interesting to football to me with so many more games! 🙂
Will do — I’ll try to get caught up on this as the CFB season winds down.
Thank you for doing this for basketball, as well! It is really interesting to see. Cannot wait for week two to be up!