NCAA Tournament Television Ratings Off to Strong Start

The first weekend of the NCAA Tournament is one of the best four-day stretches of the year on the sports calendar as the viewing public tries to push its basketball-watching limits. This year is shaping up to be another major success for CBS and TNT Sports as the early ratings returns have been positive.

Saturday's games averaged 10.8 million viewers across TBS, TNT, CBS and TruTV to make it the most-watched first day of the Second Round in the tournament's history. Coverage averaged a record 8.3 million viewers through the First Round and Saturday's big day bumped that to 9.0 million. We'll see what happens to that number after Sunday's numbers are available. On paper it the matchups seem a bit less appealing than Michigan State-North Carolina and Kansas-Gonzaga from Saturday's standalone spots.

It appears CBS and TNT Sports could have a real chance to improve on last year's somewhat disappointing Final Four ratings, which culminated in the UConn-San Diego State national championship game that averaged a record-low 14.7 million viewers.

Kyle Koster is an editor at The Big Lead.