Where Michigan Ranked Among Most Watched College Basketball Teams in 2025-26

The Michigan Wolverines men's basketball team capped off a 37-3 season with a victory over UConn earlier this month to claim the program's second-ever national championship.

The Wolverines were a huge draw all season long, with Dusty May's team playing in a number of marquee matchups and winning most of them.

According to a report from On3 NIL, Michigan was the most watched team in college basketball all season, followed by Duke, UConn, Purdue and Illinois.

NEW: Most-watched men’s college basketball teams of the 2025-26 season📺

(via @nielsen)https://t.co/gUf9nMGduK pic.twitter.com/uKW1Z8fiB2
— On3 NIL (@On3NIL) April 13, 2026

According to the report, which included date from ABC, CBS, The CW, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, FOX, FS1, FS2, NBC, USA, truTV and TNT, Michigan drew an average audience of 3.353 million across all of its games this past season.

"Year 2 of the Dusty May era was one for the books at Michigan," the article stated. "The Wolverines won their first national championship since 1989 as they took down UConn in the title game. That matchup drew 18.3 million viewers to become the most-watched game of the season.

"In fact, Michigan's Final Four win over Arizona drew the second-largest audience of the year at 14.29 million viewers across TBS, TNT and truTV. Those two games helped the Wolverines become the most-watched team in men’s basketball this year, according to Nielsen."

Duke drew 2.965 million, UConn came in at 2.842 million, Purdue at 2.554 million while Illinois checked in at 2.377 million viewers on average, according to the report from On3.

Why Michigan might have drawn such high ratings

From pretty early on in the season, it was evident that this could turn out to be a special season for the Wolverines.

After struggling early with TCU and Wake Forest, and even losing an exhibition game to Cincinnati (albeit Morez Johnson Jr. and Aday Mara were out for that one), Michigan dominated the Players Era Tournament in November by blowing out Gonzaga, Auburn and San Diego State and never really looked back from there.

As the Wolverines got deeper into Big Ten play, they weren't steamrolling opponents quite to that extent, but Michigan's defensive presence, overall size and depth allowed the team to stay consistent even when getting into the meat of the conference schedule, which turned out to be a grind considering how good the conference turned out to be.

Star transfer forward Yaxel Lendeborg became a must-watch on a night-in, night-out basis with the way he can defend, handle the ball and get to the rim. And the sheer size of Mara and Johnson, sprinkled in with quality guard play and overall depth made the Wolverines a fun watch all year.

Then, of course, as the season rolls deeper and approaches the tournament, those who don't like Michigan will obviously tune in hoping the Wolverines will fall.

Aday Mara fights — Michigan center Aday Mara (15) fights to keep possession of the ball around Connecticut during the second half of the NCAA national championship game at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis on Monday, April 6, 2026. | Eric Seals / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Between having a really good team that was easy on the eye, a strong Michigan fanbase and the haters tuning in once they realized the Wolverines had a team that could win it all, that combination made for strong ratings.

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