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Sweet 16 enjoys best viewership numbers in nearly 30 years

Dustin Schutte

By Dustin Schutte

Published:

CBS and TBS are looking at the viewership numbers from the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16 with big smiles.

Tuesday morning, the official Twitter account of March Madness tweeted out viewership totals from the Sweet 16, which took place on Saturday and Sunday. The totals were the highest for the round since 1993, nearly 30 years.

Per the release, the Sweet 16 averaged 12.9 million viewers across the two network, a 12% increase from the 2019 tournament. Social media engagement is also seeing a major boost, up over 31% from two seasons ago.

This year, with the Sweet 16 being played on Saturday and Sunday, the round was able to have stand-alone time slots for each individual game. That likely helped the cause for the NCAA, TBS and CBS.

Plus, with last year’s tournament being canceled due to the pandemic, fans have been eager to consume March Madness again. Clearly, there’s still a huge appetite for college basketball in March.

It’s going to see how the viewership totals across the entire tournament compare to previous years.

Dustin Schutte

Dustin grew up in the heart of Big Ten country and has been in sports media since 2010. He has been covering Big Ten football since 2014. You can follow him on Twitter: @SchutteCFB