College Basketball TV Ratings: Most-watched men’s conference championship games
The most-watched men's college basketball conference championship games of the 2025-26 season.
The final weekend before the NCAA tournament saw the last wave of conference tournaments. It became an especially big weekend of college basketball for CBS, which drew historic TV ratings for the Big Ten title game between Purdue and Michigan . Sunday’s Big Ten tournament championship was the most-watched game of championship week, topping the ACC title game, which aired Saturday night.
CBS also got a big win for its Selection Show with an average of 6. 41 million viewers tuning in – the most since 2014. Additionally, the Big Ten semifinals were the two most-watched games outside of the championship games.
SUBSCRIBE to the On3 NIL and Sports Business Newsletter ESPN also got more than 4 million viewers for the ACC title game, which saw Duke take down Virginia . Here are the most-watched conference championship games for the 2025-26 men’s college basketball season, per Nielsen Big Data + Panel TV ratings data obtained by On3. Big Ten: Purdue vs.
Michigan Date/Time: March 15, 3:30 p. m. ET Channel: CBS Viewers: 4.