Theres been a fair bit of hand-wringing in college basketball circles about the lack of Cinderella stories in this years NCAA mens tournament. TV viewers, though, havent seemed to mind.

The first two rounds of the mens tournament hit an all-time high with an average of 10.1 million viewers across CBS, TBS, TNT and TruTV. Thats up 7 percent from 9.4 million viewers last year which was itself the best showing in more than 30 years.

ESPNs coverage of the womens tournament is also putting up solid numbers, with a 9 percent gain year to year for the first round at 401,000 viewers. The company is also touting the total amount of time viewers spent watching games more than a billion minutes worth so far. One caveat: This years numbers include Nielsens recently implemented big data component along with its traditional panel ratings. That has tended to result in higher ratings for live sports so far this season.

The early rounds of the mens tournament peaked in Sundays first primetime window, when a combined 19.7 million viewers watched one big upset ninth-seeded Iowas win over defending champ Florida a buzzer beater by St. Johns over Kansas and a closely contested Tennessee victory over Virginia. Thats the most watched window on record for the first week of the mens bracket and up 29 percent from a year ago. The second round as a whole averaged 11 million viewers across all four outlets, building on the 9.5 million for the first round.

The First Four preliminary round for the mens tournament was also up a little year to year, led by Miami of Ohios win over SMU with 2.8 million viewers.

On the womens side, the first round Friday and Saturday was led by undefeated UConns blowout over 16-seed UT-San Antonio; it averaged 981,000 viewers. South Carolinas easy win vs. Southern was close behind with 972,000 viewers. Those two contests rank sixth and seventh all-time for womens first round games.

ESPN also notes that viewers spent 1.3 billion minutes watching womens first round games, the second highest total on record (behind 2024). Full numbers for the second round, which concluded Monday, arent available yet.