College basketball has seen a big boost in viewership this season, with networks reporting increases of up to nearly 70%.
A major contributing factor to this is the abundance of star talent in the college game. The 2026 NBA draft class is considered to be one of the best in recent memory, with Kansas’s Darryn Peterson and BYU’s AJ Dybantsa headlining the list of players fans are flocking to watch. Women’s basketball hasn’t slowed down either, with players like Audi Crooks, Azzi Fudd, and Lauren Betts headlining some of the best teams in the country.
Fox tells FOS that average viewership for men’s games is up 69% this season at 1.37 million and 38% on FS1. The Feb. 1 matchup between Illinois and Nebraska on FS1 was the most-watched college basketball game ever on the network, with nearly 1.4 million viewers tuning in.
Women’s basketball has also seen an uptick, with games on Fox and FS1 seeing increases of 8% and 12%, respectively. Big Ten Network, which Fox holds a 61% stake in, reported similar trends. Men’s basketball viewership is up 45%, while women’s hoops has seen a gain of 15%.
While sports ratings in general are up this year thanks to Nielsen’s transition to using Big Data + Panel, which better accounts for viewers across linear and streaming platforms, the boost to college basketball, as seen with Fox, is exceeding the expected 5% to 10% bump.
ESPN is also seeing a boost in ratings, with a heavier increase on the women’s side at 39%. Compared with this point last season, women’s basketball viewership is up double-digits on all four individual networks (ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU). Comparing panel to panel, women’s hoops on ESPN would still be up 14%.
Men’s basketball across all ESPN networks is up 21% using Big Data + Panel and 5% comparing panel to panel. Games on ESPN are averaging 913,000 viewers, according to Nielsen, with the year’s biggest draws so far being Kentucky at Arkansas (2.39 million) and BYU at Kansas (2.1 million).
Through Jan. 18, the most watched college basketball teams on national television were Michigan State (men’s) and Iowa State (women’s), according to Nielsen.
The Spartans played 5 of the top 10 most-watched teams, including the other 4 schools in the top 5 (Duke, Arkansas, UNC, and Kentucky). Michigan State’s matchup against in-state rival Michigan drew 2.76 million viewers, making it Fox’s most-watched Friday college basketball game ever. Crooks, averaging 25.9 points per game as the nation’s leading scorer, has helped the Cyclones claim the top spot as the most-watched women’s team.
The brackets for the NCAA Tournament will be released on Mar. 15. The 2025 men’s tournament saw the highest viewership for the first two rounds since 1993, with an average audience of 9.4 million. The big boost in college basketball regular season ratings this year could be an indication that a new record will be set in March.
