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NCAA Tournament Posts 25-Year High in Television Ratings

If you weren’t enthralled by the dramatic finishes and major upsets during the first day of the NCAA Tournament on Thursday, you can’t consider yourself a sports fan.

Fresh off Georgia State and Alabama-Birmingham pulling major upsets and Harvard nearly unseating North Carolina, television ratings for the first day of the tourney were at a 25-year high.

Rating for Thursday’s slate of prime-time games were up 82 percent from last year. In addition to this, ratings for the day-long slate of games, including on TNT and TruTV were up 10 percent from last year.

To put this into perspective, CBS won the night over shows such as American Idol and Scandal in the 18-49 age group.

In case you hadn’t noticed, the tournament has garnered even more widespread interest this year. And these numbers are a prime example of this. It will be interesting to see where the ratings are when the drama increases later in the tournament, especially heading into the second weekend of the tourney.

Photo: USA Today

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