Most Watched Basketball Games of 2025

[___Rand___]

[___Rand___]

"Hey! NBA cracked the top 10!" - Adam Silver.

[azcatz11]

How does NCAA draw more than the NBA? That's very surprising

[___Rand___]

How does NCAA draw more than the NBA? That's very surprising

Because I watch it!

[___Rand___]

College basketball is underpaid! Here comes multi-billion-dollar TV contracts the next round.

[JujitsuFlip]

How does NCAA draw more than the NBA? That's very surprising

Everyone has a bracket during March Madness. People watching who normally never would.

[Chuck Everett]

Basketball will never have high ratings if most of the games are on platforms other than broadcast networks. The NBA in their infinite wisdom basically put 95% of their playoff games behind a paywall for decades. Hopefully, once we have some games on NBC proper again, this will course correct.

[Doctor MJ]

How does NCAA draw more than the NBA? That's very surprising

Because it’s a single elimination tournament.


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[1993Playoffs]

That’s sad

[og15]

How does NCAA draw more than the NBA? That's very surprising

Is it? Why? I know people who have no clue about basketball who watch March Madness because of brackets, and it will even be on in some business places since some games are during the day.

[___Rand___]

How does NCAA draw more than the NBA? That's very surprising

Is it? Why? I know people who have no clue about basketball who watch March Madness because of brackets, and it will even be on in some business places since some games are during the day.

There's been debates here about the NBA regular season on this board which is evident of the crisis NBA is facing. NCAA which is run by a bunch of clowns as you can see the mess it is in, has ZERO BUSINESS even being THIS competitive with a much more well-resourced PROFESSIONALLY run league like the NBA let alone having 6 of the top 10 most viewed games of the year. Imagine what it would be could be IF they had a real professional group running it. As is, they are leaving money on the table to the networks.

I personally stopped watching regular season NBA games in January and didn't come back till the playoffs. They are meaningless games. Too many games. There is no intensity whatsoever.

There are fewer games in the NCAA. Each non-conference game against another power conference rival has implications for rankings and seedings, as does each game against conference rivals. Even though the skill level of the players are much lower, the intensity competitiveness and entertainment value of the games are there. Fans are passionate. Everyone is chasing a dream - the players, the fans. Now that's entertainment.

[bovice]

college basketball is closer to how basketball is actually played, glad to see it getting more viewers!

[Doctor MJ]

Let me just chime in with one more thing:

People should not remain ignorant of, or simply brush aside, the fact that college basketball made it big before pro basketball. The same is true for American football, ftr.

By this I'm not actually looking to say "college had to come first before the pros", because that's not actually how it went. Pro basketball emerged almost immediately with the invention and rapid spread of the game...but what first emerged was a very different game than what emerged out of college. Pro ball up through the early 20s was primarily play in a rope "cage" that separated (not entirely successfully) the players from the (rowdy, drunk) fans, and on the court itself, a hockey-style check knocking the offensive player into the cage was part of accepted play (resulting in cage-shaped rope burns on the players bodies).

College ball by contrast was a gentler, more officiated game, in spaces you could bring your family to. And it just turned out, this proved more popular.

So elite pro ball from the mid-20s onward was basically "grad school" looking to leverage the popularity of college stars to up gate revenue.

Even with the pros adopting college rules, the lead and importance of college ball kept increasing through the '30s with the rise of the NIT & NCAA tournaments, and the college coach-run National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) continuing to be the dominate force in deciding changes to the rules in the game (they got rid of the jump ball after every possession first in the 30s, and they made goaltending illegal first in the 40s).

For this reason, the NBA played a long game of catch-up with NCAA basketball, where it really wasn't until the '80s that the NBA passed college ball for good as an overall more important thing. (The arrival of Bird, Magic & Jordan to NBA superstardom was huge here, but I'd also say that the Men's Olympic team of college player losing the Gold in 1988 was a nail in the coffin.)

If you think about it then not as "pros vs minor league", but a situation where the NCAA March Madness was a bigger deal than the NBA for a very long time before the NBA could begin to match them, and you also remember that you can't compare single-elimination ratings with average playoff series ratings as apples-to-apples, I think things start to make more sense.

[jkvonny]

Awesome.

[ForeverTFC]

How does NCAA draw more than the NBA? That's very surprising

It's actually pretty simple. The average NCAA basketball fan is older than the average NBA fan - quick google will validate this. Older people watch full games and are on network TV. Younger fans stream and engage on social/short form.

[ORLMagicGirl15]

How does NCAA draw more than the NBA? That's very surprising

They are connected to colleges with a ton of alumnus. Way more popular. There are only 30 NBA teams but a a ridiculous number of college basketball teams.

[Saints14]

How does NCAA draw more than the NBA? That's very surprising

Win or go home games. There is much more leverage in a single elimination sweet 16 game than a random game 3. Which, does surprise me that Thunder/Nuggets game 7 was not on this list

[bkkrh]

How does NCAA draw more than the NBA? That's very surprising

Because it’s a single elimination tournament.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

As well as a lot of people watching and caring about it that don't care otherwise at all about Basketball.

[Daddy 801]

Basketball will never have high ratings if most of the games are on platforms other than broadcast networks. The NBA in their infinite wisdom basically put 95% of their playoff games behind a paywall for decades. Hopefully, once we have some games on NBC proper again, this will course correct.

Ding ding ding.

[Daddy 801]

I would love to see total viewership of all NBA games versus all college games. Sure the college games got higher viewership for a certain game, but what’s the total viewership of all games.

I’d also love to see the total money in Vegas/on the line for the NCAA tournament vs. the playoffs.