NEW YORK (AP) — Even an NCAA championship matchup between the two widely acknowledged as the best men’s college basketball teams in the country couldn’t set the television world afire. Monday’s game reached an audience of 16.92 million. That’s down nearly 14 percent from the 2019 championship between Virginia and Texas Tech. The 2020 NCAA basketball tourney was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic. Considering the way most television ratings are sinking, the basketball championship wasn’t half bad: Viewership for this winter’s NCAA football championship game was down 27 percent. This year’s thrilling semifinal between Gonzaga and UCLA reached nearly 15 million people.
