As much as cable’s dwindling reach presents an obvious challenge to pay-TV advertisers, Michigan’s tendency to blow out its opponents may prove to be the biggest drain on the audience deliveries for Monday night’s national championship game.

The Wolverines have buzzsawed through the 2025-26 hoops campaign on rampage mode, racking up the fourth-biggest scoring average for a Power Four team (87.8 points per game), or nearly 11 points higher than UConn’s output (76.9). And if Michigan seemed averse to taking its foot off the gas during the regular season, Dusty May’s squad has all but tear-assed its way through March Madness, becoming the first-ever team to score 90 points or better in each of its five tournament games.

Michigan’s offense has been particularly relentless down the stretch—so much so that its last two games were effectively decided before the half. The Wolverines were up 48-26 against Tennessee after the first 20-minute stretch of their Elite Eight matchup, which did CBS no favors. Per Nielsen, the Sunday afternoon broadcast averaged 7.49 million viewers, a far cry from the 13.4 million viewers who took in UConn-Duke in the lead-out window. (And let this be a lesson to fair-weather fans who bail at the midway mark: While the Huskies were down 44-29 at the half, they would go on to Laettner their way to a delirious 73-72 victory, courtesy of Braylon Mullins’ 35-foot buzzer beater.)

After Michigan dispatched the Vols by a 33-point margin, the Big Ten outfit did a similar number on fellow No. 1 seed Arizona in the Final Four. At the half, the Wolverines had established a 48-32 lead over the Wildcats, and, thanks in part to a 26-12 advantage in points off turnovers, Michigan would propel itself to the title game with a suspense-free 91-73 win.

All told, Michigan has posted a relentless 21.6-point average margin of victory in the tourney since it breezed past Howard 101-80 in the opening round. That game averaged 4.52 million viewers on CBS.

Through the Final Four, Michigan in this year’s tourney has averaged 94.4 points per game while allowing its opponents to put up 72.8. UConn’s offense hasn’t been nearly as prolific, averaging 73.2 points per game, although its D has been downright miserly. Over the last five games, the Huskies have ceded a stingy 65.0 points per outing. That said, Michigan is a 6.5-point favorite—which, as it just so happens, are the same odds UConn boasted ahead of the opening tip of the 2023 and 2024 championship games.

Speaking of which, those two games were the least-watched title tilts on record, as UConn’s 76-59 defeat of San Diego State in 2023 averaged 14.7 million viewers on CBS, while the following year’s 75-60 win over Purdue eked out 133,000 more impressions.

UConn has never been a huge TV draw, as its 2004 win over Georgia Tech averaged a relatively meager 17.1 million viewers, down from 18.6 million for the previous year’s Syracuse-Kansas game and off 28% compared to Maryland-Indiana in 2002 (23.7 million). That said, the Huskies’ first national title appearance averaged 26.3 million viewers in 1999, although its opponent—Mike Krzyzewski’s Duke Blue Devils—have long been the college game’s star attraction. Duke’s 1992 victory over Michigan averaged a staggering 34.3 million viewers, making it the second most-watched college basketball game in history. (Top honors go to the Bird vs. Magic/Indiana State-Michigan State slugfest in 1979, which averaged 35.1 million viewers on NBC.)

Of course, UConn has a whole lot of history on its side, having never lost a title in six trips. While the North Carolina Tar Heels have matched the Huskies in the W column, UNC has also lost a half-dozen championship bouts. Kentucky is 8-4, with its last victory coming against Kansas in 2012, while even mighty UCLA tasted defeat twice in the course of amassing a record 11 crowns. John Wooden’s program ran up a perfect 10-0 mark from 1964 to 1975.

If UConn manages to preserve its unblemished streak, TNT Sports may have a shot at coming within shooting distance of last year’s Florida-Houston turnout (18.1 million viewers). As much as cable’s reach puts TBS et al at something of a disadvantage, it’s worth noting that CBS has the dubious distinction of drawing the all-time low in 2023. Still, the gap separating the broadcast networks from their cable counterparts is not inconsiderable; including those fans who access their favorite cable channels via a virtual MVPD, the reach of the TNT Sports portfolio now lags the old school over-the-air nets by more than 20 million households.

Michigan appeared in three of the 10 most-watched games of the regular season, so a close contest could go a long way toward boosting Monday night’s TV numbers. And clearly there’s been interest throughout this year’s tourney, which through the Elite Eight is averaging a 33-year high of 10.3 million viewers per window. Deliveries are up 9% versus the year-ago stretch, and while Nielsen’s upgraded ratings methodology is responsible for some of those gains, the fact that CBS and the TNT sports nets have met their March Madness guarantees is the only thing that really matters to their advertisers.

In the absence of any significant makegoods, the media partners are on pace to split more than $1 billion in total advertising revenue. If UConn and Michigan can keep things close on Monday night, the broadcast network and its cable colleagues will have a real shot at making a profit, as the combined rights fee for this year’s tourney was $1.02 billion. A nailbiter will also go a long way toward justifying the inevitable hike in next year’s pricing, which will be necessitated by yet another bump in the NCAA payout.

In 2027, the fee will reach $1.05 billion. By the time the 2030 rolls around, escalators will push the buy-in to $1.17 billion—up 14.2% compared to this year’s rate.