The NCAA basketball tournament, with its array of games played at conflicting times during the workday, has long been discussed as an ideal sporting event for online coverage.

And based on numbers out today from CBSSports.com, more people are indeed watching games on streaming video this year. On the 2010 tournament’s first day, CBS says, the games drew 3 million unique visitors to on-demand video, about 11% more than on the first day in 2009.

The network said people watched 3.4 million hours of live streaming video and audio, a 21% increase from last year’s first day. The most-watched game online was the double-overtime Florida vs. BYU game Thursday afternoon.

Before the tournament began, a survey from advertising firm Unicast indicated that 44% of people who follow March Madness would go online, but those numbers included people who would simply be reading coverage, rather than watching live video. The survey also found that most people who said they would go online were planning to visit ESPN.com, even though CBSSports.com is the only source for live game coverage.

Numbers from Nielsen earlier this week also lent weight to the notion that more people are watching online video in general. The company said unique viewers of online video in February increased 10.5% year over year to 141 million people.

What about you, Digits readers? Are you watching the NCAA tournament online this year? If you are, is it while you’re at work, or at home?

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