Ratings predictions: Brady-Rodgers, LCS Game 7s and more

Would anyone have guessed that so far this season, NFL viewership is trending below the levels of 2017? If you need a reminder, 2017 was the year of the famous NFL ratings panic, when any number of prognosticators apparently new to the business of TV ratings was eager to pronounce the league dead, sure that the networks would abandon ship because the best-in-the-industry numbers had fallen by 10 percent. Three years later, with this season averaging about one million fewer viewers through week four than at the same point in 2017, the NFL looks as dominant as ever and is on the doorstep of massive increases in rights fees. The gleeful Cassandras of three years ago have moved on dutifully to other targets, dancing on what they assume to be the NBA’s grave.

Why the stark difference in the NFL’s outlook? Look around at the alternatives. The NFL could have ended up like (nearly) all of the other sports, suffering 20, 30, 40, 50, even 60 percent declines. It could have ended up, and still could end up, in the worst-case scenario of not finishing its season at all. NCAA Tournament ratings did not decline this year, but one can bet everyone involved in college basketball would have preferred record-low ratings to no games at all.

Compared to those possibilities, the kind of modest drop that drove so many cable news segments in 2017 now looks like smooth sailing. No serious observer would take issue with averaging over 14 million viewers in an environment where the NBA Finals averaged 7.5. Nobody is going to sweat a 13 percent drop in a fall when the Stanley Cup Final lost nearly two-thirds of its year-ago audience.

This week, the NFL should deliver one of its top audiences of the young season with the rare quarterback matchup of Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady. Ratings will probably fall below the stars’ previous meeting two years ago, a Sunday nighter that averaged a 13.7.

No matter. In an era of steep ratings declines for everything outside cable news, the NFL does not have to do much to look good by comparison to everything else. Prediction: 13.0.

It has been more than ten months since any non-NFL sporting event averaged even a 5.0 rating. The high-water mark over that stretch was a 4.8 for Game 5 of the NBA Finals and the Kentucky Derby (in 2019, Game 5 of the Finals had a 10.6 and the Derby a 9.4).

Can Game 7 of the NLCS break the streak? It seems unlikely when one looks at how poorly the LCS has performed thus far. The five least-watched LCS games have come this season alone, and seven of the first nine games averaged fewer than three million viewers. The two exceptions provide reasons to be bullish on MLB’s chances. Game 1 and Game 4 of the NLCS aired on FOX, and both games put up far more respectable numbers than their cable counterparts.

With Game 7 airing on both FOX and FS1 and — most importantly — having a direct lead-in from Rodgers v. Brady, it is highly plausible that the least-watched LCS on record could end with sports’ top non-football audience since January. The last LCS Game 7 to have an NFL lead-in was Indians-Red Sox in 2007. That game had an 11.9. This year’s game will not come within a million miles of that, but in this environment a 5.1 would be just as good. Prediction: 4.8.

Sunday Night Football simply cannot catch a break. After facing the NBA Finals two straight weeks, it goes up against an NLCS Game 7 this Sunday. As usual, SNF will dominate the head-to-head — but the competition has been taking its toll. This week’s subpar matchup will surely not help. Expect SNF to go three straight weeks with less than a 9.0 rating for the first time since 2008. Prediction: 7.9.

The upheaval in the NFL schedule means that Thursday Night Football airs on a Monday afternoon this week. The two previous postponed games this season averaged ratings of 8.3 (Patriots-Chiefs on a Monday night) and 6.4 (Titans-Bills on a Tuesday night), but both of those games aired in primetime. The late afternoon start for Chiefs-Bills should result in lower numbers this time around, if still respectable. Prediction: 6.0.

College football’s rankings are still fairly meaningless in what has been a disjointed season. Still, Georgia-Alabama is a top-tier matchup and should deliver one of sports’ highest ratings since the wave of cancellations and postponements in March. Perhaps in a normal year, this game would have earned somewhere in the 6.0-7.0 range. Given everything, CBS will gladly take a number around 4.0-5.0. Prediction: 4.5.

Sports hate usually brings viewers to the TV sets. Not so with the Astros, whose presence in the ALCS has done nothing to breathe life into the record-low viewership. With Georgia-Alabama providing formidable competition, expect easily the lowest Game 7 rating in MLB history. Prediction: 2.0.