Ratings predictions: Christmas sporting events and more

The NBA is off to a good start this season, with viewership at a three-year high through two nights, but the Christmas schedule should nonetheless provide fodder for the prophets of doom that made hay — and got clicks — out of the league’s low-rated “bubble” earlier this fall.

The biggest drag on Christmas ratings this year is the NFL’s return to the holiday. The Vikings-Saints game on Fox and NFL Network is set to overlap with the three main Christmas games — the end of Warriors-Bucks, all of Nets-Celtics and the beginning of Mavericks-Lakers. It would be something of a Christmas miracle for the NBA to post a ratings gain, or even just hold steady, given the competition. It should be noted that while the NBA is most identified with Christmas, the NFL has been the highest rated sporting event on every Christmas it has scheduled games this century.

Beyond the NFL, this year’s Christmas sports schedule also includes added college basketball and football competition that, while not exactly big draws, could still chip away at the NBA.

Mavericks-Lakers (8p ABC and ESPN). The league should be commended for going with Mavericks-Lakers in the featured slot, rather than the predictable rekindling of the played-out “battle of LA” or the umpteenth holiday pairing of LeBron James and Stephen Curry. At the same time, Luka Doncic probably does not have the following yet to anchor the main Christmas Day window. It is true that the best way to build Doncic’s following is to put him on the biggest stages, and that sacrificing ratings to feature one of the league’s up-and-coming stars is not a bad strategy. It is also true that if ratings are down by any amount for the featured Christmas game involving enemy-of-the-state LeBron James, the headlines will write themselves. Last year’s Clippers-Lakers game had a 4.6. Prediction: 3.5.

Warriors-Bucks (2:30p ABC). Warriors-Bucks looked intriguing on paper until Opening Night. The Warriors looked as bad against the Nets as they did last season in the small sampling before Curry’s hand injury. Golden State getting run off the court did not hurt ratings on Opening Night, but that game had the added intrigue of Kevin Durant’s return. Milwaukee is favored by -10.5, more than any other team on the Christmas schedule. Last year’s Bucks-Sixers game had a 2.8. Can Curry keep Golden State in the game and viewers tuned in? Prediction: 2.6.

Nets-Celtics (5:00p ABC). Nets-Celtics looks like a compelling matchup but will face the NFL for its entire runtime. In the same window last year, Rockets-Warriors had a 3.2. Prediction: 2.8.

Pelicans-Heat (Noon ESPN) & Clippers-Nuggets (10:30p ESPN). The Christmas Day bookends are solid matchups that could give the NBA its only increases of the day. In the same windows last year, Celtics-Raptors had a 1.8 and the Zion-less Pelicans against Denver had a 1.0. Predictions: 2.0 and 1.4.

The NFL’s first Christmas Day game in three years pits the perennial contender Saints against sub-.500 Minnesota. Do not expect strong numbers by NFL standards, and ratings should fall from Steelers-Texans in the same window back in 2017 (8.0). Still, the NFL is a league that got a 6.6 rating on a Wednesday afternoon. The game will do well. Prediction: 7.5.

Amazon Prime carries an NFL game exclusively for the first time when the 49ers face the Cardinals on Saturday. Predicting ratings for an exclusively digital broadcast is a fool’s errand, given that no traditional ratings will be reported and the numbers that do leak out will probably be an incomprehensible mix of metrics that are impossible to compare to a regular telecast. It may be the case that no numbers are reported at all, as with the previous all-digital game in 2017. If there are any numbers that can provide for apples-to-apples comparisons, expect an audience well below what is typical for an NFL game on linear television. Prediction: 2.2M viewers.

It looked like a good game when the schedule first came out back in April, and Titans-Packers looks like a good game now. Tennessee is 10-4 and Green Bay 11-3 in a matchup of last year’s conference championship runners-up. Sunday Night Football has cracked a double-digit rating just once since Week 3 and scored only one ratings bump all season. It has a decent chance at both this week. Last year’s Week 16 game had a 9.7 (Chiefs-Bears). Prediction: 10.2.

Coastal Carolina faces the team it was supposed to play a few weeks ago in college football’s Cure Bowl. The Chanticleers were one of the biggest stories of the strange, disjointed and generally underwhelming college football season, which should result in some greater-than-average interest in a matchup of group-of-five teams. The Cure Bowl has never before aired on Nielsen-rated television, so even a 0.1 would be the highest rating in its history. Expect the ratings to be significantly higher than that. Prediction: 1.2.

There are usually a handful of college basketball games on Christmas Day, but not top 25 conference matchups on broadcast television. FOX previously aired a game this season on Thanksgiving, scoring a mere 0.7 rating for Gonzaga-Kansas opposite an NFL game. Wisconsin-Michigan State is set to face far less formidable competition Friday from Pelicans-Heat, which should help ratings come in just a bit higher. Prediction: 0.9.