Ratings predictions: Super Bowl 55 and more

There was a time last year when suggesting that the NFL could make it through a full regular season and playoffs would have been greeted with skepticism, if not outright hostility. While spiking the proverbial football would be unseemly under the circumstances — and premature until the clock hits triple-zeroes Sunday night — the NFL is one game away from accomplishing a feat that would have gotten someone branded as naïve (at best) for suggesting was possible last March, April or May.

That the league has made it this far without the shockingly steep declines suffered by other sports is its own feat, if comparably minor. Outside of Wild Card weekend — when an expanded six-game schedule may well have stretched viewers’ capacity for football consumption – viewership declines have been modest. Viewership actually increased for the conference championship round, fueled by the marquee quarterback matchup of Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers.

The litany of all-time record lows over the past year should be familiar to anyone reading this site. The World Series, NBA Finals, Kentucky Derby, Indy 500, final round of the Masters and college football’s national championship have all plumbed the historical depths since sports went on hiatus last March. In each case, the year-over-year decline has been sharp — 20-30 percent on the lower end. Though there was never any real chance that the Super Bowl would suffer similar declines, it would have been fair to expect a modest drop in line with what the league had experienced all season.

Instead, the Super Bowl looks like it has a decent shot at that a year-over-year increase. The matchup of Brady and Patrick Mahomes is as appetizing as any in recent Super Bowl history. While the quality of the game itself matters more for the Super Bowl than the matchup, a game that is compelling on paper figures to bring in viewers earlier and hold them for longer. Remember that Nielsen ratings and viewership measure the audience in the average minute. The longer viewers watch, the better.

Another reason to be somewhat bullish is the addition of out-of-home data to Nielsen traditional viewership figure. Last year’s traditional TV audience was 100.4 million, but that did not include Nielsen’s estimated 13 million out-of-home viewers. Even assuming that out-of-home viewing will be lower than usual this year, the addition of that audience should result in Nielsen’s traditional viewership rising comfortably over last year — even if the combined in-and-out-of-home total is actually lower.

With all of that said, still expect the actual household rating to dip from last year’s 41.6. Fewer homes, but more viewers, has been a semi-regular occurrence since Nielsen began incorporating the out-of-home data last year. Prediction: 41.2, 104.8M viewers. [Related: Super Bowl ratings history.]

Both Duke and North Carolina are unranked entering the first meeting of the season, and there does not seem to be much — if any — anticipation for the matchup. In a college basketball season bereft of the usual atmosphere, or even any certainty that the season will be completed with a champion crowned, it should be no surprise that college games have not been drawing as much as they used to. Expect one of the lower Duke-Carolina ratings in memory. No game between the rivals, including the ACC Tournament, has had less than a 1.4 rating going back to 2008. Last year’s first meeting had a 1.6. Prediction: 0.9.

The NBA misjudged the Mavericks when it scheduled Luka Doncic and company for so many nationally televised games. While Doncic is a star in the making, Dallas is a sub-500 team that has not been particularly competitive of late. All but one Mavericks game on ESPN/ABC or TNT this season has posted a decline, including Thursday’s matchup against Golden State on TNT. If a close Lakers-Celtics game could only muster a 1.6 on ABC last weekend, this week’s game does not have much of a chance of catching last year’s 1.8 for Lakers-Warriors. Prediction: 1.1.

The Phoenix Open is typically the top-rated non-NFL sporting event of Super Bowl weekend, and it figures to own that distinction again this year. Quite a few years ago, Jordan Spieth looked like he was on the verge of become golf’s big post-Tiger draw. In contention for his first win in three years, perhaps he can boost the numbers past last year’s unusually low 1.75. Prediction: 1.9.

Delayed weeks from its usual date, the Australian Open is scheduled to begin about a half-hour into the Super Bowl. It is rare for a mainstream sporting event to go head-to-head with the “Big Game” — for obvious reasons. As it is, last year’s night one numbers were so low, they never cracked the publicly available ratings charts — and that was with the NFC Championship as competition. Prediction: 79K viewers.