Ratings predictions: NCAA Sweet 16 and more

Survive and advance means a bit more in this NCAA Tournament, the first in two years. It means not just winning the games — but playing them. Everything else is secondary to getting as many games in as possible and completing the tournament with a national championship on April 5. For the NCAA, which saw its media rights revenues fall from $868 million in 2018-19 to $165 million in 2019-20 due to the cancellation of last year’s tournament, the ratings may well be an afterthought.

The industry-wide ratings slide that has afflicted events from the NBA Finals and World Series to the Golden Globes and Grammys has lowered the bar for what an acceptable ratings performance can be. No more does your rating need to increase for it to be considered a success story. Keeping the decline in the single-digit range — or even just below 20 percent — is now a worthy goal.

Viewership for this year’s tournament declined just 3 percent through last Sunday (that decline is almost certainly steeper now after Monday’s games), which qualifies as a success. The deeper the tournament goes, the harder it will be to keep pace — especially with nearly all of the Big Ten’s representatives joining Duke, Kentucky and UNC on the sidelines. Still, if the NCAA Tournament ends with the lowest rated and least-watched national championship ever, do not forget that the real success was making it that far.

#12 Oregon State-#8 Loyola-Chicago (2:40p Sat CBS): Of all the schedule disruptions over the past year, the Sweet 16 taking place on a weekend does not quite crack the list. Perhaps if the games were being played on July 4 opposite the AFC Championship Game and Daytona 500, the schedule upheaval would begin to resemble what took place last year. As it is, Saturday and Sunday rather than Thursday and Friday is the type of change that should elicit a shrug.

CBS and Turner figure to get a boost out of this year’s Sweet 16 schedule. With all four games airing in standalone timeslots, ratings should hold up better than they would in a typical year, when CBS and TBS cannibalize each other with competing doubleheaders.

Loyola-Chicago’s underdog run three years ago was the story of that year’s tournament. This year’s run lacks the same kind of magic, if only because the Ramblers are clearly a good team rather than a Cinderella. Oregon State is another team that seems to be better than its seed. With neither team really qualifying as a true underdog, this is just a matchup of solid basketball teams without huge name recognition. CBS’ first Sweet 16 game in 2019 (Gonzaga-FSU on a Thursday night opposite a competing game on TBS) had a 4.0. Prediction: 3.6.

#11 Syracuse-#2 Houston (9:55p Sat TBS): Syracuse does not come to mind when one considers the biggest draws in college basketball, but their win over West Virginia last Sunday ranks as the most-watched of the tournament thus far (admittedly, it aired in the cushiest timeslot). Look for their matchup against Houston to do relatively well for TBS; the ‘comparable’ window in 2019 (Virginia-Oregon on a Thursday night opposite a competing game on CBS) had a 2.2. Prediction: 2.5.

#4 FSU-#1 Michigan (5p Sun CBS): The late afternoon game on Elite Eight Sunday is one of the highest rated windows in college basketball. This year, the Sweet 16 gets that timeslot with the lone survivor of the Big Ten facing Florida State. These teams met in the Elite Eight three years ago, a matchup that delivered a 5.3 rating in a Saturday night window on TBS. With a network and timeslot upgrade, expect bigger numbers this time around. Prediction: 5.6.

#11 UCLA-#2 Alabama (7:15p Sun TBS): The Pac-12 is set to take center stage Sunday night with UCLA, USC and Oregon in a TBS doubleheader. In the first game, underseeded underdog UCLA takes on Alabama. It will be tough to match the 3.2 rating for the ‘comparable’ window in 2019 (Auburn-UNC on a Friday night opposite competing action on CBS), but not impossible. Sunday evening with no real competition is a good combination. Prediction: 2.9.

The Women’s NCAA Tournament made its ABC debut last week with its largest opening round audience in 11 years. This week, ABC has four Sweet Sixteen games, the first of which features UConn and its latest big-name freshman Paige Bueckers. The 1 PM ET start gives the game about an hour’s head-start on the men’s Sweet 16, which combined with UConn’s name recognition should result in the tournament’s highest rating of the weekend.

The top Sweet 16 game in 2019 was South Carolina-Baylor in a similar Saturday afternoon window on ESPN (0.58) – though that game did not face competition from the men’s tournament. Prediction: 0.59.

NASCAR tries something new this weekend with a dirt race at one of its more popular tracks, Bristol. The NCAA Tournament competition figures to put a lid on just how high the ratings can go, and gimmicks do not always resonate. Still, the Charlotte Roval managed to do pretty well opposite even tougher competition (the NFL) when it debuted in 2018. A similar result this time around would be a nice shot in the arm for a sport that has gotten off to a pretty mediocre start this season. Ratings should at the very least increase over last year and 2019, when the race aired on FS1 (1.7 both years). Prediction: 2.0.

Take out last year’s steep record-lows for the Masters and U.S. Open, and the PGA Tour has been the undisputed ratings success story of the post-hiatus era. From the start of the Tour’s resumption of play last year, ratings have increased for most of the non-major events. Last week’s Honda Classic was a rare exception, owing in part to a weak field. Expect mixed results for this week’s WGC Match Play, though not for any reason pertaining to this year’s event. Back in 2019, Tiger Woods played on Saturday but did not make it to Sunday. The Saturday window had a 2.2, the Sunday window a mere 1.3. Predictions: 1.6 and 1.7.