Ratings predictions for the national championship games of men’s and women’s college basketball. Will the women’s tournament end at a record high and the men’s at a record-low?
Expect record numbers for the national championship games — one way or the other
The NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments conclude in very different positions. The women’s tournament is riding a wave of attention driven primarily — though not solely — by Iowa star Caitlin Clark. Friday’s national semifinal viewership soared by two-thirds, including a record semifinal audience of 5.5 million for Iowa’s win over previously undefeated South Carolina. The question going into Sunday’s title game, the first on broadcast television since 1995, is just how high the viewership can go.
The men’s tournament faces the opposite question. After getting off to a strong start with its most-watched first round on record, the men’s tournament has steadily fallen off of last year’s pace as the big draws fell by the wayside. Viewership declined for the second round, Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight, and it is hard to imagine that Saturday’s national semifinals bucked the trend. In a bit of irony, the men’s tournament is saddled with the same problem that once afflicted the women — a dominant UConn and not much else. A tournament filled with unfamiliar teams can be compelling if the games are good, but based on what UConn has done to quality teams Arkansas, Gonzaga and Miami, it is hard to imagine San Diego State will be able to put up much more of a fight.
One should always be cautious before trotting out the old Sports Illustrated “why X is hot and Y is not.” Nonetheless, the divergent trends of this year’s tournaments back up the most basic truism of sports on TV — stars sell. Once UConn or bust, the women’s game benefited this year from a variety of charismatic personalities with followings built up over multiple seasons. As college is a bigger and arguably more lucrative stage than the WNBA, those players have been able to build a continuity that simply cannot be matched on the men’s side. With each season of the men’s game boasting a different cast of characters, there will occasionally (and increasingly) be years like this one, where the Final Four seems to be generated randomly.
It is of course the case that the men’s tournament remains the dominant draw of March, and it is reasonable to expect Monday’s final to average at least double the audience of Sunday’s game. Nonetheless, the gap should be smaller this year than in recent memory.
Since moving to the ESPN networks in 1996, the largest audience for the women’s final was 5.68 million for UConn-Oklahoma in 2002. Given Friday’s Iowa-South Carolina semifinal nearly matched that figure at 5.5 million, and that Sunday’s final will be the first to air on broadcast television since CBS last had the rights in 1995, it is a borderline lock that a new record will fall Sunday. Whether viewership will edge the old mark or obliterate it depends on one factor in particular. Did Friday’s game max out the casual audience, or will word-of-mouth surrounding Clark’s performance drive the national curiosity even higher?
As for the men, this is not the first time the national championship has pit UConn against a low-profile opponent. The Huskies defeated Butler in a borderline unwatchable title game 12 years ago and did the same to Georgia Tech in another forgettable matchup in 2004. Not surprisingly, neither game was a particularly strong draw (the 2004 game was a record-low at the time). It is hard to imagine viewership matching last year’s Kansas-North Carolina game (17.05M), even with this year’s game on CBS and last year’s on cable. The all-time low for a title game is just shy of 16 million for Villanova-Michigan on cable in 2018 and anything short of an all-time classic seems destined to fall below that number.
— NCAA women’s basketball national championship: #3 LSU – #2 Iowa (3:30p Sun ABC). Prediction: 7.12M viewers.
— NCAA men’s basketball national championship: #5 San Diego State – #4 UConn (9:20p Mon CBS). Prediction: 13.94M viewers.
Will baseball’s good vibes translate into good ratings?
Major League Baseball has not started a season with such positive momentum in quite some time. Between the success of the World Baseball Classic and the sharp decline in game duration due to the new ‘pitch clock,’ the vibe around baseball could not be more different than it was a year ago — when play started a week late due to an owner-imposed lockout. Will the good feelings extend into the television ratings? Opening Night viewership was up 20 percent on ESPN, but much of that no doubt had to do with last year’s game airing on ESPN2 opposite the Masters (due to the aforementioned lockout). An increase Sunday night would be far more impressive, if far less likely, as last year’s first Sunday night game pit the Red Sox against the Yankees (2.48M).
MLB Sunday Night Baseball: Phillies-Rangers (7:08p Sun ESPN, ESPN2). Prediction: 1.65M.
Additional predictions
NASCAR Cup Series: Richmond (3:30p Sun FS1). Ratings and viewership have dropped for the first six Cup Series races this season and Richmond is a lock to make it an unlucky seven. The race averaged nearly four million viewers on “big FOX” last year, a figure that will be impossible to reach on FS1. Last year’s first FS1 race, Martinsville, averaged 1.89 million. Prediction: 1.92M.
Formula 1 Australian GP (12:55 am Sun ESPN). As common sense would dictate, F1 draws better in the waking hours than in the middle of the night. Expect the smallest audience of the young season for the Australian GP, though last year’s race set a low enough bar (568K) that a year-over-year increase seems likely. Prediction: 678K.
Previous predictions
— NCAA men’s Elite Eight: UConn-Gonzaga. Prediction: 7.78M; result: 7.99M
— NCAA men’s Elite Eight: FAU-Kansas State. Prediction: 5.93M; result: 7.04M
— NCAA men’s Elite Eight: SDSU-Creighton. Prediction: 7.05M; result: 8.34M
— NCAA men’s Elite Eight: Miami-Texas. Prediction: 9.49M; result: 11.30M
— NCAA women’s Sweet 16: South Carolina-UCLA. Prediction: 1.39M; result: 1.75M
— NCAA women’s Sweet 16: Ohio State-UConn. Prediction: 1.62M; result: 2.41M
— NCAA women’s Elite Eight: LSU-Miami. Prediction: 1.68M; result: 1.89M
— NCAA women’s Elite Eight: Iowa-Louisville. Prediction: 1.82M; result: 2.50M
— XFL: Seattle-Orlando. Prediction: 782K; result: 1.05M
— XFL: San Antonio-Arlington. Prediction: 658K; result: 753K
— NHL: Capitals-Penguins. Prediction: 1.01M; result: 922K
— NASCAR Cup Series: COTA. Prediction: 3.14M; result: 3.13M
— PGA Tour/WGC Match Play. Predictions: 2.05 and 2.23M; result: 2.13 and 2.03M
