Ratings predictions: Olympics, Pro Bowl and more

Just six months after the delayed Tokyo Summer Olympics, the Beijing Winter Games is underway. Much has been written about the unique headwinds facing this Olympics — the growing unpopularity of its controversial host country, the markers of COVID austerity, the close proximity to the previous Olympics, the overlap with the NFL’s Super Bowl festivities. Add to those the evergreen issues facing any Olympics, from the continued decline of mass television viewing to the lack of U.S. stars in the marquee sports like figure skating and hockey.

All of these elements have saturated this Games with a malaise not seen since the Jimmy Carter-led U.S. boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.

It should thus be no surprise that Thursday’s opening night of coverage failed to average even eight million viewers on NBC alone — the network’s “Total Audience Delivery” measure of viewing across all platforms was delayed — marking the smallest primetime Olympic audience ever on the network. Before one blames the low numbers on the unusual pre-Opening Ceremony schedule, the same pre-Opening Ceremony window averaged 16 million in 2018 and 20 million in 2014.

The Games will certainly improve on Thursday’s numbers over the next week — both in 2014 and 2018, the first several nights of competition comfortably outdrew the pre-Opening Ceremony window — but it is fair to expect the numbers to remain in record-low territory.

In 2018, the NBC family of networks averaged a “TAD” of 24.2 million on the opening Saturday night and 26.0 million on the opening Sunday. In 2014, NBC alone averaged 25.1 million on the opening Saturday and 26.3 million on the opening Sunday. This year’s Games will be lucky to score even half of those numbers. Prediction: 12.0M on Saturday, 14.1M on Sunday (“TAD”)

Of all the events lost over the past two years, the Pro Bowl surely ranks among the least-missed. Nonetheless, the NFL’s most-maligned game has proven a durable draw — and in the midst of a resurgent regular and postseason for the league, it seems likely that viewership will not only surpass the previous edition two years ago, but rank as the highest for the game in several years. An audience of nine million, quite low by NFL standards, would be the highest for the game since 2014. Prediction: 5.5 rating, 9.29M viewers.

NASCAR’s preseason “Clash” is moving from Daytona to Los Angeles Coliseum in a move that the series hopes will jumpstart its season. Once known as the “Budweiser Shootout,” the “Clash” was a big draw in NASCAR’s early 2000s heyday – averaging a whopping-by-today’s-standards 9.54 million in 2003. NASCAR and FOX would be more-than-satisfied if this year’s edition simply cracks three million, which would double last year on FS1 (1.58M) and rank as the highest for the event since 2016 (4.84M). The novelty of the location, return to broadcast television and the Sunday night timeslot should help viewership comfortably surpass that mark. Prediction: 3.56M.

These teams are no good. The Lakers are by far the most disappointing team in the NBA, three games under .500 after a disastrous offseason trade for Russell Westbrook. L.A. is at the very least in the Play-in Tournament (as of now), a cold comfort that the Knicks cannot claim. New York, one year after having home court in the first round of the playoffs, is a full game out of the Play-in and four games under .500.

Both “NBA Saturday Primetime” games this season have exceeded three million viewers, a mark the series failed to reach even once over the previous two seasons. The catch is that both games involved a resurgent Golden State team that has established itself as the biggest draw in the league. While the Lakers are a big draw in their own right, it is hard to imagine a matchup of sub-.500 teams doing as well, especially given the (albeit-diminished) Olympic competition. Prediction: 1.5, 2.67M.

If few missed the NFL Pro Bowl, no doubt even fewer missed the NHL All-Star Game — an intermittently-played event that has been skipped on any number of occasions over the past two decades and has been overshadowed by the league’s various outdoor games. The game’s move from NBC to ABC comes with the drawback of moving from primetime back into the afternoon. Do not expect particularly strong numbers. The previous edition two years ago averaged 1.70 million viewers; the previous daytime edition in 2017 was considerably stronger at 2.3 million, but that was on a Sunday afternoon rather than on a Saturday. Prediction: 0.9, 1.85M.

The Duke-North Carolina rivalry may well get lost in the shuffle on a packed sports weekend, even with Mike Krzyzewski making his final trip to Chapel Hill. Nonetheless, expect ratings to comfortably surpass last year, when both meetings between the rivals managed 1.87 million viewers — their only meetings since at least 2007 with fewer than two million. Prediction: 1.2, 2.10M.