Olympic-sized Super Bowl ratings predictions

The Super Bowl has rarely served up such an unexpected matchup. Just two years after leading LSU to a National Championship, Joe Burrow has led the typically-moribund Bengals to the Super Bowl for the first time since 1989. The Rams are back in the Super Bowl for the second time in four years, led by a quarterback in Matthew Stafford who is tasting postseason success for the first time in his 13-year career. NBC surely would have preferred Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs, Tom Brady and the Bucs, Aaron Rodgers and the Packers, Dak Prescott and the Cowboys. Even so, do not imagine the network has any complaints. A non-traditional Super Bowl is still a Super Bowl and this matchup looks intriguing on paper (Los Angeles is a slim favorite).

Last year’s Super Bowl rating of 38.2 was the lowest since 1969, marking the first time since 1990 that the game failed to crack the 40 mark. Keep in mind that Nielsen’s undercount of out-of-home viewing would not affect the household rating; that 38.2 was the real deal (assuming it was not impacted by Nielsen’s other undercount, wherein the company failed to maintain the quality of its panel throughout 2020 due to COVID-related changes). With playoff ratings up across the board this year, an increase seems like a safe bet. How high will the numbers go? Do not be surprised by another sub-40 rating. With out-of-home now being measured correctly, even the late 30s would presumably be enough for the game to comfortably top the 100 million viewer mark. Prediction: 39.3, 100.14M viewers.

In the Nielsen people-meter era, the least-watched Super Bowl lead-out was ABC’s “Alias” in 2003 (17.4M). Simply matching that audience would give NBC easily its largest audience of the Olympics thus far. One would think a Super Bowl lead-in would get the Olympics to at least the 20 million mark, but in this Olympics one cannot even be completely sure viewership will surpass the comparable night in PyeongChang four years ago (18.2M across all NBC platforms). Realistically, an Olympics that cracked 13.7 million viewers last Sunday night with no lead-in can surely do far better with the biggest lead-in of them all. In the same post-Super Bowl window last year, “The Equalizer” drew 20.40 million on CBS. Prediction: 9.6, 19.96M viewers.

If the Olympics figures to do well after the Olympics, the reverse is true during. USA Network has taped speed skating, freestyle skiing and men’s biathlon during the first half of the Super Bowl followed by live figure skating the rest of the night. What kind of an audience can the Olympics muster opposite the Super Bowl — and on cable, no less? Last week’s Sunday evening window on USA Network averaged 1.86 million. Expect far fewer viewers this time around. Prediction: 908K viewers.

The Celtics have turned the corner of late, pushing past basic competence into the rarefied air of not bad. The Hawks have also turned things around, if not quite to the same extent. Ultimately, this is a matchup of teams off the national radar who, while improving, really do not move the needle. If the NBA is going to schedule games on Super Bowl Sunday, it will need to come with better matchups than this. Prediction: 1.0 rating, 1.76M viewers.

Super Bowl Sunday once featured a bustling assortment of sporting events. Twenty years ago, when FOX aired the “Big Game,” NBC, CBS and ABC each programmed full days of live sports — including an NBA doubleheader on NBC that featured Jordan, Reggie Miller, Shaq, Kobe and Dirk. A key difference between now and then is that FOX Super Bowl coverage did not truly get under way until 3 PM ET (for a mere three-hour pregame show). As pregame coverage has expanded, most sporting events have gotten out of the way.

One exception has been golf’s Phoenix Open, now the primary non-football draw on Super Bowl Sunday (though the Olympics will make this year an exception). Last year’s final round scored a 2.1 rating and 3.69 million viewers, figures that are more-than-healthy considering the competition. With the first two PGA Tour weekends on CBS down from last season, plus the added Olympic competition, expect ratings to slip. Nonetheless, do not expect any non-NBC sportscast to do any better on Sunday. Prediction: 1.8, 3.24M.

ESPN is punting opposite the Super Bowl, but ESPN2 has live college gymnastics. It is exceedingly rare for any U.S. based sporting event to take place during the Super Bowl, and one wonders exactly what went into the scheduling here. While college gymnastics turned in a solid number on ABC opposite NFL Wild Card weekend last month (624K), ESPN2 opposite the Super Bowl (and the Olympics) figures to be a different story. Expect extremely low numbers. Prediction: 75K viewers.