College Basketball Ratings

[whaler11]

In case you were wondering why college football drives television dollars...

http://www.sportsmediawatch.com/201...ratings-numbers-for-most-of-the-games-so-far/

 

[tzznandrew]

This has to be for a couple of reasons:

1. Players who stick around for four years are rarely great players (Hansborough a notable exception). Same goes for players who stick around 3 years (Kemba). It's hard to grow to love players or teams that aren't your own. Similarly, it's difficult to grow to hate players and teams. People don't want Duke or UK to win, but it's not the same as even in the early 2000s. Players leaving early really hurt college basketball. Basketball is about players. Football, then, has two advantages: first, players have to stick around 3 years. That's enough for people to get to know players. But, football has too many players. Sure, Brady, Rogers, and Manning are key draws, but people watch far more for their teams.
2. College basketball was about rivalries--local, and personal. And each team in conference played twice. Now, as conference rivalries are being destroyed through realignment (in a way that hasn't affected football as seriously), it's less interesting to watch the games.

 

[whaler11]

Those numbers are mind-boggling low. Against the NFL on Sundays are just funny. UNLV and Cal? Can't crack 100k.

Some of the numbers on NBCSN are just funny. Providence and Brown? 24k. Northeastern and George Mason? 19k.

UConn has a couple of pretty decent ratings. Louisville and Michigan State. For UConn and Pitt at noon on a Saturday they barely crack 400k though.

Thank God for the CBSSN they aren't rated. They probably have some 4 figure games.

 

[whaler11]

This has to be for a couple of reasons:

1. Players who stick around for four years are rarely great players (Hansborough a notable exception). Same goes for players who stick around 3 years (Kemba). It's hard to grow to love players or teams that aren't your own. Similarly, it's difficult to grow to hate players and teams. People don't want Duke or UK to win, but it's not the same as even in the early 2000s. Players leaving early really hurt college basketball. Basketball is about players. Football, then, has two advantages: first, players have to stick around 3 years. That's enough for people to get to know players. But, football has too many players. Sure, Brady, Rogers, and Manning are key draws, but people watch far more for their teams.
2. College basketball was about rivalries--local, and personal. And each team in conference played twice. Now, as conference rivalries are being destroyed through realignment (in a way that hasn't affected football as seriously), it's less interesting to watch the games.

That's two of the reasons for sure. I think the biggest is that most people ignore college basketball until March.

 

[Fishy]

Look at some of those ESPNU ratings.

Can you imagine what the ratings will be when some conference (gulp) has to take a deal with Fox Sports or NBC for their hoop content?

 

[whaler11]

Look at some of those ESPNU ratings.

Can you imagine what the ratings will be when some conference (gulp) has to take a deal with Fox Sports or NBC for their hoop content?

I was going to point out how brutal ESPNU is across the board. Clemson and NC State were up against the AFC championship game... but 109k?

 

[lv99]

I think one big reasons for college basketball's low ratings have to do with the NCAA Tournament. So many people don't watch until the NCAA Tournament.

It will be interesting to see what happens when college football playoffs start. I would bet even with just a 4-team playoff, ratings will take a signicant hit. If you're number 1, you can probably survive a loss so fewer people will watch to root for the top teams to lose during the regular season.

 

[ConnHuskBask]

How do these ratings compare to say, even 5 to 10 years ago?

 

[Robertelamin]

College basketball has been hurt big time by realignment/expansion. The end of home and homes really hurts. Thank god we won't see UConn/Cuse, Missouri/Kansas, Pitt/WVU and Maryland/Duke in basketball anymore, we get to see Rutgers/Illinois and Louisville/Wake Forest in football. Yay, awesome!

 

[whaler11]

College basketball has been hurt big time by realignment/expansion. The end of home and homes really hurts. Thank god we won't see UConn/Cuse, Missouri/Kansas, Pitt/WVU and Maryland/Duke in basketball anymore, we get to see Rutgers/Illinois and Louisville/Wake Forest in football. Yay, awesome!

I don't even think you are seeing all of that impact yet. Once the Big East finishes imploding winter Saturdays are going to be brutal.

 

[RS9999X]

If you look at football on ESPNU it's as bad. The money is the marquee matchups on Network and ESPN. Espnu ratings are pathetic. Zombie reruns of Law and Order outdraw ESPNU. This is what the scheduling alliance is al about. Winning the time slot on Espn.l


Sent from my Lumia 920 via Windows 8. Now bite me Apple Droids.

 

[UConn9604]

Not to overstate the obvious, but there are some disgusting numbers for Boston College. Compare their Saturday, Jan. 5, afternoon game at home vs. N.C. State (0.2, 348K) on ESPN2 to our Tuesday late-night, Dec. 4, neutral site game against them (0.7, 998K) on ESPN.

Congrats, ACC. Way to lock up that lucrative Boston market.

 

[whaler11]

Saturday January 5th was an NFL playoff day. You can't possibly compare the two dates.

 

[upstater]

I don't think players leaving early matters a whole lot. In basketball, players are recognizable. I don't know what it is, but I know I'm watching less ball than ever. I know why. It's an access question. I've gotten so used to watching games on my computer, that if i don't have real incentive for doing so (UConn) I won't bother now. I was looking for the Cuse and Ville games today, but one distraction after another (kids practices, lessons) interrupted me. There's no time unless you make time, and I'm not making time for anyone but UConn.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

The numbers are actually not that much worse than football. The college football link is available at the bottom of the page.

For example, Kansas/Temple drawing a 2.0 is a very respectable number for a 1/6 Sunday afternoon going head to head against the NFL playoffs.

Football games are almost all played on Saturday, and many don't receive any coverage. ABC will combine several games when reporting ratings. For example, on 10/27 Wisconsin/Michigan State and USC/Arizona were the 3:30 games nationally on ABC, and they drew a combined 2.6. They were going head to head against Georgia/Florida on CBS, but there were no other games on either ESPN or a network.

What really jumps off the page is how local TV ratings are. The reverse mirror for the games above was 0.4. In other words, either you watched the main game for your region, or you didn't watch anything.

In basketball, on any given night, there are at least 20 basketball games being televised simultaneously across the nation, plus the NBA. College basketball also goes head to head against the networks primetime lineup. College football goes up against reruns and...essentially nothing on Saturday afternoons in the fall. College basketball teams play 30 games during a regular season. College football teams play 12.

College football drives the bus, but basketball is very important. And if you think football or basketball is driving realignment, you are dead wrong.

 

[UConn9604]

Saturday January 5th was an NFL playoff day. You can't possibly compare the two dates.

Very fair point, although the marquee game was at night, and BC and NC State went up against Houston and Cincinnati (which began at 4:30).

 

[storrsroars]

Looking at that list, it just seems odd. UConn v. Pitt is almost guarantee entertainment regardless how good one or other is. Yet it's the worst rated of the 4 UConn games televised (albeit, the MSU game had the venue going for it). I dunno, UConn/Pitt is probably the rivalry I'll miss most.

Not to mention some weekday noon games between nobodies drew more viewers than primetime games with name schools - so I guess it does mean that ratings depend on what's up on other channels.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Basketball is a very different product that football. In football, there are fewer quality games and fewer games overall. In basketball, there are more games, the games are shorter (and therefore require less viewer commitment), and can go on at any time.

I also suspect there are wide variations in regional ratings. I suspect that basketball ratings in the south are terrible, while basketball ratings in the northeast are probably pretty good, even relative to football.

 

[Nostical]

The entire rating process is also flawed. These numbers are drawn from selected households. Imagine if every TV had an electronic signal sent to a ratings agency. Those numbers would vary by a wide degree from what are reported now. Also, sports bars, hotel bars, and other gathering spots are not in the ratings mix. If you remember that the whole idea of collecting ratings is to set advertising rates, you would think sportsbar venues would be even more valuable today since the commercials are shown. Too many folks are Tivoing their games from home and skimming past the commercials. Who knows how Tivo'd shows even get counted. Now having said all that everything is still relative, even in the current flawed system, and the BBall ratings are indeed pretty abyssmal.

 

[ZooCougar]

I agree that basketball is much, much lower in importance when compared to football. Regular season basketball in particular seems to have declined in interest. It seems that excitement ramps up when the bubble teams get to the conference tournaments and people start wondering about their brackets.

In the age of 500 channels, ratings aren't what they used to be. The audience is way more dispersed. Honestly, I can't remember the last time I looked at a channel lower than 30 on a DVR if it wasn't college football season. If it's not on ESPN or NBC, or on one of the movie channels or AMC then who gives a crap?

Whaler's post is spot on because it just isn't going to give us the kind of leverage that matters. So at the end of the day, does it really matter which basketball conference we are in? I can see how it would matter in terms of RPI. But wouldn't scheduling good OOC games make up for that?

We're going to need to do that anyways to make up for the hit in ticket sales associated with playing dreck like Tulane.

 

[brasssbonanzaa]

You also have to consider that college bball ratings go up in January, February, and March. In November and December, they're largely up against the holidays, NFL games, and bowl games. They're also almost always the worst games of the season outside of some pre-season tournament finals. College basketball's value comes in quantity of content, and ratings in March. For ESPN to get 1 million+ numbers for four hours plus, four to five nights a week is something football can't do. Yes, more people watch football games, but there are far fewer football games, and the weekday games are in bad TV time slots, either the Friday night graveyard, or on Thursday up against the NFL. And as the NFL Network becomes more and more widespread, those Thursday CFB games are going to be lower and lower level games.