UConn–San Diego State Final Delivers Historically Low Ratings | Page 2 | The Boneyard

UConn–San Diego State Final Delivers Historically Low Ratings

On one of the post-game shows, the discussion invariably turned to the Blue Blood question. Someone said, something like, "How can UConn be a Blue Blood when San Diego State had three times the fans at the Final?" Another person defended UConn and said, "Well, CT is a small state."
 
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nelsonmuntz said:
Not surprising. Some upsets are good for fan interest. Too many upsets are bad.
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No B1G team , no B12 team , no PAC 12 team , No SEC team .
Even the ACC team not being from the traditional basketball centric area ( Tobacco Road) diminished the interest from that casual ACC fans.
Compare those fan bases to
CUSA , MW , and even the Big East
There is a reason those conferences have huge media deals . They have huge fan bases . I’m sure the hard core basketball fans from those areas were watching but without a local interest you lose a lot of casual fans.
It would be interesting to see a breakdown by area compared to previous years .
If Alabama made it instead of SDSU
That would have been an extra 1million or more. Except to serious BB fans it’s more about the team than the basketball When UConn is the biggest name school in the final for those numbers aren’t shocking

A 9 :15 Eastern , 8:15 central 7:15 Mountain and 6:15 Pacific/ also AZ
for a 2+ hr game is not a late start
even if you had to work in the East.
It not football or Baseball
 
AZHuskiePop said:
No B1G team , no B12 team , no PAC 12 team , No SEC team .
Even the ACC team not being from the traditional basketball centric area ( Tobacco Road) diminished the interest from that casual ACC fans.
Compare those fan bases to
CUSA , MW , and even the Big East
There is a reason those conferences have huge media deals . They have huge fan bases . I’m sure the hard core basketball fans from those areas were watching but without a local interest you lose a lot of casual fans.
It would be interesting to see a breakdown by area compared to previous years .
If Alabama made it instead of SDSU
That would have been an extra 1million or more. Except to serious BB fans it’s more about the team than the basketball When UConn is the biggest name school in the final for those numbers aren’t shocking

A 9 :15 Eastern , 8:15 central 7:15 Mountain and 6:15 Pacific/ also AZ
for a 2+ hr game is not a late start
even if you had to work in the East.
It not football or Baseball
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It is a stretch to take a shot at the Big East using the fact that a mid-major ish program that is located in paradise (and therefore does not generate great fan interest on its best days) and at various points in the 48 hours leading up to the game was the biggest underdog in over 25 years, did not rock the ratings.

San Diegans do not focus much on indoor sports when the weather is 75 and sunny 350 days of the year.
 
Outside of the northeast there wasn't a whole lot to attract a large audience.

The outcome was basically viewed as a foregone conclusion.

No compelling story lines.

The west coast, especially California and more specifically southern California doesn't have a strong track record watching sports events.

Traditional strong college basketball viewership areas in the south and midwest felt completely disconnected with the tournament by the sweet sixteen.

I believe that the main reason there was any viewership at all was because of us.
 
shizzle787 said:
If UConn played Duke in the title game, it would have had great ratings. This is about SDSU more than anything.
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What if it was Duke-SDSU?

I think another thing that is kind of baked in to blue blood status is a national following. KU, UCLA, Duke, UNC, UK…

We are still a regional program and, although surely more popular than the other teams in the final four (if not even the elite eight), we don’t have quite the pull of those programs.
 
shizzle787 said:
If UConn played Duke in the title game, it would have had great ratings. This is about SDSU more than anything.
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It's also about how UConn played through the Tournament and vs. OOC opponents.

UConn lead by 16 in the 1st half and by 12 at halftime. The people on this board and within the state boundaries of CT may have recalled SDSU's last second comeback on Saturday, but anyone without skin in the game would be perfectly content to get a full night's sleep and catch highlights off YouTube in the morning...just like any number of us did last year.

I'd also posit that compiling viewership ratings is increasingly subjective, bordering on arbitrary.

The 1979 Championship game drew over 40M viewers when the US population was about 225 Million. The Population today is approaching 330 million and not only are there hundreds more TV channels, there is about a dozen ways to take in the game.
 
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I also don't think UConn is a love it or hate it school for most college basketball fans. If Duke or Kentucky was playing, the college basketball fans who don't root for either school would watch to cheer for an SDSU win and the ratings would be better.
 
LoyalFanCT said:
Was it just largely because it started late at night, or, was it a lack of national interest in the game.

www.si.com

UConn–San Diego State Final Delivers Historically Low Ratings

The showdown between the Huskies and Aztecs didn’t exactly move the needle.
www.si.com www.si.com
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Late start was a terrible idea. Needs to be 8:20 not 9:20. People on the west coast don't watch sports, they jog. San Diego State wasn't much of a draw, just a meh team with a boring style. FAU and UConn would have set up more of a David and Goliath story, plus it would be more exciting.
 
The 9:20 start removes a bunch of casual fans from the east coast. If you're not a passionate fan why even start watching a game you won't be up to finish
Can say the same about a lot of east coast kids as well.
Outside of CT or the fan base, there wasn't really a marquee name to sell the game on. Hawk has been on the rise, but I'm surprised by how many pretty knowledgable fans I know could not name a single player from either team. A few knew "the tall dude who grew up near ESPN headquarters"
The absolute destruction of the vast majority of fans brackets also player a role, I'm willing to bet It was a down year for the old guard blue bloods and most lost early to teams that had people going "Who?" When fans teams are knocked out early, many don't stick around for 2 more weeks when their teams are home already.
Finally, after the UConn drubbing of Gonzaga, at least non UConn fans I know here in VA thought it was just going to be a coronation.
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We were just too good. I was on a lot of group texts during the fau v SDSU game that were just friends not UConn fans. But there were only two texts about the UConn game. 1) Hope second game is a good one also. 2) Nope after u we took ten point lead in first half. Most everyone even JC knew we were going to win. Just us hard core fans sweating every minute. No 0ne expected to be entertained.we were just too good!
 
nomar said:
Everybody expected UConn to win
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Interestingly Uconn may have become a victim of its own success. Another game that was top 5 all time for low ratings was the 2004 championship game and as we all remember at about the second round people were calling it the Uconn invitational as everyone expect us to win. Same thing ended up happening this year. People see Uconn and roll their eyes and say theyre going to win it again why should i watch. You couple that with us playing SDSU and the championship game simply wasnt compelling and SDSU plays ugly. If we had played another blue blood the ratings wouldve been better but ratings schmatings! We`ve got #5 and thats all that matters.
 
Honestly, the amount of air people have given to this story and the blue blood argument is absurd. Who cares how many people watched or if we're a blue blood or not? All I care about is winning championships, whether that's in front of 10 fans or 10 billion fans. As for the blue blood argument, we're in a league/class of our own.

I've given up caring what anyone else thinks of our beloved university. We all have differing opinions on here, but one thing we don't debate is our love of UConn and how we feel about them. People can think the high heavens of Duke, UK or KU, but they don't have what we have: 5 titles (and counting) in 24 years.

Let people continue to underestimate us. It's worked out great for the ACC (Miami, BC, Cuse, Pitt, VaTech, L'ville), the Big 12 (WVU), and the B10 (Rutgers) so far. One of these days the rest of the world will come around to what we've been preaching all along: UConn is the Standard.
 
huskymedic said:
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Let me just add that one more caveat to those numbers. UConn is a well known brand but not well liked which comes with the territory of success. What a lot of these reports leave out about the low ratings is that ratings have been dropping for the last 5 tournaments regardless of whos playing. But if you look beneath the surface this is just another dig at UConn which goes alongside the "they had an easy path" narrative. The majority of the country hates seeing us continually winning especially when they thought they had rid themselves of us after the GOAT retired. Think about how you felt about Duke before we won a title. Thats how a lot of the country and national media feel about UConn.
 
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Inyatkin said:
It's like when they do those list of worst title teams of all time with 2014 at the bottom. I'll definitely be crying about that one.
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This but with the trophy

Animated GIF
 
UConntLose said:
Honestly, the amount of air people have given to this story and the blue blood argument is absurd. Who cares how many people watched or if we're a blue blood or not? All I care about is winning championships, whether that's in front of 10 fans or 10 billion fans. As for the blue blood argument, we're in a league/class of our own.

I've given up caring what anyone else thinks of our beloved university. We all have differing opinions on here, but one thing we don't debate is our love of UConn and how we feel about them. People can think the high heavens of Duke, UK or KU, but they don't have what we have: 5 titles (and counting) in 24 years.

Let people continue to underestimate us. It's worked out great for the ACC (Miami, BC, Cuse, Pitt, VaTech, L'ville), the Big 12 (WVU), and the B10 (Rutgers) so far. One of these days the rest of the world will come around to what we've been preaching all along: UConn is the Standard.
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You are referring to on-field performance. Administrators have their eight figure annuity. On-field performance is an afterthought. The ACC loves having 'Cuse and BC in the conference. it pumps up the records of the "real" programs and taps into media markets for the ACCN.

If on-field performance was any consideration, BC would have been disqualified in 1996.
 
Spaceman213J said:
The 9:20 start removes a bunch of casual fans from the east coast. If you're not a passionate fan why even start watching a game you won't be up to finish
Can say the same about a lot of east coast kids as well.
Outside of CT or the fan base, there wasn't really a marquee name to sell the game on. Hawk has been on the rise, but I'm surprised by how many pretty knowledgable fans I know could not name a single player from either team. A few knew "the tall dude who grew up near ESPN headquarters"
The absolute destruction of the vast majority of fans brackets also player a role, I'm willing to bet It was a down year for the old guard blue bloods and most lost early to teams that had people going "Who?" When fans teams are knocked out early, many don't stick around for 2 more weeks when their teams are home already.
Finally, after the UConn drubbing of Gonzaga, at least non UConn fans I know here in VA thought it was just going to be a coronation.
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I wonder a bit about portal effects. If not 2023 specifically, then going forward, generally.

To your point about player name recognition, I feel the portal may tend to dilute that.

When a player is associated with a program, there is a stronger recognition. When a portal player comes in, he had better have his own, established recognition.

I recently read about a portal guy who is entertaining his fourth team.....

That could be somewhat of a brand weakness, as this experiment moves forward.
 
The sweet 16 and elite eight ratings were down too, so it wasn't just the final
 
There’s a level of interest that millions of pools bring as well - and when so few people had their teams left by Monday night it has to affect ratings. My wife was never so interested in Gonzaga until she picked them as her champ in our pool - but once they were gone, so was interest.

I couldn’t care less - pretty sure the viewership among Uconn fans was pretty high
 
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