Viewers’ Choice: Meaningless Bowls Over Playoff Basketball
"March Madness is huge, right? This year, the multiweek extravaganza has had its usual share of upsets, an exhilarated coach falling off his rolling chair after a victory and the presence of a dominant Kentucky team. Nearly 11.6 million brackets were submitted to ESPN.com’s annual contest. So what in college sports could be a bigger fan draw than the N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament?
How about a bunch of bowl games? Yes, college football bowl games — nearly all of which had no meaning other than providing athletes with a postseason experience.
It is an imperfect comparison: a tournament with a natural direction of 68 teams reduced to a final pairing versus a bowl system that only this year introduced a four-team playoff to decide a national champion — the only instance in the history of bowl games when a winner advanced to the next level
So it is worth noting that none of the 38 bowl games carried by the ESPN empire last season had fewer viewers than the 1.1 million who tuned in for the inaugural Camellia Bowl from Montgomery, Ala., while nine early-round N.C.A.A. tournament matchups generated audiences below that figure — Texas Southern-Arizona, a TNT telecast, was ranked last at 501,000 — based on the available data from 40 of the 48 games played before Thursday.
March Madness laid low by the likes of the Belk Bowl?
This is madness, I tell you, a subversion of the notion that the men’s tournament is the sine qua non of college sports. Or it could just be simple: No matter the excitement surrounding March Madness, the silly season of December-January bowls is an example of football’s popularity over basketball.
Consider this:
■ Iowa played two prime-time N.C.A.A. tournament games last week; each averaged a little more than two million viewers. But Iowa’s afternoon loss to Tennessee in the TaxSlayer Bowl — a game with nothing at stake — attracted 4.1 million.
■ Wisconsin’s two victories last week generated between 2.7 million and 3.5 million viewers, but the Badgers’ overtime win over Auburn in the Outback Bowl was seen by 6.4 million.
■ The viewership for each of Louisville’s tournament games did not come close to the 6.4 million who watched the Cardinals lose to Georgia in, yes, the Belk Bowl.
■ Notre Dame’s win over Butler on Saturday night was seen by a more-than-respectable viewership of 3.9 million. But far more, 5.3 million, saw the Irish beat Louisiana State in the Music City Bowl in December.
Some of the viewership differences between the bowls and the tournament can be attributed to scheduling, matchups and networks carrying games. It’s easier to find an audience in prime time than in the afternoon. ESPN is more of a sports destination than truTV, which had some of the tournament’s least-watched games. ESPN made it easy for some of the bowls to be seen by wide audiences. Including the playoff games, ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC carried 38 bowls last season. Seven were packed into New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.
Some universities that send teams to bowl games and the basketball tournament are historically stronger at football than basketball. Mississippi, which is known for its football team, drew an audience of 984,000 when it lost to Xavier in basketball last Thursday afternoon. But when Ole Miss was trampled by Texas Christian in the Peach Bowl, five million watched. On the flip side, North Carolina, with its five national titles in men’s basketball, had more viewers for its first two tournament games than it did when its football team lost to Rutgers in the Quick Lane Bowl.
Oregon is an illustration of the difference in attention a great football program receives over a less renowned but pretty good basketball team. The Ducks’ win over Florida State in the Rose Bowl was seen by a little more than 28 million viewers — an audience about eight times bigger than the one that tuned in for the basketball team’s loss to Wisconsin in prime time on Sunday.
After beating Texas Southern in front of a meager afternoon audience, Arizona demonstrated that having a better opponent in a better slot on a broadcast network could lead to an audience increase. Arizona drew 8.3 million viewers for its 73-58 win over Ohio State, a broadcast that began late Saturday afternoon on CBS. That total exceeded the 7.4 million who watched the Wildcats lose to Boise State on New Year’s Eve in the Fiesta Bowl.
And state bragging rights can turn into a television magnet for fans nationally. Take Wichita State’s 78-65 upset of Kansas that tipped off around 5 p.m. on Sunday. The game attracted 9.9 million viewers — the most for any tournament game, according to available data. Kansas, a state with a population of 2.9 million, cannot be responsible for all those viewers."
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