Welcome back to “The Needle,” a ratings-focused column on Sports Media Watch that will break down the numbers, attempt to put some context behind the data, and discuss broader trends in measurement and television viewing.
Final Four Saturday marked the ten-year anniversary of then-Turner Sports carrying the NCAA men’s basketball national championship game for the very first time. Villanova vs. North Carolina in an all-time finish on TBS, TNT and truTV, a true milestone in the history of the sports division that began with Atlanta Braves baseball three decades earlier. It was the lowest rated national championship ever played at the time.
A decade later, TBS, TNT and truTV presented the NCAA Men’s Final Four exclusively for the eighth time. But was it the last?
Given the uncertainty surrounding the future of TNT Sports, it is impossible to know exactly what NCAA men’s basketball tournament coverage will look like in future years. If Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery is approved by regulators unaltered, CBS and TNT Sports could be under the same umbrella in time for next year’s tournament. Perhaps a combined entity would maintain the status quo, down to the announcers and graphics. Or perhaps it would take the opportunity to make substantive changes.
CBS and TNT Sports have been partnering on the NCAA men’s basketball tournament for 15 years, and that arrangement has come with compromises. CBS aired the tournament solo for 20-straight seasons from 1991-2010, but by the end of that run, the price tag had gotten so high for the network — by the standards of the economically-depressed times — that it actually reached out to ESPN about offloading the remaining years of its contract. When the NCAA opted out of its rights deal following the 2010 tournament, there was no way CBS could have kept the rights without then-Turner Sports swooping in to defray more than half the cost in a joint bid. And together, CBS and Turner’s bid was enough to beat back ESPN.
That backstory might explain why the Turner Sports networks ever got a piece of the Final Four and National Championship. It made sense for then-Time Warner to want the biggest games on cable because it had no broadcast network, leaving TBS, TNT and truTV as its biggest platforms (at least where sports was concerned). Given it paid more than half of the rights fee — and was the only reason CBS kept the tournament instead of losing rights to ESPN — it understandably held sway.
There is little doubt CBS would have preferred to air those games every year, and the initial contract did not give Turner its first crack at those events until 2016 — more than five seasons into the deal. When Turner triggered an option in its contract allowing it to air the Final Four and title game two years earlier in 2014, the sides agreed to an apparent compromise where Turner would get the semifinals both years and CBS would keep the title game. When it came time to extend the agreement, there were reports that CBS and Turner would discuss the possibility of making that arrangement permanent, but those evidently went nowhere — and instead, the Turner networks have carried both the Final Four and National Championship every-other-year for a decade (save of course for 2020).
Given the above, it might go without saying that if CBS had any choice in the matter, it would always carry the Final Four and title game. And if Paramount acquires Warner Bros. Discovery and TNT Sports becomes combined with CBS Sports, CBS will have the only choice in the matter.
There are reasons why Paramount could choose to have TBS, TNT and truTV continue airing the Final Four and National Championship, or at least some portion of them, through the end of its contract in 2032. To begin with, it makes little sense to acquire a suite of cable networks and then plunder them of programming, especially given that TNT Sports has been weathering perceptions of decline since losing NBA rights. The networks still have contracts with cable distributors that will need to be satisfied — and renewed. One could argue that Paramount will have an incentive to ensure that they will retain at least a piece of the biggest events.
And while CBS is quite obviously the biggest platform for the tournament, the TNT Sports networks are pulling their weight. Through the regional finals, tournament viewership on TNT (3.1M) and TBS (2.7M) was up 30 and 21 percent respectively from last year. CBS was averaging more viewers than those two networks combined, but its audience was only up four percent year-over-year. (truTV brought up the rear with 1.60 million for its games, up 1 percent.)
One could argue that the TNT Sports networks are the driving force behind this year’s tournament ranking as the officially most-watched since 1993 entering the Final Four, with an average of 10.3 million viewers per window. (Note that Nielsen did not begin including out-of-home viewing in its estimates until 2020, only began doing so in 100 percent of markets a year ago, and is mere months into a new methodology that combines its traditional panel with “Big Data” from smart TVs and set-top boxes. Those changes generally skew comparisons to past years.)
Last weekend, Elite Eight Saturday on TBS and truTV (9.1M) was the most-watched in a decade (albeit up only six percent from last year, within the margin that can be explained by the aforementioned methodological changes). CBS fared better the following day with 10.4 million (+10%), but that was the second-least watched Elite Eight Sunday in a decade.
That decade-ago comparison is pertinent to this discussion. Not only was that the first year TBS carried the Final Four and National Championship, but it was the only year CBS and TBS swapped their usual Elite Eight days. CBS had the Saturday games, TBS had the Sunday games. Meaning last weekend, the most-watched Elite Eight Saturday on TBS still could not reach the last time CBS had those games. And one of the least-watched Elite Eight Sundays on CBS still outdrew the last time TBS had those games.
Ultimately, cable at its strongest will generally still fall short of broadcast levels. And broadcast at its weakest will generally outperform cable.
This year’s Men’s Final Four is quite attractive on paper. Michigan was one of the top draws during the regular season, combining with Duke to account for eight of the ten largest audiences. Illinois and Arizona are large state schools with alumni bases to match and two decades of pent-up anticipation — as neither had been to the Final Four since the early 2000s. UConn might be the only weak spot, as the Huskies have never been a particularly strong draw in the Final Four.
And there is precedent for the Final Four delivering outsized audiences on cable. In 2015, the end of Kentucky’s undefeated bid attracted 22.6 million across TBS, TNT and truTV — the largest college basketball audience ever on cable, and still the fourth-largest regardless of network since the joint agreement began in 2011. Four years ago, the first-ever meeting of North Carolina and Duke in the men’s tournament averaged 17.7 million across the three cable networks, the third-largest audience for a men’s game since the COVID hiatus in 2020. The TNT Sports networks actually own three of the four largest audiences in the national semifinals since they first began carrying those games in 2014 (the two aforementioned games, plus Kentucky-Wisconsin in 2014).
On the other end of the scale, it should be noted that the two least-watched national semifinals in the Nielsen people-meter era both aired on CBS, albeit under anomalous circumstances. Baylor-Houston drew a record-low 8.4 million in the COVID-altered year of 2021, and Kansas-Marquette drew 9.9 million in the Iraq War year of 2003. CBS also aired the least-watched national championship, UConn-San Diego State in 2023 (14.7M).
Those exceptions are compelling, but they are exceptions nonetheless. The rule is that three of the four least-watched national title games have aired on cable, as have four of the six least-watched national semifinals. All things being equal, broadcast television has a higher ceiling and floor than cable, and is always going to be the safer bet if one wants to maximize viewership.
In sports television, financial considerations often override any concern about the ratings. It is not clear just how committed Paramount will be to the long-term survival of TBS, TNT and truTV, but that will likely be the determining factor as to whether these games will air on cable moving forward. If keeping the cable networks afloat is of paramount importance, then one should expect to see at least some of these games on cable in 2028, 2030 and 2032.
Otherwise, is there any argument for continuing the status quo? Even the biggest cable television audiences will tend to leave some viewers on the table as compared to broadcast television. Unless there is some financial or contractual incentive for doing so, why sacrifice viewership on the most-watched games of the year?
Bluebloods are not always superior to Cinderella
In the discussion about bluebloods versus Cinderellas, a couple of recent data points seem relevant. Duke’s final two games of this year’s tournament, which were the most-watched of their respective rounds, averaged fewer viewers than the equivalent games of 15 seed Saint Peter’s run four years ago. Duke-St. John’s in the Sweet 16 averaged a 4.5 rating and 9.37 million viewers; UConn-Duke in the Elite Eight had a 6.4 and 13.43 million. Four years ago, Saint Peter’s upset of Purdue had a 5.4 and 10.18 million in the Sweet 16 and their Elite Eight drubbing at the hands of North Carolina drew a 7.2 and 13.58 million — and that is with zero “Big Data” and less out-of-home viewing being tracked by Nielsen.
There are some caveats, of course. Duke-St. John’s aired in a competitive window that also included Michigan-Alabama (1.6, 3.34M) and combined for 14.2 million, the highest in that specific Friday night window since 1992. The Saint Peter’s-Purdue game had weaker competition from Providence-Kansas (1.4, 2.65M) in a window that combined for fewer viewers (12.83M).
The Elite Eight comparison is not as easy to explain. UConn-Duke was a blowout for most of the night, but North Carolina-Saint Peter’s was a blowout for the whole game. One possible factor? A much weaker lead-in.
Four years ago, Kansas-Miami drew a 5.3 and 9.51 million in the early window; this time around, Michigan’s rout of Tennessee had a mere 3.7 and 7.49 million. The Wolverines’ win was quite possibly the lowest rated Elite Eight Sunday game on record (and the only thing saving it from a viewership low was Nielsen’s shift to “Big Data + Panel” methodology, which helped edge the audience past last year’s 7.1 million for Houston-Tennessee in the same window).
The conventional wisdom is that Cinderellas are a ratings drag in the second week — and that is generally true. But just as one might in setting a bracket, be wary of overstating the gap between the bluebloods and the underdogs. CBS might have been better off with a Cinderella than that Michigan-Tennessee game last weekend.
Plus: UFL looks to bounce back from sophomore slump common of upstart leagues
It would be an overstatement to extrapolate an ‘encouraging start’ from one window, but the UFL had at least one positive viewership story from its opening weekend as ESPN’s St. Louis-DC game averaged 938,000 viewers, the second-largest UFL audience on the network.
The league is coming off of a sophomore slump — declining 19% last season, per UFL News Hub — which is entirely common for those fledgling leagues lucky enough to last multiple seasons. TGL just finished its second season averaging 488,000 viewers according to Sports Business Journal, officially down 2% from last year (498K). But that decline swells to 20% when comparing this year’s average to its Nielsen “Big Data” equivalent from a year ago (610K).
Season two of the women’s basketball league Unrivaled averaged 166,000 viewers for games that aired on both TNT and truTV, down 25% from 221,000 for those games last season. (A viewership figure including truTV-exclusive games was not immediately available, but the across-all-networks average was said to be down 40 percent — and that is not factoring in “Big Data” for last year’s games).
The exception continues to be LOVB volleyball, which has considerably greater television exposure this year on USA than last year airing sporadically on the lesser ESPN networks. LOVB was averaging 106,000 viewers through eight matches on USA, up 42% from an ESPN2 average last season that consisted of two total telecasts.
