Gators Get Crappy Ratings in NCAA Tourney

[rmackman]

Associated Press

NEW YORK - The NCAA tournament championship game between Florida and UCLA drew an 11.2 Nielsen rating for CBS, down 25 percent from last year?s final.

Florida?s 73-57 victory over UCLA on Monday was watched by 12.31 million households. Last season, North Carolina beat Illinois in the final and the game drew a 15.0 rating.

But the Gators and Bruins did slightly better than the 2004 championship game, when Connecticut?s victory over Georgia Tech drew an 11.0 rating.

CBS?s 26 tournament telecasts averaged a 6.3 rating ? with an average of 6.959 million households watching ? down 9 percent from last season (6.9), but up 2 percent from 2004.

The thing is this was the 2nd lowest rating for a Final since the Tournament went Prime Time in the mid 70's. The Marlins got bad ratings in both of their World Series wins as well, so what it says to me is if the State of Florida makes the Championship....NOBODY CARES! That's disheartening. Part of the problem though, is that its own residents are the ones who don't care! Conan Obrien said last night that he had video of Florida fans celebrating their win, and then he showed people in a nursing home trying to stay alive. Oy!

[FiddySicks]

[Cujo]

I stopped watching about ten minutes in. At that point you knew it was going to be a "boat race" once Florida went up by 10. I instead tuned in to the 7-1 Oilers blowout of the Coyotes. Now THAT was a game!

[HowBoutThemFins]

No one likes to watch a blow out. It's that simple.

[NJTank]

Yeah it was not a close game Staurdays Games were not close either so that explains your raitings.

[SEMOSTLfan]

for being such a good tourney up to the final four, the games on saturdy and mondays championship were incredibly disappointing and not entertaining at all.

[VitaminD]

Not only were the 2 games on Saturday uncompetitive and unenjoyable to watch (unless you're a fan/alum of UCLA or UF), most people's brackets were wrecked before the Final Four even got started, so anyone who'd normally watch with a financial interest in the game did something else. Last year, thousands of people had money riding on UNC or Illinois for their brackets, even if they had no affiliation with either school; without a big-time favorite in the final this year to affect brackets (UConn, Duke, Villanova), all you had was a blowout. It's not Florida's fault, at least not entirely.

[HedleyLamarr]

When you're competing with the NHL and NBA seasons hitting the stretch run and Opening Day for MLB, a college basketball game starting after 9pm just won't get much draw outside of the competing schools' areas and the college basketball hotbeds.

[ROCHitman]

The Women's championship was twice as good, but I would bet it was viewed by juch less than half the number that watched the men's championship.

[leopard88]

The Women's championship was twice as good, but I would bet it was viewed by juch less than half the number that watched the men's championship.

I read this morning that the overnight on the women's game was 3.1 (barely more than 1/4 of the men's game's rating), so you are right on the money.

[logodawg]

The Women's championship was twice as good, but I would bet it was viewed by  juch less than half the number that watched the men's championship.

I read this morning that the overnight on the women's game was 3.1 (barely more than 1/4 of the men's game's rating), so you are right on the money.

That's actually pretty impressive considering that the Men's game was Primetime on a over the air network, were as the Women's was on basic cable. At least I know most cable channels would kill for a 3.1 rating.

[nsentv]

The women's national championship game usually gets pretty good ratings for ESPN. Last year's men's national championship game outdid the NBA Finals, the World Series, the Daytona 500, Monday Night Football, the BCS and this year's Winter Olympics. The game, between UNC and Illinois, got a 16 rating.