Cinderella Ratings Problem For CBS/NCAA
Published March 23, 2010 | 
Cinderella’s are all the story and all the hype in the NCAA tournament right now. We’ve got #12 seed Cornell, #9 Northern Iowa who took down #1 seed Kansas. St. Mary’s is still around.
Now, watching the underdog Cinderella take down the big guys is awesome to watch (sometimes even when it’s at the expense of our bracket pools). ”The Sandman” Samham for St. Mary’s and Farokmanesh for Northern Iowa were my two favorite stars of the last round of the tournament. But these guy’s still being around could be at huge expense to the NCAA and CBS.
CBS loses money for the ad sales and TV ratings pushing viewers to their other shows. It also affects the amount they are willing to pay for the next lucrative contract with the NCAA. And the NCAA has the opportunity to opt out of their 6 billion dollar deal after this year’s tournament. Cinderellas simply do not help TV ratings, they actually historically can hurt them pretty bad.
This year, some of the biggest brands in college basketball, UNC, UCLA, UCONN, and Indiana, didn’t even make the tournament. Notre Dame and Georgetown lost in the first round. ’Nova and a huge upset of Kansas caused them to follow out in the second round.
Now, CBS got a 5.3 overnight rating for the first weekend of the NCAA tournament. That is only 2% lower than last year which isn’t great, but also isn’t a huge problem for the NCAA. And online streaming for CBS is up 11% which also makes sense in light of the amount of marketing they did for it this year.
The problem comes as we move forward. Cornell-Kentucky may be the only intriguing match-up involving a Cinderella. Cornell got a terrible seed, and has a chance to be a huge upset in this game. St. Mary’s Butler is a dud, while it may still be a good game. WV-Washington is also a ratings dud. 11 out of 14 teams from the ACC and Big East, the biggest ratings conferences have been ousted. And 10 out of the 16 remaining are from the middle of the country.
When George Mason made it to the Final Four in 2006, the ratings were the lowest in the last decade by far for the entire tournament, especially the Final Four. This was following the best year in the last decade in 2005 when UNC met Illinois in the finals.
Another effect of the Cinderella’s is lost interest in everyone’s bracket. People are watching their brackets fall apart and are destined to lose their bracket pool unless they had Ohio State going to the Final Four over Kansas, which wouldn’t include a single expert for ESPN. Often times there will still be a perfect bracket in ESPN’s bracket challenge. That is no longer as well.
We love watching the Cinderellas take down powerhouse schools, but then we don’t necessarily want to tune in for the next game where Cornell gets blown out by Kentucky. We do want star power. That begins with the explosive John Wall and the versatile Evan Turner (the two best in college basketball) and continues with Coach K and Jim Boeheim. Duke is always ratings gold, the reason they got the #1 seed probably. A Syracuse/Duke Final or Ohio State/Kentucky final could save the ratings and a lot of money for the NCAA in their next contract.
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