[Lefty Noob]

Well, the Neilsen Ratings are in for the 2006 NCAA tournament championship game between Florida and UCLA. The news isn't good, but it isn't as bad as expected. It drew an 11.2 rating, which is down 25% from 2005 but was marginally better than the 2006 finals. Furthermore, CBS averaged nearly 7 million households viewing each of the 26 tourney games they aired, which was down 9% from last year but up 2% from 2004. Anyone else surprised the numbers weren't all that bad?

[cjg11582]

Not really, the final four lacked swagger. I think it proves the general public likes upsets in the earlier rounds but wants and expects too see the heavy hitters in the latter rounds. You can equate it to a golf tournament, no one wants too watch the 100th ranked player on Sunday, everyone wants Woods, Mickelson and Singh. Much like everyone wanted UConn and Duke.
Which I find kind of depressing, George Mason's run provided more entertainment than any one game is possibly capable of providing. Even if that one game is for a championship. I also think that four rounds of great, competitive games compensates for two rounds (a total of three games) of obvious and dull outcomes.

[Lefty Noob]

That's true to a point. I expect people to either want the heavyweights (Duke, UConn) or a Cinderella like George Mason to be in the Finals. I bet the ratings would have been better had they made it to the title game.

[ThePundit]

All 3 games were blowouts. That hurt the ratings as well.

[cjg11582]

I just wouldn't read much into it. this was unequivocally the most peculiar tournament I have seen since I started watching it annually (1992) and while I enjoyed it, I can understand why a mainstream audience would not. Do not expect the ratings to be down next year.

[Lefty Noob]

Still, the ratings were up from 2004. What do you make of that?

[cjg11582]

Well if you remember the 2004 tournament it essentially lacked any fizzle. In the final four UConn was clearly the favorite and they beat Duke (I would be willing to bet that semifinal game was rated higher than any single game in the 2006 tournament) while Oklahoma State lost to Georgia Tech. There just wasn't any backstory to any of the tournament. No exceptional college teams except for UConn, everyone else was completely forgettable to the average or below average fan. Usually you can just look at the match-ups and determine if there will be a large base audience.
Ultimately the final four will be something that a certain sect of the population is going to watch regardless of who is participating. To establish a surprisingly large fan base their either has to be future NBA talent (if Lebron was forced to go to OSU, or Carmelo had stayed for his sophomore season, the nielsen's would have been considerably higher had he reached the final four in 2004) which we should clearly see in pending final fours, great elite eight games (like in 2005) to establish hype for the semi final games, or at least two collectively dominant teams. And yes it can go the other way, if GMU had reached the title game the ratings probably would have reflected that with exponential growth. But when that happens it is an aberration, not the natural precursor of laudatory TV ratings.