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 On the rise NCAA Women's Tournament draws record viewers
Posted: Wednesday March 31, 1999 08:30 PM
NEW YORK (AP) - While ESPN celebrated record ratings for the women's tournament and the title game, CBS could only offer excuses as to why the men set records for futility. Connecticut's upset of Duke on Monday night posted a record-low 17.2 national rating and a 27 share since CBS began televising the event in 1982. The women's championship game between Purdue and Duke recorded a 4.3 cable rating, the biggest in the network's four-year history of broadcasting the event. The women's title game broke the 4.0 mark set in 1997 between Tennessee and Old Dominion and jumped 16 percent from last year's Tennessee-Louisiana Tech finale. Overall tournament ratings were also up this year for the women. Games on ESPN rose 24 percent and ESPN2 had a 8 percent increase, compared with last season. "Women's basketball is expanding in depth and gaining viewers on a seasonal basis," said Len DeLuca, ESPN vice president of programming development. "Are we surprised even without Tennessee and UConn that we continue to grow? No, because we are college basketball's best platform for promotion and growth, whether it be women's or men's." This year's men's tournament as a whole had a 6.8/15 share, down 7 percent from last year's 7.3/17. The previous record-low was a 7.2 in 1997, when Arizona defeated Kentucky in the title game. "The games weren't as close as they had been last year," CBS spokeswoman Leslie Anne Wade said. 'We were a little hurt by the world events on Saturday. ... and the West coast numbers were certainly lower than before." The men's title game fell 3 percent from last season's Kentucky-Utah final, which had a 17.8 rating and 28 share. It was the lowest-rated NCAA championship game since the 1972 UCLA-Florida State final, which was played in the afternoon. "You're always a little disappointed even when it's a high number because you'd like to see it higher," Wade said. "This is one of our favorite events and this doesn't do anything to alter our affection for it." Only 14 of the 63 games were decided by five points or under, just one went into overtime and 17 were blowouts of 20 points or more. Last year's tournament had 20 games within five points, five in overtime and 11 determined by 20 points or more. Ratings for most of the West Coast cities fell because there were no representatives from the region, unlike last year when both Stanford and Utah made the Final Four. The championship game dropped 28 percent in Los Angeles and 13 percent in San Francisco. The rating is the percentage of TV households in the nation represents 994,000 homes. The share is the percentage tuned to a program among those televisions on at the time.
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