Courtesy USA Today

(March 28, 2011) While fans might love the idea of NCAA Cinderellas, the wicked power-conference stepsisters usually draw the big TV ratings. But then, as Dick Vitale suggested on ESPN before Sunday's North Carolina-Kentucky game, they have the right outfits: "I get goosebumps thinking about those jerseys and all the history and tradition."

So Saturday is a test: Will the masses really flock to a VCU-Butler tango?

Not surprisingly, the mid-major teams got the early time slot for the national semifinals, with a tip at 6:09 p.m. ET, as brand names Kentucky and Connecticut get the marquee later slot.

"It's going to be fine," says Mike Aresco, CBS Sports executive vice president. "Butler is such a big story, and was such a big story last year in getting to the championship game. And the teams have two young coaches, and nobody remembers two coaches this young doing anything like this. And Butler has become a national darling, like Gonzaga 10 years ago."

And since VCU had to play one of the four play-in, er, first-round games, Turner Sports President David Levy sees benefits for those games next year: "It certainly proves the First Four has more meaning. Maybe people now will start filling out brackets on Tuesday rather than Thursday."

Through Saturday, ratings for CBS/Turner NCAA coverage were up 13% over last year, with each TV game window averaging 5.9% of U.S. TV households. Ratings increases were inevitable, given the new CBS/Turner format gave viewers more choices and increased total NCAA TV hours — including in prime time.

Returning to the traditional CBS-only coverage Saturday, ratings returned to old norms. CBS' Florida-Butler/Arizona-Connecticut drew the same average ratings — 6.2% — as last year's coverage, despite one game going to overtime and both having thrilling finishes.

As Turner's Levy puts it, in a sort-of corporate-speak equivalent of yelling "Yeah, baby!" while wearing face paint: "Every single aspect is over-indexing all of our modeling, and that's a great way to start our 14-year (TV) deal."

But after all of this year's NCAA TV changes, CBS' Final Four coverage will be familiar. The main tweaks will be the CBS lead team of Jim Nantz and Clark Kellogg getting able Turner analyst Steve Kerr as a third voice in a pretty high-profile time to try new things. And truTV will offer an hour of pregame coverage and a half-hour of postgame coverage after CBS signs off Saturday and Monday.

blog comments powered by Disqus