Saturday’s Final Four Ratings Are Surprisingly Good

I’ll admit. When I first checked out the TV ratings for last night’s Final Four games, I was pretty surprised.

After all, with one half of the bracket being made up by two mid-major teams, it didn’t seem like ratings would be too great this time around.

But boy was I wrong. Turns out that the ratings were tied for the highest since 2005, which had four traditional powers in North Carolina, Illinois, Louisville, and Michigan State.

The Butler/VCU matchup pulled an 8.3 rating, with the Kentucky/UConn game getting a 9.5. That equals out to an 8.9, which is very impressive considering that we all thought things would be down from their normal ratings.

Honestly, that’s kind of stunning. We all felt like that even though there was two of the best college basketball stories we’ve had in recent years in the Butler/VCU game, the ratings would still suffer because of the names on the jerseys.

At this point, however, Butler might start being a pretty good draw given what they’ve been able to accomplish the past two years. Especially if they can find a way to outlast the Huskies for the national championship tomorrow night in Houston.

Given the ratings for the semifinal games, you would have to believe that the championship game will draw mega ratings as well.

No, not just because it is the national title game, but because of the storylines entering the game. You’ve got Kemba Walker trying to lead his team to perfection in tournament play this season, while Butler is trying to do what they couldn’t do last year, and finish the job by taking home the title.

This might have been the “weakest” field in NCAA Tournament history, but there’s no question that the unpredictability of this year’s edition has appealed to plenty of college basketball fans.

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