Matt Buckler: UConn women basketball sparkled in SNY ratings

Matt Buckler, Journal Inquirer, Manchester, Conn.
·4 min read

Mar. 4—Here's the biggest reason why the relationship between the UConn women's basketball team and SNY has been a good one — UConn has never lost when it has appeared on an SNY telecast.

UConn is 152-0 in the nine seasons in which SNY has had the local rights to the games.

This season, which concluded Saturday with a win over Butler, was also a lucrative one as far as the Nielsen ratings were concerned.

UConn notched a 5.4 total household rating in the Hartford-New Haven market, averaging 49,097 households per telecast. That is a 20 percent boost over last season.

During a year when the ratings for most sports events have trended down — even the Super Bowl suffered a ratings decline this year — a 20 percent increase is extremely noteworthy. Not many sports packages — perhaps none — can make that claim.

UConn content on SNY's digital platforms — Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Yahoo, Facebook and SNY.tv — also reached record highs during the 2020-21 season.

UConn's ratings prosperity spilled over into the pre-game and post-game coverage.

The pre-game ratings were up 43 percent over last season. The ratings were the third highest in the nine seasons of SNY coverage, pulling in a 1.82 household ratings.

The post-game coverage also enjoyed a ratings increase, 34 percent over last year. It was the fourth highest rated season in the nine years SNY has televised the games.

The telecasts were improved this season for one reason — analyst Meghan Culmo's halftime and post-game interviews with coach Geno Auriemma. Sometimes the exchanges between the two were humorous, but most of the time they were informative.

In past years when Auriemma was approached for an interview, it looked like he couldn't get to the locker room quickly enough. This year he took the time to answer the questions thoughtfully — and viewers learned more about UConn basketball.

There were some flaws. Culmo does not like to say anything negative about an opponent and an opposing coach.

When a team is losing by 30, however, and Culmo says how great the program is doing, it does take away some of the credibility.

Many times the pre-game show is just a UConn infomercial. There is plenty of coverage of UConn stars such as Paige Bueckers, but not much information on the team UConn is playing. In a 30-minute show, there is time to tell us something about the opposition.

The ratings speak for themselves. In a year of falling ratings, UConn was able to reverse the trend on SNY. The fact that UConn has never lost when it's on SNY doesn't hurt either.

Coming up Roses

For millions of TV viewers, the start of 2021 did not seem normal — because it wasn't.

Because of COVID-19, the Tournament of Roses Parade wasn't held for only the fourth time in 130 years. The Rose Bowl football game was played, but it took place in Texas, not Pasadena, California. That meant there were no San Gabriel Mountains in the background.

The Tournament of Roses Committee is optimistic that the start of 2022 will be back to normal. Both the parade and the football game are on the schedule.

There will be public safety measures in place and the most spectacular floats on television will be making a comeback.

Having the Rose Bowl in Texas would be like having the Mardi Gras in Alaska. It's impossible to warm up to it.

'NCIS' domination

The audience for "NCIS" is about half as big as a few years ago. It's still bigger, however, than any other show.

"NCIS" dominated Tuesday's ratings with an audience of 9.6 million viewers, the largest audience of the week.

It did not win the battle in the adult 18-to-49 demographic, however. That distinction was captured by NBC's "The Voice." "NCIS had 3 million more viewers than "The Voice" did.

There were some ratings falloff for the second installment of "Superman & Lois." While the opener on Feb. 23 picked up 1.7 million viewers, the show dropped to 1.2 million viewers on March 2.

That's not surprising — most shows suffer a slump in their second outing. "Superman" did beat out the Season 7 premiere of "The Flash," which pulled in 998,000 viewers.

The top ABC show Tuesday was a game show, "To Tell the Truth," which brought in 3.9 million viewers. It's amazing that a 60-year-old game show still can have a following.

"Truth" beat out "Young Rock" on NBC, which grabbed 3.2 million viewers. Rock may be popular, but apparently he's not popular as Mark Harmon.

Follow Matt Buckler for more television, radio, and sports coverage on the JI's Twitter @journalinquirer, and see his articles on the Journal Inquirer Facebook page.