A Major (and Great) Change

Oh, how far we've come in just about a year and a half.  We can all remember that picture of the "weight room" that went viral during the 2021 NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament from the San Antonio bubble and all the positive changes that came about as a result.  Well, add another positive change to the list!  The 2023 Championship Game won't be on ESPN.  It'll be on ABC.

This won't be the first time that the women's Championship Game will be on network TV, but it's been a while.  For some reason, I seem to remember when UConn won its first National Championship in 1995, the semifinals and final were both on CBS.  The semifinals were on Saturday before the two men's games, and the final was the next day.  ESPN then took over the tournament rights in 1996 and has had them ever since.

ESPN moving the game to ABC did seem like something that was eventually going to happen, though.  Did I expect it right away?  No!  But they've been showing NCAA Women's Tournament games on ABC for the last two years since the COVID cancellation in 2020, so moving the Championship Game to the broadcast network is a natural evolution.  Especially since ESPN has been acquiring/moving a lot of properties to ABC.

A number of Monday Night Football games have been shown on both networks in recent years, and ABC reenters the Super Bowl rotation in the new NFL TV contract.  As part of ESPN's NHL contract, the entire Stanley Cup Final is on ABC in their years.  So, it makes sense that their biggest NCAA property, the women's basketball tournament, would also make its way to the broadcast network.  The ratings justify it, too.

Last season's Championship Game between South Carolina and UConn drew 4.85 million viewers, the highest-rated Championship Game since 2004 (which saw UConn finish an undefeated season and win its third straight title in the final game of the Bird-Taurasi Era).  And the ratings for the handful of tournament games that were shown on ABC were solid, if not spectacular.  Those two reasons alone are enough to give the Championship Game the bigger potential audience.

When the Big Ten signed its massive media rights deal with FOX, CBS and NBC last week, the point was made that, even in the era of streaming, live sports are somewhat immune.  That's why the NFL, the SEC and the Big Ten were able to get a ton of money to have their games shown on linear TV (in addition to streaming).  And, as much as the cord-cutters want to say broadcast TV is "dying," you still have a bigger potential audience on broadcast TV than on cable.  (That Big Ten deal, by the way, includes the women's basketball championship game on CBS.)

There is one element of the move to ABC that some people don't like, however.  The game will be played in the afternoon.  Tip-off is scheduled for 3:00.  That's only because ABC already has other broadcast commitments that evening, though.  The plan is to move the Championship Game back to primetime in 2024.

I get the optics of it, which is probably why so many people are upset.  "Sure, it's important enough to put on ABC, but not important enough to show in primetime."  I don't look at it that way, though.  In fact, I look at it very differently.  A 3:00 start on a Sunday afternoon is actually an incredible opportunity.

Think about it.  People watch football all afternoon every Sunday for five months from September-January.  Then the NBA and NHL fill the void, scheduling Sunday-afternoon nationally-televised games in February and March.  Then college basketball takes over in March.  So, people are accustomed to watching sports on Sunday afternoon.  And, outside of the first weekend of the MLB season, there aren't any other Sunday afternoon sports scheduled for April 2.

That's why I'm curious to see what the ratings will look like for the 2023 Women's Championship Game.  People are just assuming the game being in the afternoon will mean lower ratings, but I'm not so sure of that.  And, don't forget, ratings may be higher simply because the game is on ABC instead of ESPN.

The teams involved will have something to do with it, too.  If it's a popular team with a national following like UConn or South Carolina, the ratings will likely be higher.  Ditto if a Cinderella emerges or a Brittney Griner/Sabrina Ionescu-type player leads her team to the Final Four.  People will tune in for the teams/players they want to watch.  Same as any other sport.

If the 3:00 Championship Game doesn't work, they can always move it back to primetime in 2024, which is currently their plan.  But, who knows?  Maybe it will.  Maybe the 3:00 Eastern start will become the standard for the Women's Championship Game (although, that would be tough if the Final Four is on the West Coast, so maybe you move it to 4:00 Eastern?).

It's not like the Women's Championship Game has a set time like the Monday-at-9 men's final (that people complain about every year even though it's been the same since 1982!), either.  ESPN has tinkered with the start time a lot.  I remember it starting at either 5 or 6 because of Sunday Night Baseball or 7 when the final ended up on Easter.  So, if starting at 3:00 is the trade-off for the game being on ABC, it's worth giving it a shot.  If it doesn't work, it doesn't work.  They can also do primetime in 2024 and compare, then make a decision for 2025 and beyond.

Bottom line, this is a great thing for women's basketball.  The WNBA is enjoying the best ratings in its history, and they're coming off the highest-rated NCAA Championship Game in decades.  There's obviously an appetite for women's basketball on TV, and ESPN/ABC is giving people what they want.  Does it really matter whether it starts at 3:00 or 8:00?