Start times matter in sports when it comes to championship game viewership. The World Series, the NBA Finals, the Stanley Cup Final, the NCAA men’s basketball title game and college football national championship game, just to name a few mega-events, all commence in a prime time (on the East Coast) television window. The Super Bowl airs slightly earlier (roughly 6:30 p.m. ET) but concludes in the middle of prime time. There is a reason television programmers have historically done this, and it follows the same adage that Willie Sutton used when someone asked him why he robbed banks.
Because that’s where the viewers are.
Prior to arriving at The Athletic, I covered women’s college basketball for Sports Illustrated for more than a decade, including annually the women’s Final Four. The role gave me a window into the sport, and I could see the potential for an economic rocket shot as the players got more skilled and athletic, and programs got deeper. The past three years have shown everything points arrow up:
- In the BCC Era (Before Caitlin Clark), the 2022 title game between South Carolina and UConn drew 4.85 million viewers and peaked at 5.91 million viewers across ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU, the most viewers in nearly two decades.
- In 2023, the championship moved from ESPN…
