While there is no way that the decline in television ratings for the NCAA's two marquee basketball events can be characterized as good news, the situation may be better than it appears on the surface.

First, the facts: The NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship title game won its Monday night slot, as it has every year since 1988. The event also drew a tournament-long rating of 6.4 and a championship-game rating of 14.1 -- both the lowest since the event premiered on CBS in 1982. Also, ratings were down for the Division I Women's Basketball Championship game on ESPN, falling from last year's record of 4.3 to 3.5.

Viewership for the men's event actually was similar to 1999 through the regional finals on Saturday, March 25. To that point in the tournament, the tournament had drawn a rating of 5.9, compared to 6.0 the year before. However, the Sunday regional finals declined sharply from the previous year, and that trend continued through the Final Four.

The Final Four itself was down from 10.1 last year to 9.5 in 2000. Although one can only speculate on the causes, the nontraditional makeup of the teams may have had an effect on casual viewers.

The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, reached the Final Four for the 15th time, but the Tar Heels advanced to the national semifinal as a No. 8 seed from the South region. Otherwise, eventual champion Michigan State University was in the Final Four for only the third time (albeit the second consecutive year), the University of Florida for the second time, and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, for the second time.

"I think the true basketball fan is going to watch the Final Four no matter what," said James A. Marchiony, NCAA director of the Division I Men's Basketball Championship, media, "but more casual fans tend to be attracted by schools that are more familiar to them."

Competitive games might have compensated for the lack of familiarity, but none of the three Final Four games was close at the finish. That was a particular problem for the national championship game between Michigan State and Florida, which suffered terribly on the West Coast.

The tournament had an eastward lean throughout, and by the time the regional finals were played, the westernmost team remaining was Oklahoma State University. The Final Four was an all-Eastern affair, leaving West Coast viewers little to identify with.

The championship game began at 9:16 Eastern time, which was 6:16 on the West Coast. Prime-time live events lose West Coast audience early because so many viewers are in transit from work to home. However, the game finishes in the middle of prime time on the West Coast, which can make up for the loss of audience early in the telecast.

However, without a rooting interest and without a close second half (Michigan State never led Florida by fewer than eight points in the final 20 minutes), West Coast viewership plummeted. The championship game drew only an 8.8 in Los Angeles and Seattle, an 8.3 in San Francisco and a 7.9 in Sacramento. Other areas did well (Detroit, 33.5; Indianapolis, 30.9; Jacksonville, 28.1; and Chicago, 19.9), but the West Coast hole was a deep one from which to recover.

While geographical and competitive factors likely did affect the rating, Marchiony said almost all "Big Three" network television ratings are going to look bad if they are simply compared to previous years.

In fact, because the overall share of traditional network viewership has dropped so much over the last 20 years, the comparison from years gone by is becoming increasingly irrelevant.

For instance, the highest-rated championship game ever is the Michigan State-Indiana State University game from 1979. The game had enormous star appeal with Magic Johnson and Larry Bird and pulled a rating of 24.1 on NBC. In the current environment, a 24.1 would dominate any competition, but on that same night in 1979, CBS' lineup of "MASH," "WKRP in Cincinnati" and "Lou Grant" was close behind with a 20.9. The next two years, CBS actually outdrew the NCAA championship game with its "MASH"-based lineup, even though the NCAA event attracted outstanding ratings of 19.8 and 20.7.

The NCAA championship game continued to lose the night throughout the first half of the '80s when it competed against the Academy Awards. However, schedules were adjusted to avoid that conflict, and the championship game now has won its night every game since 1988. Since 1992, no program has come within 10 share points of an NCAA championship game (the percentage of televisions in use that are tuned in to a particular event). From 1978 to 1991, that happened only twice. This year, the NCAA championship game had a share of 23, compared to 13 for NBC's "Twenty-One."

From 1978 through 2000, the highest-rated show on NCAA championship Monday has plummeted from 38.0 (1983 Academy Awards) to 14.1 (2000 NCAA men's basketball championship). Although the Academy Awards program is on a different night now, its viewership also has fallen, with a 2000 rating of 29.2, a decline that parallels the NCAA drop.

"Without a doubt, we need to be looking at this

Tournament attendance for last five years

Women's

*Record

Championship TV ratings
for last five years

Men's

Women's

*Record. Note: Ratings points for over-the-air television and cable television are not equal.

Percentage of attendance, 2000 men's tournament

Capacity Sold Pct.

Regionals

Final Four

2000 Men's TV ratings (regionals and Final Four)

Regional semifinals

Regional finals

Final Four

2000 Women's TV ratings (regionals and Final Four)

Regional semifinals

Oklahoma

2:30p Notre Dame vs. 0.4 1 ESPN2

Texas Tech

Regional finals

Monday, March 27 7p Connecticut vs. LSU 1.1 2 ESPN

7:30p Louisiana Tech 0.5 1 ESPN2

vs. Penn St.

Final Four

Friday, March 31 7p Connecticut vs. Penn St. 1.9 4 ESPN

9:37p Tennessee vs. Rutgers 1.8 3 ESPN

Sunday, April 2 8:59 Connecticut vs. 3.5 5 ESPN

Tennessee