Television ratings for the championship game of the 2003 Division I Men's Basketball Championship hit an all-time low of 12.6, but the decision to change to a Sunday-Tuesday Final Four format appeared to pay viewership dividends for the Division I women's championship.

While the war in Iraq clearly played a role in reduced viewership for the men, the low rating nonetheless served as an exclamation point on a decade of declining numbers. The ratings for the last six championship games are the lowest ever. The 12.6 rating game for the April 7 championship between Syracuse University and the University of Kansas was just more than half of the all-time record, a 24.1 rating for the 1979 game between Michigan State University and Indiana State University. The 2003 championship game was off 16 percent from the 2002 final.

Here are the ratings for championship games for the last six years:

Year -- Rating

2003 -- 12.6

2000 -- 14.1

2002 -- 15.0

2001 -- 15.6

1999 -- 17.2

1998 -- 17.8

Ratings throughout the men's championship were down 21 percent compared to the same broadcast windows from 2002.

Television viewership for most sports and entertainment events was adversely affected throughout the March 20-April 7 period of the tournament. National telecasts of NASCAR, the Arena Football League and the National Hockey League were down at least 7 percent from the previous week. The March 23 Academy Awards presentation dropped 20 percent from 2002.

However, none of those events was affected as much by timing as was the first round of the men's championship. The U.S. mounted its surprise attack on Iraq the night of March 19, and first-round play began the morning of March 20. Day games for March 20-21 were shifted from CBS to ESPN. Night-time telecasts remained on CBS, but the nation -- understandably transfixed by the events in the Mideast -- chose to follow global events. Ratings for ABC, CNN and Fox News Channel, all of which were providing continuous war coverage, soared from the previous week, while CBS ratings declined 23 percent. Cable news viewership during NCAA coverage increased 440 percent compared to 2002.

The Final Four ratings also were affected by a lopsided national semifinal game between Kansas and Marquette University. Kansas won, 94-61, for the biggest margin in a Final Four game in 24 years. The result was a 33 percent decline in rating compared to the corresponding 2002 game. The second semifinal between Syracuse and the University of Texas at Austin was down 32 percent from last year.

Out of it all, some good news could be found for the men's event: Young males tuned in. Ratings for the championship game were up 20 percent for males 18-24 and 1 percent for males 18-34. Males in the 18-34 group also watched 11 minutes more of the tournament in 2003 compared to 2002.

Women's championship

The news was better on the women's side, where the Final Four telecasts averaged 2.3 million household impressions, up 32 percent from last year's average. It was the first time ESPN had averaged more than 2 million viewers for the Women's Final Four.

Although the championship game between the University of Connecticut and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, was down 14 percent from last year (3.49 cable rating compared to 4.06), the contest still was the fourth-most-watched basketball game in ESPN history -- men or women.

In the Hartford/New Haven viewing area, the game posted a 31.76 cable rating, tying the Super Bowl pregame show as the second-most-watched television program in that area in 2003.

The overall Women's Final Four rating was 2.99, up 8 percent from last year when the semifinals and final were conducted under a Friday-Sunday format.

The overall ESPN tournament average was 1.06, down 9 percent from 2002. ESPN2 overall tournament rating declined from 0.43 to 0.30.

Attendance

While television viewership was off, tournament attendance was high, especially for the women, who broke the record for overall attendance with a total of 334,587. That eclipsed the previous mark of 326,767, set in 2002. Increased attendance at the regional round (an average of 9,244 per session, surpassing the previous mark of 9,007) led to the record. The Women's Final Four in Atlanta was sold out, attracting crowds of 28,210 for the national semifinals and final.

Total attendance for all sessions of the men's tournament was 714,988 -- just off the all-time mark of 720,685 set in 1999. The Final Four in New Orleans was sold out, attracting crowds of 54,432 for the semifinals and final.