March Madness Success A Reminder Americans Love Basketball, Just Not Woke Basketball
When the NBA ratings dropped by over 50% in 2021, OutKick argued that it was not a cause of Americans falling out of love with basketball. Americans do love basketball. They just don't like woke basketball.
Case in point: the ratings for March Madness.
Through the first two rounds, the NCAA Tournament has averaged 9.4 million viewers per game across CBS, TNT, TBS, and truTV, its highest average audience through the round of 32 since 1993.
There are no Cinderella runs this year. There have been only a few upsets, depending on one's definition of the term. Duke forward Cooper Flagg is the only player in the tournament with any mainstream recognition.
And yet, viewers are still satisfied.
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - MARCH 03: Cooper Flagg #2 of the Duke Blue Devils high-fives the Cameron Crazies after the game against the Wake Forest Demon Deacons at Cameron Indoor Stadium on March 03, 2025 in Durham, North Carolina. (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images)
Sports fans are not picky. They just want to watch sports without any political messaging, allowing them to escape from the issues that plague society. The tournament has provided them with that escape, amid political chaos across the nation — like burning Teslas and neocons pushing us toward World War III.
There is no gray area here. Fans don't want politics mixed with sports.
The NFL's favorability among Republicans tanked in 2016 when Colin Kaepernick and other NFL players knelt before the national anthem. It wasn't until this past February that the NFL fully regained its pre-2016 support among Republican viewers.
In 2020, a YouGov / Yahoo News poll found that nearly half of America had changed its sports viewing habits and blamed political and social messaging for it. The study was primarily in reference to the NBA painting "Black Lives Matter" on the court to honor George Floyd.
And it's been a long road back for the NBA.
For the first time since writing BLM on the court, the NBA has some ratings momentum. As we predicted, the Lakers' shock trade for Luka Doncic was the shot in the arm the league needed.
Unlike most NBA headlines of late, Doncic's arrival in Los Angeles is not political, social, or racial. The trade gave the NBA a storyline that is not played out on Twitter or cable news but on the court.
The trade has made basketball about basketball again.
And somewhat popular.
Thanks to the trade, the NBA has erased away its double-digit year-over-year declines from earlier this season. For the NBA, anything but a year-over-year decline is a win.
No, Americans will never be as freakishly obsessed with basketball as they are with football. But the dropoff from football to basketball season doesn't need to be as large as it has been.
And that's why the mean girls of the WNBA are so foolish in incessantly posting about Trump and faux racism on the internet. Because of Caitlin Clark, the WNBA has transcended into the mainstem discussion for the first time since its inception.
Anyway, here's DiJonai Carrington wearing a "F*ck Donald Trump" sweater:
Carrington so badly wants to be the face of woke basketball, the type of basketball Americans resoundingly reject.