ABC should fill Sunday primetime window with women’s basketball after ‘The Bachelorette’ cancellation

Disney made the shocking decision to pull Season 22 of popular reality show The Bachelorette on Thursday after disturbing video of Taylor Frankie Paul, the star influencer tabbed as the season’s centerpiece, as the aggressor in a 2023 domestic violence incident was released.

“In light of the newly released video just surfaced today, we have made the decision to not move forward with the new season of The Bachelorette at this time, and our focus is on supporting the family,” Disney said in a statement.

The new season was set to debut this Sunday night on ABC, leaving the network in a bind as to how it will fill the two-hour window between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. ET.

One avenue the network could choose to take: the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. Sunday night will be the first day of the second-round of the tournament, and ABC’s sister network ESPN will be airing a game beginning at 8 p.m. ET. ABC has already shown a willingness in recent years to give the women’s tournament more premium windows. The network will air a doubleheader beginning at 1 p.m. ET on Sunday afternoon, for instance.

And while women’s basketball is a far different genre of programming than The Bachelorette, it could offer ABC the best opportunity to put up viewership similar to what its popular reality show was set to earn for its season premiere.

Last year, a trio of second-round games averaged over one million viewers on ABC. The championship game drew 8.5 million viewers on the network a couple of weeks later. For comparison, the last season of The Bachelorette averaged 2.46 million viewers per episode. The premiere averaged 2.8 million viewers.

In a pinch, March Madness is about as good an option as any for the network to air in place of The Bachelorette. And it’d have the added bonus of giving the sport more exposure, helping build momentum towards the later rounds.