I see a lot of fans plucking TV ratings out of a hat and making extrapolations and assumptions about them. I've always said that TV ratings in a vacuum are meaningless, if you don't control for all the variables that influence ratings- network, window, competition for viewership, etc. Essentially ratings in a vacuum aren't apples to apples comparisons where you can make a judgement about the TV attractiveness of a team or a conference.

I actually still think the same (not making a judgement about TV draws) applies to this article, but it does do a good job at least trying to make a little more of an apples to apples comparison. Some of the things it does do that I like:

1. Recognize that not all games are rated. Conference network games do not get rated.
2. Clarify that rating and audience are two different things. The rating on a Saturday is not the same as the rating on a Friday night, since the audiences are different.
3. Recognize that not all channels are equal. I hadn't seen a good summary of the network ratings like this:

4. Recognize that more games for some leagues are rated than others. For example, the KU/ISU game is on FS1 and gets rated, while the Indiana- Purdue game is on the Big 10 network and not rated. 75% of the Big 12 games are rated, much higher than the other conferences:


As I said, I still think there are other variables that could be controlled for. If you really wanted to make conclusions about the TV attractiveness of a certain team or conference relative to another team or conference, you'd want to control as many variables as possible- network, TV window, day of the week, relative rankings of the teams playing, etc.

Still, this does a good job of the aggregate data and a good read.