(02-18-2012 12:27 PM)Big Dub Wrote: (02-17-2012 09:49 AM)MUsince96 Wrote: I could be wrong, and I'm not pretending to know. But the way I have understood it is it doesn't matter if a team 'delivers' the TV market. The networks just care about how many TV's are in the market to carry those games.
It has to mean this, unless someone wants to try and sell some load of bull that SMU and SDSU own their market to such a large degree, that fans insist on watching games on TV as opposed to actually showing up in person.
Think of it this way...
If you are allowed to show your product in your market then you have access to all of those people. As the number of schools increase in the conference then probability that you maintain continued viewership from "X" number fans increase just due to the fact that you have all manner of fans from various regions in the large metro areas..
The reason why the metro areas interest the TV partners more than the more regional schools is two fold. You have the potential for a much greater market penetration long term and a much larger potential draw for advertisements. Not to be critical, but ad revenue is one of the core components for media partners, and it is frequently overlooked.
The larger population bases allow for a greater likelihood of snagging a large regional or national advertising campaigns due to the proximity of the potential customer base and static demographic and cultural characteristics. By adding multiple regions smaller you have a fractured target market for the advertisers. What works in region A might not be as effective in region B or C.
Will there be a separate advertising for each individual school? What markets make the most ad revenue for the media partners? Some spots can be purchased locally but most major ad revenue is pushed on a regional basis. Having to tailor multiple ads or create multiple contracts just increase the costs of production and reduce the bottom line for the media partners. Large DMA's allow for a much easier cookie cuter approach
The next thing is just basic market penetration, probability and the economies of scale and how that relates to large DMA's. To put this in example form, I will use the tired LT and UNT discussion again (just because this an easy example).
If LT reaches 100% of Ruston (Monroe/El Dorado) and 80% of Shreveport (386k*.8 + 177k = 486k) DMA you are talking about a less than 19% of the DFW DMA (2.57M). That would require 19% of DFW to tune in because they are interested in the MUSA teams, or desire to see football or UNT or what ever. It is going to be much easier to achieve 19% viewership in DFW than 80+% in LA. If you drop the market share for LA to a more achievable 60% you are looking at approximately 5% viewership in DFW.The percentages can be manipulated in various directions, but this is just an example of what the extremes looks like with some somewhat real data.
Large DMA's allow for a greater probability to maintain a floor number of viewers even when there is competing products. What happens if LSU and LT play at the same time? The overall % of LT viewers will plunge. Even if OU and UT are playing at the same time as UNT, the % numbers of viewers is so much smaller than the % needed by LT that is allows for a much greater probability of success in reaching that floor threshold needed by the media partners. It is as much about ceiling as it is about floor. Large DMA's allow for both to be fairly safely estimated. Small DMA's provide a much greater variance, which makes it much more difficult when attempting to sell time slots for advertising.
The last thing people need to remember is that isn't as much about adding DFW or FL or TN as it is maintaining the current established brand. Entering a new market that is somewhat apathetic about a product that has no real brand awareness is much harder than to enter that exact same market that might not be initially interested or knowledge about a specific product but already has some form of acceptance for the brand.