http://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2013/12/...am-strong/

"In other action on last weekend, the MAC Championship Game on ESPN2 (1.2, 1.9M) outdrew the Pac-12 (0.9, 1.5M), Mountain West (1.1, 1.7M) and Conference USA (0.3, 449K) title games."

It helped playing on Friday night, without any other competition for the game.

The MW did much better than I thought with a 10pm ET start time. Hopefully, they can move that game to a better next year right after the SEC title game.

CBS has to be happy with those Mountain West numbers, no?

That says to me that MAC media rights should be at least as good as what CUSA and MWC have, IMO.

The MAC has had a good year this year.

I'm glad. There was a 5-year period there where the MAC fell off the face of the earth. There's too many good schools in that conference with proud football traditions and it's good to see them rebound like this.

The MAC should receive more $ from espn and did a great job capitalizing on having Friday night tv all to themselves for people to watch a ranked team attempt to repeat in the BCS and see a Heisman candidate. It all added up to excellent ratings. Congrats to the MAC.

(12-15-2013 05:47 PM)Kittonhead Wrote:  That says to me that MAC media rights should be at least as good as what CUSA and MWC have, IMO.

Good ratings for the CCG, but from a media rights perspective, the networks will be more concerned with ratings over the entirety of the season. The MAC placed 9th overall, between C-USA and the Sunbelt for the season:

http://www.goodbullhunting.com/2013/12/4...m-missouri

Ohio State / Michigan State did much bigger numbers inside the Big 10, but their 4th largest market of saturation for that game was Birmingham where they got a 28 share for their time slot. That says a lot again about the SEC numbers.

(12-16-2013 10:49 AM)JRsec Wrote:  Ohio State / Michigan State did much bigger numbers inside the Big 10, but their 4th largest market of saturation for that game was Birmingham where they got a 28 share for their time slot. That says a lot again about the SEC numbers.

A lot of people in Birmingham wanted to see whether or not the SEC champ would make it into the National Championship game if OSU lost. Which they did. It's not a surprise that game did well.

From the article:

"No game was a bigger bust last weekend than the South Florida/Rutgers tilt on ESPN2, which earned a 0.1 U.S. rating and 200,000 viewers."

So much for "markets." You would have thought they could get almost 200,000 viewers from Florida and New Jersey alone.

(12-18-2013 09:31 AM)Zombiewoof Wrote:  From the article:

"No game was a bigger bust last weekend than the South Florida/Rutgers tilt on ESPN2, which earned a 0.1 U.S. rating and 200,000 viewers."

So much for "markets." You would have thought they could get almost 200,000 viewers from Florida and New Jersey alone.

Rutgers makes sense for the B1G because they don't have to convince individual NJ/NYC households to buy the B1G network. They just have to convince local cable networks to add it as part of some tier or package, and then stick their customers with the bill (then soak up the money).

Kind of like the way I never watch channels like the "Oprah Network", but there's no doubt I probably pay 20 cents a month for it on my cable bill anyway because it is part of some package I get, and even though I'd rather not have that channel, it's too little of a deal to get upset over so Oprah gets my money.

This is an unfair sample. Cleary USF is a dumpster fire, and I'm surprised that many people watched that game. To be fair, NY/NJ is chock full of B1G alums, and you can rest assured the matchups with Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, etc will fair considerably better.

(12-18-2013 10:03 AM)LSUtah Wrote:  This is an unfair sample. Cleary USF is a dumpster fire, and I'm surprised that many people watched that game. To be fair, NY/NJ is chock full of B1G alums, and you can rest assured the matchups with Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, etc will fair considerably better.

I was just shocked that they drew so few viewers to that game. USF (842k) and Rutgers (917k) both average significantly more viewers for regular season games, so it was surprising that they had so few (200k) for this one. Certainly, when Rutgers joins the Big 10, viewership will increase for their games with the top teams and their overall average will increase accordingly. Of course, that would be true if you added Wayne State to the Big 10.

(12-18-2013 09:57 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(12-18-2013 09:31 AM)Zombiewoof Wrote:  From the article:

"No game was a bigger bust last weekend than the South Florida/Rutgers tilt on ESPN2, which earned a 0.1 U.S. rating and 200,000 viewers."

So much for "markets." You would have thought they could get almost 200,000 viewers from Florida and New Jersey alone.

Rutgers makes sense for the B1G because they don't have to convince individual NJ/NYC households to buy the B1G network. They just have to convince local cable networks to add it as part of some tier or package, and then stick their customers with the bill (then soak up the money).

Kind of like the way I never watch channels like the "Oprah Network", but there's no doubt I probably pay 20 cents a month for it on my cable bill anyway because it is part of some package I get, and even though I'd rather not have that channel, it's too little of a deal to get upset over so Oprah gets my money.

It doesn't really work that way though. If no one watches the channel, then the cable company would prefer a) not have to pay for it and keep any profits from rising prices to themselves, b) not have to pay for it and keep prices lower to not lose/bring in customers.

The Big Ten Network I think is going to be a tough sell in New York/New Jersey and the extent the conference gets it to work will probably require much lower prices than elsewhere in the footprint. Rutgers was always the bigger gamble than Maryland though and I think part of the move is thought for the future. That said, as I don't receive a dime, I don't really care if it works or not. My conference pride does not extend to the point that I hope expansion moves payoff (leading to more expansion possibly in the future).

(12-18-2013 06:21 AM)ChrisLords Wrote:  

(12-16-2013 10:49 AM)JRsec Wrote:  Ohio State / Michigan State did much bigger numbers inside the Big 10, but their 4th largest market of saturation for that game was Birmingham where they got a 28 share for their time slot. That says a lot again about the SEC numbers.

A lot of people in Birmingham wanted to see whether or not the SEC champ would make it into the National Championship game if OSU lost. Which they did. It's not a surprise that game did well.

Which is exactly the point I was making. A significant portion of their big number was comprised of Auburn and Alabama folks wanting to see if the SEC got a team in.