NOTE: THESE RATINGS ARE FOR FOOTBALL ONLY

Here are the average number of viewers by AAC member for AAC home games (that is, the only games that matter for a TV deal).
For "split" TV games I gave the benefit of the doubt and split the attendance in two. The only AAC home game where this occurred was UConn-Michigan which was split with KSU-Texas.

AVERAGE VIEWERS (MILLIONS) PER TELEVISED HOME GAME BY TEAM
3.805 Navy
1.497 Louisville
1.320 UConn
1.316 UCF
1.034 SMU
0.765 USF
0.638 Rutgers
0.562 Cincy
0.443 Temple
0.371 Houston
0.264 ECU
0.200 Tulsa
0.176 Memphis
N/A Tulane

AAC Average Viewers (2013) 0.838
AAC Average Viewers (2015 lineup) 0.912
# of Games Nationally Televised (2013) 30
# of Games Nationally Televised (2015 lineup) 28
Total Viewers (2013) 25.1 million
Total Viewers (2015 lineup) 25.5 million

The Navy average is off since the Army-Navy game pulls in over 6 million viewers. I'm not sure how the TV deal works with Navy, but it's clear Navy is a great TV asset for the conference.


I calculated the same for the ACC to see if our TV deal was equal in value based on viewers.

3.162 Florida State
2.637 Clemson
2.270 Miami
2.205 Syracuse
2.074 Pitt
1.659 Georgia Tech
1.656 Virginia Tech
1.559 NC State
1.557 Duke
1.527 Boston College
1.499 UNC
1.497 Louisville
0.979 Maryland
0.860 Virginia
0.759 Wake Forest

ACC Average Viewers (2013) 1.932
ACC Average Viewers (2014 lineup) 1.990
# of Games Nationally Televised (2013) 49
# of Games Nationally Televised (2014 lineup) 49
Total Viewers (2013) 94.9 million
Total Viewers (2014 lineup) 97.5 million

When you compare the viewership and look at how much ACC is getting paid, the AAC should be getting $4.5 million/year per member for its TV deal assuming the basketball values are the same. We know that is not the case, but they are probably not very far off. If someone felt like comparing the viewership of the AAC basketball games vs those of the ACC, we could calulcate pretty accurately what a fair TV deal would be. But that would take hours upon hours. As a guess, the AAC should be getting around $3.5 million to $4 million/year per member.

I hate things like this especially without naming the network it was on and time slot and ading that into the equation.

no offense to uconn but (not exact numbers) they had like 4 games televised 1 on abc 1 on espn and 2 on espnu/news
houston had like 8 games televised 2 on espn, 6 on espnnews, ..the average is bound to be dragged down

(a&m had a game on espnnews for the first half because of an overflow game it had 300k viewers, when it switched back to espn it jumped to 4million)
blank ratings arent a fair comparison of tv value, especially as a conference when the acc has more espn/espn2 games

I should clarify that when calculating the ratings by team, I included their away games as long as it was an AAC game (which count towards the TV contract). So for Temple-Cincy, the viewership of that game was figured into both Temple's and Cincy's averages. That seemed more fair because it shows the interest in a game for both teams (not just the hosting team).

What is navy's ratings not counting army/navy game? Curious if they can pull ratings on CBS sports. It is a huge plus if they can pull these ratings for regular games.

This is for 2013, correct?

Obviously the CUSA teams numbers would be lower because of 1)Distribution...what network were those games on? and 2) Quality of opponent...for example...

ECU's home games were...

1)Old Dominion
2)Florida Atlantic
3)Virginia Tech
4) Southern Miss (winless)
5) Tulsa
6) UAB

At least 4 of those games have virtually no viewers on the other side of ECU...Tulsa may have a few. The VT game was on....wait for it...Fox Sports 1. And we know how the ratings there were working out. FAU was on FS1 as well on a Thursday night. UAB and ODU were basically local in Greenville. Tulsa and Southern Miss were regional FS networks.

A much better comparison will be when all teams are playing in the same conference and then viewers are counted.

(05-02-2014 12:54 PM)pesik Wrote:  I hate things like this especially without naming the network it was on and time slot and ading that into the equation.

no offense to uconn but (not exact numbers) they had like 4 games televised 1 on abc 1 on espn and 2 on espnu/news
houston had like 8 games televised 2 on espn, 8 on espnnews, ..the average is bound to be dragged down

(a&m had a game on espnnews for the first half because of an overflow game it had 300k viewers, when it switched back to espn it jumped to 4million)
blank ratings arent a fair comparison of tv value, especially as a conference when the acc has more espn/espn2 games

I agree, you have to look at the numbers with caution. The general point is that the AAC, despite getting worse timeslots on lesser TV channels, still had ratings that justify getting much more for the TV deal. There is little data to back up the petty $2 million/year per member that the AAC is getting. I assume ESPN lowballed us because they anticipated UConn and Cincy going, but since the ACC grant of rights has been locked in, ESPN is just ripping the AAC off.

(05-02-2014 01:07 PM)KNIGHTTIME Wrote:  What is navy's ratings not counting army/navy game? Curious if they can pull ratings on CBS sports. It is a huge plus if they can pull these ratings for regular games.

I didn't have CBS's ratings...I'm sure they were good. The other rating that went into it was Air Force @ Navy (1.39 million viewers).

(05-02-2014 01:14 PM)SouthPhillyFall Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 12:54 PM)pesik Wrote:  I hate things like this especially without naming the network it was on and time slot and ading that into the equation.

no offense to uconn but (not exact numbers) they had like 4 games televised 1 on abc 1 on espn and 2 on espnu/news
houston had like 8 games televised 2 on espn, 8 on espnnews, ..the average is bound to be dragged down

(a&m had a game on espnnews for the first half because of an overflow game it had 300k viewers, when it switched back to espn it jumped to 4million)
blank ratings arent a fair comparison of tv value, especially as a conference when the acc has more espn/espn2 games

I agree, you have to look at the numbers with caution. The general point is that the AAC, despite getting worse timeslots on lesser TV channels, still had ratings that justify getting much more for the TV deal. There is little data to back up the petty $2 million/year per member that the AAC is getting. I assume ESPN lowballed us because they anticipated UConn and Cincy going, but since the ACC grant of rights has been locked in, ESPN is just ripping the AAC off.

NBC was the one who lowballed us, not ESPN. NBC was willing to take a risk on giving the exposure, but not willing to pay for it. ESPN saw the price tag, saw what was coming with the SECN (and possibly an ACCN) and said, "we'll take it."

Lowballed isn't even the right word... Insulting is more like it.

And that is with our worst team, ever.

We have been on an obscure channel for the past year........ so these mean nothing

(05-02-2014 01:48 PM)NBPirate Wrote:  We have been on an obscure channel for the past year........ so these mean nothing

That's not the only large error in the assumption

He's also assuming that Memphis football and basketball get rating that are the same, or "but they are probably not very far off." I can't even comment on how that assumption.

Not sure where you got these ratings. When ECU was making the case to leave Conf USA, Terry Holland and the Athletic Dept created a DMV tv graph which showed ECU typically was the second highest viewed school in NC in areas like Raleigh , Charlotte, Winston Salem, etc. We way outperformed Wake Forest and Duke, even beat NC State in many instances. It is also true that we have been stuck on a channel that no one watches.

(05-02-2014 02:02 PM)oldtiger Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 01:48 PM)NBPirate Wrote:  We have been on an obscure channel for the past year........ so these mean nothing

That's not the only large error in the assumption

He's also assuming that Memphis football and basketball get rating that are the same, or "but they are probably not very far off." I can't even comment on how that assumption.

Yep, look who's #3 in America...

http://espnmediazone.com/us/press-releas...ule-heats/

(05-02-2014 02:02 PM)oldtiger Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 01:48 PM)NBPirate Wrote:  We have been on an obscure channel for the past year........ so these mean nothing

That's not the only large error in the assumption

He's also assuming that Memphis football and basketball get rating that are the same, or "but they are probably not very far off." I can't even comment on how that assumption.

That wasn't the assumption...you read it wrong. The assumption was the value of AAC basketball is not very far off from the value of ACC basketball, relative to the TV deals in whole.

(05-02-2014 02:09 PM)baruna falls Wrote:  Not sure where you got these ratings. When ECU was making the case to leave Conf USA, Terry Holland and the Athletic Dept created a DMV tv graph which showed ECU typically was the second highest viewed school in NC in areas like Raleigh , Charlotte, Winston Salem, etc. We way outperformed Wake Forest and Duke, even beat NC State in many instances. It is also true that we have been stuck on a channel that no one watches.

The ratings were pulled from here:
http://www.sportsmediawatch.com/college-...v-ratings/

That is probably true, these are the national viewerships. ECU's were:

0.181 0.1 FAU @ ECU
0.347 0.3 Virginia Tech @ ECU

It's official... the American needs Navy, Army, and BYU included SOON into it's tv contract to get the lineup so the conference can get to the $6-million or $7-million level of eyeballs and make everyone happy!

(05-02-2014 02:13 PM)SouthPhillyFall Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 02:02 PM)oldtiger Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 01:48 PM)NBPirate Wrote:  We have been on an obscure channel for the past year........ so these mean nothing

That's not the only large error in the assumption

He's also assuming that Memphis football and basketball get rating that are the same, or "but they are probably not very far off." I can't even comment on how that assumption.

That wasn't the assumption...you read it wrong. The assumption was the value of AAC basketball is not very far off from the value of ACC basketball, relative to the TV deals in whole.

Reading it again after seeing your comment; I see that was what you meant. It was a difficult comparison to put in writing and I understand your difficulty and my confusion.

(05-02-2014 01:19 PM)CommuterBob Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 01:14 PM)SouthPhillyFall Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 12:54 PM)pesik Wrote:  I hate things like this especially without naming the network it was on and time slot and ading that into the equation.

no offense to uconn but (not exact numbers) they had like 4 games televised 1 on abc 1 on espn and 2 on espnu/news
houston had like 8 games televised 2 on espn, 8 on espnnews, ..the average is bound to be dragged down

(a&m had a game on espnnews for the first half because of an overflow game it had 300k viewers, when it switched back to espn it jumped to 4million)
blank ratings arent a fair comparison of tv value, especially as a conference when the acc has more espn/espn2 games

I agree, you have to look at the numbers with caution. The general point is that the AAC, despite getting worse timeslots on lesser TV channels, still had ratings that justify getting much more for the TV deal. There is little data to back up the petty $2 million/year per member that the AAC is getting. I assume ESPN lowballed us because they anticipated UConn and Cincy going, but since the ACC grant of rights has been locked in, ESPN is just ripping the AAC off.

NBC was the one who lowballed us, not ESPN. NBC was willing to take a risk on giving the exposure, but not willing to pay for it. ESPN saw the price tag, saw what was coming with the SECN (and possibly an ACCN) and said, "we'll take it."

This. Remember, ESPN had the right to match NBC's offer contractually as well as the right to first refusal (based on the last contract between ESPN and the Big East). Once NBC threw that low ball offer out we were locked in. Had we not had those in the prior contract we could have told NBC to piss off and sought a better deal from FOX, CBS or whomever.

(05-02-2014 12:39 PM)SouthPhillyFall Wrote:  The Navy average is off since the Army-Navy game pulls in over 6 million viewers. I'm not sure how the TV deal works with Navy, but it's clear Navy is a great TV asset for the conference.

CBS owns the TV rights to the Army-Navy game and Navy's home games through 2017. It also owns the TV rights to the Navy-Notre Dame through 2018. Navy's deals with CBS were grandfathered in or the length of the contract according to Aresco when he was executive vice president for programming at CBS Sports (Link)

Now what happens to the rights after 2017/2018, I don't know. If I had to guess, I'd say that the American will gain the TV rights for all of Navy's home games but that Navy will keep the rights to the Army-Navy game. Again, that is just my guess on what will happen.

(05-02-2014 12:39 PM)SouthPhillyFall Wrote:  When you compare the viewership and look at how much ACC is getting paid, the AAC should be getting $4.5 million/year per member for its TV deal assuming the basketball values are the same.

It isn't as simple as saying "We have 1/4 of their viewership so we should be paid at least 1/4 of what they are paid". For starters, such an analysis doesn't take into consideration that competition for rights might change across different ratings levels. For example, a conference with high viewership might attract significantly more competition than a conference with a lower level of TV ratings. More competition for rights means more bidding which means higher TV revenue. Lots of competition could inflate revenues at the high end of the ratings scales and lack of competition could devalue it at the low end (i.e. you might end up with a more exponential curve instead of a linear curve).

When you compare the viewership and look at how much ACC is getting paid, the AAC should be getting $4.5 million/year per member for its TV deal assuming the basketball values are the same. We know that is not the case, but they are probably not very far off. If someone felt like comparing the viewership of the AAC basketball games vs those of the ACC, we could calulcate pretty accurately what a fair TV deal would be. But that would take hours upon hours. As a guess, the AAC should be getting around $3.5 million to $4 million/year per member.

Also, you have to remember that the whole purpose behind rating is to generate ad revenue. As one might expect, programs with higher ratings on average tend to produce higher ad revenues. However, we can't automatically assume that ratings and revenues are linearly related. Program A might have double the ratings of program B, but those higher ratings might end up pulling in 3-4 times as much ad revenue. So in reality, is Program A only twice as valuable as Program B (only based on ratings) or is it actually 3-4 times more valuable (based on the revenues it is able to generate)?

(05-02-2014 12:39 PM)SouthPhillyFall Wrote:  We could calulcate pretty accurately what a fair TV deal would be. But that would take hours upon hours. As a guess, the AAC should be getting around $3.5 million to $4 million/year per member.

Market economics is not based on what is fair and not fair. You are allowed to take your product to the market place and charge whatever you can convince the market to pay for you. The American chose to sign with ESPN for the amount of money that it did because that offer was the best one that it could get. The American might think it deserves more than what it is getting, but unless it can convince the marketplace, otherwise, it is getting the best deal it could get.