If you are trying to compare conferences then the only number you need is total viewers instead of average viewers per member.

If you are trying to compare teams then break it out by individual team.

(07-25-2014 11:36 AM)Topkat Wrote:  

(07-25-2014 10:33 AM)1845 Bear Wrote:  

(07-25-2014 10:10 AM)Topkat Wrote:  From the same place the OP article says they used, Sports Media Watch.

That data was the starting point for my numbers as well.

Quote:I'm not sure why you are bringing Raycom, BTN and ESPN3 into the conversation at all since they are not used by the OP article.

I brought them in to point out that the number of games not counted was very different than what you were claiming. Also it's why some leagues have very different % of games played as chunks of inventory went to those outlets. In some cases that inventory is parallel to what other league's had lumped into the average numbers.

Quote:Maybe re-read the article and explain why you want to intoduce more network sources.

The Big 12 had the highest percentage (10 team conference) on free tv (Fox, CBS, NBC, ABC) non-regional games. Why complain about who is televised when you get all those additional TV sets counted?

Because the way people have ranked the leagues is in terms of AVERAGE viewers. When one league has 25% of it's lesser games tanking the average it invalidates the results. You won't be comparing similar samples.

I am not arguing to introduce more sources because they simply don't have published ratings information.

My argument is that in order to get any kind of simple league average that could be a valid comparison using this data you need to take a similar percentage of each league's inventory and then compare- which is what I did.

I don't care how the best 47% of the B1G's inventory compares to 62% of the SEC's... I care about apples to apples instead of apples to oranges.

Well, we are never going to get an apple to apple comparison.

The league that has 25% of its games tanking its average (your quote) also has the highest percentage of its members games televised on Free over-the-air NATIONAL TV (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox).

I had not considered the number of games on the network stations (ABC, CBS, NBC) but after looking at the data I do not think it would make the difference you seem to think it will.

Your point would be a lot stronger if two things were not the case:

1- The viewership for the B12 ABC games for the most part was diminished due to regional coverage maps. Only TX-OU, BU-OSU, and Bedlam had full ABC coverage.

Oklahoma State-Mississippi State had mirror coverage on ESPN2 to hit the 46% that did not get it on ABC.

The other 3 games had NO mirror coverage and averaged reaching 25% of the nation's tv sets on ABC. Hardly some advantage over games on ESPN/2.


2- FOX's average ratings on Saturday were roughly the same as the combined average of ESPN and ESPN2, and worse than ESPN on it's own. FOX is new to College Football and fewer fans watch it as a result. ESPN's regular season saturday ratings averaged 3 million viewers and FOX's averaged 2.4 million. ESPN and ESPN2 combined to average 2.2 million.

FOX not drawing the same kind of audience as ABC is true even comparing to past games with PAC12 and Big12 teams with similar circumstances, frankly it isn't even close.

The ACC had plenty of ESPN/2 games to counterpart the FOX games that the B12 and P12 have.

Games on ABC, NBC, CBS (Split or not)
Big 12: 8 (21% of reduced sample)
ACC: 15 (28% of reduced sample)
SEC: 20 (38% of reduced sample)
PAC: 10 (22% of reduced sample)
B1G: 21 (46% of reduced sample)

Combined games on FOX, ESPN, ESPN2:
Big 12: 19 (51%)
ACC: 19 (36%)
SEC: 33 (62%)
PAC: 18 (40%)
B1G: 21 (46% of reduced sample)


Both groups:
Big 12: 72%
ACC: 64%
SEC: 100%
PAC: 62%
B1G: 92%


So the B1G and SEC have a huge advantage and the other 3 have pretty similar breakdowns.

Now FS1 drew similar viewers to ESPNU on Saturdays.
FS1- 512,000
ESPNU- 463,000

Combined games on ESPNU or FS1:
Big 12: 11 (29% of reduced sample)
ACC: 19 (35%)
SEC: 0 (0%)
PAC: 11 (24%)
B1G: 4 (8% of reduced sample)


The breakdown between the PAC-ACC-B12 ends up pretty even when networks are grouped by how they perform. The network angle ends up being pretty fair because of how bad startup ratings do for FOX and FS1 and how established ESPN and ESPN2 are.

The Big Ten and SEC are the ones with the favorable networks and windows which makes sense due to the brands and alumni bases.

Quote:A similar percentage of each leagues inventory seems fine if you can adjust a disproportionate amount of national REGIONAL games?

When you say regional games, do you mean split coverage on ABC or is it something else? We need to define our terminology here.

(07-24-2014 01:08 PM)1845 Bear Wrote:  

(07-24-2014 01:05 PM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(07-24-2014 12:47 PM)stever20 Wrote:  i would say that SEC is still stronger because just looking at ESPN numbers, you are taking out of the mix the top 15 or so games for the conference- something the other conferences don't have.

ABC SEC 4.2, B12 3.7, B10 3.3, ACC 2.8 P12 2.5
ESPN B12 2.7 B10 2.6 SEC 2.6 , ACC 2.4, P12 2.0

Good point. Then how do you compare CBS, which is broadcast for free, vs. ESPN, which requires a monthly subscription? ABC would be ideal, but the sample size is just so small...

You have to divide it up based on network, tv window, etc.

I've done it on a spreadsheet but it isn't very clean. I'll post some of the simpler & cleaner data I have soon. It won't go into tv windows but should be an upgrade over the data that the blog ran with.

Bless you. I've done similar for the G5 and it become quickly apparent that network and window are huge factors in what sort of audience you draw.

I've tried to figure a baseline of what a particular window and network should produce but in going through it all the thing I cannot resolve to my satisfaction is whether or not there are teams that actually cause people to tune out of a game. In Sun Belt games the past two years games involving Troy consistently do poorly and I've yet to resolve whether those games represent the baseline of expected audience or whether people see they are playing and flip the channel.

(07-25-2014 01:43 PM)1845 Bear Wrote:  

(07-25-2014 11:36 AM)Topkat Wrote:  

(07-25-2014 10:33 AM)1845 Bear Wrote:  

(07-25-2014 10:10 AM)Topkat Wrote:  From the same place the OP article says they used, Sports Media Watch.

That data was the starting point for my numbers as well.

Quote:I'm not sure why you are bringing Raycom, BTN and ESPN3 into the conversation at all since they are not used by the OP article.

I brought them in to point out that the number of games not counted was very different than what you were claiming. Also it's why some leagues have very different % of games played as chunks of inventory went to those outlets. In some cases that inventory is parallel to what other league's had lumped into the average numbers.

Quote:Maybe re-read the article and explain why you want to intoduce more network sources.

The Big 12 had the highest percentage (10 team conference) on free tv (Fox, CBS, NBC, ABC) non-regional games. Why complain about who is televised when you get all those additional TV sets counted?

Because the way people have ranked the leagues is in terms of AVERAGE viewers. When one league has 25% of it's lesser games tanking the average it invalidates the results. You won't be comparing similar samples.

I am not arguing to introduce more sources because they simply don't have published ratings information.

My argument is that in order to get any kind of simple league average that could be a valid comparison using this data you need to take a similar percentage of each league's inventory and then compare- which is what I did.

I don't care how the best 47% of the B1G's inventory compares to 62% of the SEC's... I care about apples to apples instead of apples to oranges.

Well, we are never going to get an apple to apple comparison.

The league that has 25% of its games tanking its average (your quote) also has the highest percentage of its members games televised on Free over-the-air NATIONAL TV (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox).

I had not considered the number of games on the network stations (ABC, CBS, NBC) but after looking at the data I do not think it would make the difference you seem to think it will.

Your point would be a lot stronger if two things were not the case:

1- The viewership for the B12 ABC games for the most part was diminished due to regional coverage maps. Only TX-OU, BU-OSU, and Bedlam had full ABC coverage.

Oklahoma State-Mississippi State had mirror coverage on ESPN2 to hit the 46% that did not get it on ABC.

The other 3 games had NO mirror coverage and averaged reaching 25% of the nation's tv sets on ABC. Hardly some advantage over games on ESPN/2.


2- FOX's average ratings on Saturday were roughly the same as the combined average of ESPN and ESPN2, and worse than ESPN on it's own. FOX is new to College Football and fewer fans watch it as a result. ESPN's regular season saturday ratings averaged 3 million viewers and FOX's averaged 2.4 million. ESPN and ESPN2 combined to average 2.2 million.

FOX not drawing the same kind of audience as ABC is true even comparing to past games with PAC12 and Big12 teams with similar circumstances, frankly it isn't even close.

The ACC had plenty of ESPN/2 games to counterpart the FOX games that the B12 and P12 have.

Games on ABC, NBC, CBS (Split or not)
Big 12: 8 (21% of reduced sample)
ACC: 15 (28% of reduced sample)
SEC: 20 (38% of reduced sample)
PAC: 10 (22% of reduced sample)
B1G: 21 (46% of reduced sample)

Combined games on FOX, ESPN, ESPN2:
Big 12: 19 (51%)
ACC: 19 (36%)
SEC: 33 (62%)
PAC: 18 (40%)
B1G: 21 (46% of reduced sample)


Both groups:
Big 12: 72%
ACC: 64%
SEC: 100%
PAC: 62%
B1G: 92%


So the B1G and SEC have a huge advantage and the other 3 have pretty similar breakdowns.

Now FS1 drew similar viewers to ESPNU on Saturdays.
FS1- 512,000
ESPNU- 463,000

Combined games on ESPNU or FS1:
Big 12: 11 (29% of reduced sample)
ACC: 19 (35%)
SEC: 0 (0%)
PAC: 11 (24%)
B1G: 4 (8% of reduced sample)


The breakdown between the PAC-ACC-B12 ends up pretty even when networks are grouped by how they perform. The network angle ends up being pretty fair because of how bad startup ratings do for FOX and FS1 and how established ESPN and ESPN2 are.

The Big Ten and SEC are the ones with the favorable networks and windows which makes sense due to the brands and alumni bases.

Quote:A similar percentage of each leagues inventory seems fine if you can adjust a disproportionate amount of national REGIONAL games?

When you say regional games, do you mean split coverage on ABC or is it something else? We need to define our terminology here.

"The breakdown between the PAC-ACC-B12 ends up pretty even when networks are grouped by how they perform."

Holy cow, this is about as deep as I want to go with this. It really isn't worth the effort.

There is nothing wrong with being in the P5 no matter where you are in the audience count. It's still a lot of people watching games.

The article in the OP has no axe to grind against any P5 conference. If anything, they would try to paint the MW more favorably.

In terms of ranking, the article tracks well with a presentation I saw from Nielson... I believe it was on Frank The Tanks site a while back. Sometimes simple is better.

(07-25-2014 03:07 PM)Topkat Wrote:  

(07-25-2014 01:43 PM)1845 Bear Wrote:  

(07-25-2014 11:36 AM)Topkat Wrote:  

(07-25-2014 10:33 AM)1845 Bear Wrote:  

(07-25-2014 10:10 AM)Topkat Wrote:  From the same place the OP article says they used, Sports Media Watch.

That data was the starting point for my numbers as well.

Quote:I'm not sure why you are bringing Raycom, BTN and ESPN3 into the conversation at all since they are not used by the OP article.

I brought them in to point out that the number of games not counted was very different than what you were claiming. Also it's why some leagues have very different % of games played as chunks of inventory went to those outlets. In some cases that inventory is parallel to what other league's had lumped into the average numbers.

Quote:Maybe re-read the article and explain why you want to intoduce more network sources.

The Big 12 had the highest percentage (10 team conference) on free tv (Fox, CBS, NBC, ABC) non-regional games. Why complain about who is televised when you get all those additional TV sets counted?

Because the way people have ranked the leagues is in terms of AVERAGE viewers. When one league has 25% of it's lesser games tanking the average it invalidates the results. You won't be comparing similar samples.

I am not arguing to introduce more sources because they simply don't have published ratings information.

My argument is that in order to get any kind of simple league average that could be a valid comparison using this data you need to take a similar percentage of each league's inventory and then compare- which is what I did.

I don't care how the best 47% of the B1G's inventory compares to 62% of the SEC's... I care about apples to apples instead of apples to oranges.

Well, we are never going to get an apple to apple comparison.

The league that has 25% of its games tanking its average (your quote) also has the highest percentage of its members games televised on Free over-the-air NATIONAL TV (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox).

I had not considered the number of games on the network stations (ABC, CBS, NBC) but after looking at the data I do not think it would make the difference you seem to think it will.

Your point would be a lot stronger if two things were not the case:

1- The viewership for the B12 ABC games for the most part was diminished due to regional coverage maps. Only TX-OU, BU-OSU, and Bedlam had full ABC coverage.

Oklahoma State-Mississippi State had mirror coverage on ESPN2 to hit the 46% that did not get it on ABC.

The other 3 games had NO mirror coverage and averaged reaching 25% of the nation's tv sets on ABC. Hardly some advantage over games on ESPN/2.


2- FOX's average ratings on Saturday were roughly the same as the combined average of ESPN and ESPN2, and worse than ESPN on it's own. FOX is new to College Football and fewer fans watch it as a result. ESPN's regular season saturday ratings averaged 3 million viewers and FOX's averaged 2.4 million. ESPN and ESPN2 combined to average 2.2 million.

FOX not drawing the same kind of audience as ABC is true even comparing to past games with PAC12 and Big12 teams with similar circumstances, frankly it isn't even close.

The ACC had plenty of ESPN/2 games to counterpart the FOX games that the B12 and P12 have.

Games on ABC, NBC, CBS (Split or not)
Big 12: 8 (21% of reduced sample)
ACC: 15 (28% of reduced sample)
SEC: 20 (38% of reduced sample)
PAC: 10 (22% of reduced sample)
B1G: 21 (46% of reduced sample)

Combined games on FOX, ESPN, ESPN2:
Big 12: 19 (51%)
ACC: 19 (36%)
SEC: 33 (62%)
PAC: 18 (40%)
B1G: 21 (46% of reduced sample)


Both groups:
Big 12: 72%
ACC: 64%
SEC: 100%
PAC: 62%
B1G: 92%


So the B1G and SEC have a huge advantage and the other 3 have pretty similar breakdowns.

Now FS1 drew similar viewers to ESPNU on Saturdays.
FS1- 512,000
ESPNU- 463,000

Combined games on ESPNU or FS1:
Big 12: 11 (29% of reduced sample)
ACC: 19 (35%)
SEC: 0 (0%)
PAC: 11 (24%)
B1G: 4 (8% of reduced sample)


The breakdown between the PAC-ACC-B12 ends up pretty even when networks are grouped by how they perform. The network angle ends up being pretty fair because of how bad startup ratings do for FOX and FS1 and how established ESPN and ESPN2 are.

The Big Ten and SEC are the ones with the favorable networks and windows which makes sense due to the brands and alumni bases.

Quote:A similar percentage of each leagues inventory seems fine if you can adjust a disproportionate amount of national REGIONAL games?

When you say regional games, do you mean split coverage on ABC or is it something else? We need to define our terminology here.

"The breakdown between the PAC-ACC-B12 ends up pretty even when networks are grouped by how they perform."

Holy cow, this is about as deep as I want to go with this. It really isn't worth the effort.

There is nothing wrong with being in the P5 no matter where you are in the audience count. It's still a lot of people watching games.

I agree that none of the P5 have any issues holding an audience nationally. My assertion is that taking different sized chunks of each league's inventory invalidates the comparisons between them that inevitably take place. Logically how could 18 additional games NOT skew the data?

Quote:The article in the OP has no axe to grind against any P5 conference. If anything, they would try to paint the MW more favorably.

And the MWC is arguably a bigger beneficiary than any of the P5 of only having their best games reach national networks. Only 30% of their games were on rated networks which is lower than the AAC or any of the P5. I didn't run the numbers for the remaining leagues.

If you take a similar percentage of games from the AAC's future 11 teams the gap goes from the MWC being 100k ahead to the AAC's 2014 teams being 200k ahead.

(07-24-2014 04:47 PM)JRsec Wrote:  Strain at a gnat to swallow a camel. The only statistics when it comes to these markets that matter is % of saturation within your own footprint and the individual school's market share for all broadcast games. The rest is just a way to game the numbers.

The SEC has deeper penetration into its own footprint than any other conference. But in those numbers (and I haven't seen this year's) the Big 12 and Big 10 are very close behind and in that order if I remember correctly. The ACC has the largest footprint and the poorest penetration of those 4. I don't recall if the PAC was ahead of them or not in this regard.

Outside of that the next relevant stat is the ranking of the most viewed schools.

Every conference is helped by not including bottom dwellers in the data in the OP's piece. Isn't it great when viewers and wins and losses help to cull the dead wood by the absence of those schools from the TV lineup. I imagine the Big 12 was hurt by these numbers because of how many regional games involved statistically smaller fan bases. In a 10 team conference with only two national football brands that should be expected. But the saturation numbers of the Big 12 show a strength almost as strong as the SEC.

I don't fully agree.

I agree in that local region penetration is vital because we still work in a college football economy where TV is still not the primary revenue source.

But national numbers matter in getting premium TV dollars.

(07-25-2014 03:07 PM)Topkat Wrote:  

(07-25-2014 01:43 PM)1845 Bear Wrote:  

(07-25-2014 11:36 AM)Topkat Wrote:  

(07-25-2014 10:33 AM)1845 Bear Wrote:  

(07-25-2014 10:10 AM)Topkat Wrote:  From the same place the OP article says they used, Sports Media Watch.

That data was the starting point for my numbers as well.

Quote:I'm not sure why you are bringing Raycom, BTN and ESPN3 into the conversation at all since they are not used by the OP article.

I brought them in to point out that the number of games not counted was very different than what you were claiming. Also it's why some leagues have very different % of games played as chunks of inventory went to those outlets. In some cases that inventory is parallel to what other league's had lumped into the average numbers.

Quote:Maybe re-read the article and explain why you want to intoduce more network sources.

The Big 12 had the highest percentage (10 team conference) on free tv (Fox, CBS, NBC, ABC) non-regional games. Why complain about who is televised when you get all those additional TV sets counted?

Because the way people have ranked the leagues is in terms of AVERAGE viewers. When one league has 25% of it's lesser games tanking the average it invalidates the results. You won't be comparing similar samples.

I am not arguing to introduce more sources because they simply don't have published ratings information.

My argument is that in order to get any kind of simple league average that could be a valid comparison using this data you need to take a similar percentage of each league's inventory and then compare- which is what I did.

I don't care how the best 47% of the B1G's inventory compares to 62% of the SEC's... I care about apples to apples instead of apples to oranges.

Well, we are never going to get an apple to apple comparison.

The league that has 25% of its games tanking its average (your quote) also has the highest percentage of its members games televised on Free over-the-air NATIONAL TV (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox).

I had not considered the number of games on the network stations (ABC, CBS, NBC) but after looking at the data I do not think it would make the difference you seem to think it will.

Your point would be a lot stronger if two things were not the case:

1- The viewership for the B12 ABC games for the most part was diminished due to regional coverage maps. Only TX-OU, BU-OSU, and Bedlam had full ABC coverage.

Oklahoma State-Mississippi State had mirror coverage on ESPN2 to hit the 46% that did not get it on ABC.

The other 3 games had NO mirror coverage and averaged reaching 25% of the nation's tv sets on ABC. Hardly some advantage over games on ESPN/2.


2- FOX's average ratings on Saturday were roughly the same as the combined average of ESPN and ESPN2, and worse than ESPN on it's own. FOX is new to College Football and fewer fans watch it as a result. ESPN's regular season saturday ratings averaged 3 million viewers and FOX's averaged 2.4 million. ESPN and ESPN2 combined to average 2.2 million.

FOX not drawing the same kind of audience as ABC is true even comparing to past games with PAC12 and Big12 teams with similar circumstances, frankly it isn't even close.

The ACC had plenty of ESPN/2 games to counterpart the FOX games that the B12 and P12 have.

Games on ABC, NBC, CBS (Split or not)
Big 12: 8 (21% of reduced sample)
ACC: 15 (28% of reduced sample)
SEC: 20 (38% of reduced sample)
PAC: 10 (22% of reduced sample)
B1G: 21 (46% of reduced sample)

Combined games on FOX, ESPN, ESPN2:
Big 12: 19 (51%)
ACC: 19 (36%)
SEC: 33 (62%)
PAC: 18 (40%)
B1G: 21 (46% of reduced sample)


Both groups:
Big 12: 72%
ACC: 64%
SEC: 100%
PAC: 62%
B1G: 92%


So the B1G and SEC have a huge advantage and the other 3 have pretty similar breakdowns.

Now FS1 drew similar viewers to ESPNU on Saturdays.
FS1- 512,000
ESPNU- 463,000

Combined games on ESPNU or FS1:
Big 12: 11 (29% of reduced sample)
ACC: 19 (35%)
SEC: 0 (0%)
PAC: 11 (24%)
B1G: 4 (8% of reduced sample)


The breakdown between the PAC-ACC-B12 ends up pretty even when networks are grouped by how they perform. The network angle ends up being pretty fair because of how bad startup ratings do for FOX and FS1 and how established ESPN and ESPN2 are.

The Big Ten and SEC are the ones with the favorable networks and windows which makes sense due to the brands and alumni bases.

Quote:A similar percentage of each leagues inventory seems fine if you can adjust a disproportionate amount of national REGIONAL games?

When you say regional games, do you mean split coverage on ABC or is it something else? We need to define our terminology here.

"The breakdown between the PAC-ACC-B12 ends up pretty even when networks are grouped by how they perform."

Holy cow, this is about as deep as I want to go with this. It really isn't worth the effort.

There is nothing wrong with being in the P5 no matter where you are in the audience count. It's still a lot of people watching games.

The article in the OP has no axe to grind against any P5 conference. If anything, they would try to paint the MW more favorably.

In terms of ranking, the article tracks well with a presentation I saw from Nielson... I believe it was on Frank The Tanks site a while back. Sometimes simple is better.

But its quoting an "analysis" by an Aggie who is trying to trumpet how well all the SEC schools are doing and how "poorly" the Big 12 is doing when its just not a very useful analysis.

(07-25-2014 02:53 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(07-24-2014 01:08 PM)1845 Bear Wrote:  

(07-24-2014 01:05 PM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(07-24-2014 12:47 PM)stever20 Wrote:  i would say that SEC is still stronger because just looking at ESPN numbers, you are taking out of the mix the top 15 or so games for the conference- something the other conferences don't have.

ABC SEC 4.2, B12 3.7, B10 3.3, ACC 2.8 P12 2.5
ESPN B12 2.7 B10 2.6 SEC 2.6 , ACC 2.4, P12 2.0

Good point. Then how do you compare CBS, which is broadcast for free, vs. ESPN, which requires a monthly subscription? ABC would be ideal, but the sample size is just so small...

You have to divide it up based on network, tv window, etc.

I've done it on a spreadsheet but it isn't very clean. I'll post some of the simpler & cleaner data I have soon. It won't go into tv windows but should be an upgrade over the data that the blog ran with.

Bless you. I've done similar for the G5 and it become quickly apparent that network and window are huge factors in what sort of audience you draw.

I've tried to figure a baseline of what a particular window and network should produce but in going through it all the thing I cannot resolve to my satisfaction is whether or not there are teams that actually cause people to tune out of a game. In Sun Belt games the past two years games involving Troy consistently do poorly and I've yet to resolve whether those games represent the baseline of expected audience or whether people see they are playing and flip the channel.

Its complicated. For example, the year before last, the TH night games show a BEVer2 and a VT game doing really well and another BEver2 doing top 5. Well the 2 BE games didn't face NFL competition on TH nights. Every other game on TH night did. Or you could be against the World Series. Or you could be against a really giant game on another network. I imagine everyone else got creamed when Alabama and LSU played in 2011. You just have to use a full season so the impact of those things get reduced, but they can't be eliminated.

(07-25-2014 05:23 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(07-25-2014 03:07 PM)Topkat Wrote:  

(07-25-2014 01:43 PM)1845 Bear Wrote:  

(07-25-2014 11:36 AM)Topkat Wrote:  

(07-25-2014 10:33 AM)1845 Bear Wrote:  That data was the starting point for my numbers as well.

I brought them in to point out that the number of games not counted was very different than what you were claiming. Also it's why some leagues have very different % of games played as chunks of inventory went to those outlets. In some cases that inventory is parallel to what other league's had lumped into the average numbers.


Because the way people have ranked the leagues is in terms of AVERAGE viewers. When one league has 25% of it's lesser games tanking the average it invalidates the results. You won't be comparing similar samples.

I am not arguing to introduce more sources because they simply don't have published ratings information.

My argument is that in order to get any kind of simple league average that could be a valid comparison using this data you need to take a similar percentage of each league's inventory and then compare- which is what I did.

I don't care how the best 47% of the B1G's inventory compares to 62% of the SEC's... I care about apples to apples instead of apples to oranges.

Well, we are never going to get an apple to apple comparison.

The league that has 25% of its games tanking its average (your quote) also has the highest percentage of its members games televised on Free over-the-air NATIONAL TV (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox).

I had not considered the number of games on the network stations (ABC, CBS, NBC) but after looking at the data I do not think it would make the difference you seem to think it will.

Your point would be a lot stronger if two things were not the case:

1- The viewership for the B12 ABC games for the most part was diminished due to regional coverage maps. Only TX-OU, BU-OSU, and Bedlam had full ABC coverage.

Oklahoma State-Mississippi State had mirror coverage on ESPN2 to hit the 46% that did not get it on ABC.

The other 3 games had NO mirror coverage and averaged reaching 25% of the nation's tv sets on ABC. Hardly some advantage over games on ESPN/2.


2- FOX's average ratings on Saturday were roughly the same as the combined average of ESPN and ESPN2, and worse than ESPN on it's own. FOX is new to College Football and fewer fans watch it as a result. ESPN's regular season saturday ratings averaged 3 million viewers and FOX's averaged 2.4 million. ESPN and ESPN2 combined to average 2.2 million.

FOX not drawing the same kind of audience as ABC is true even comparing to past games with PAC12 and Big12 teams with similar circumstances, frankly it isn't even close.

The ACC had plenty of ESPN/2 games to counterpart the FOX games that the B12 and P12 have.

Games on ABC, NBC, CBS (Split or not)
Big 12: 8 (21% of reduced sample)
ACC: 15 (28% of reduced sample)
SEC: 20 (38% of reduced sample)
PAC: 10 (22% of reduced sample)
B1G: 21 (46% of reduced sample)

Combined games on FOX, ESPN, ESPN2:
Big 12: 19 (51%)
ACC: 19 (36%)
SEC: 33 (62%)
PAC: 18 (40%)
B1G: 21 (46% of reduced sample)


Both groups:
Big 12: 72%
ACC: 64%
SEC: 100%
PAC: 62%
B1G: 92%


So the B1G and SEC have a huge advantage and the other 3 have pretty similar breakdowns.

Now FS1 drew similar viewers to ESPNU on Saturdays.
FS1- 512,000
ESPNU- 463,000

Combined games on ESPNU or FS1:
Big 12: 11 (29% of reduced sample)
ACC: 19 (35%)
SEC: 0 (0%)
PAC: 11 (24%)
B1G: 4 (8% of reduced sample)


The breakdown between the PAC-ACC-B12 ends up pretty even when networks are grouped by how they perform. The network angle ends up being pretty fair because of how bad startup ratings do for FOX and FS1 and how established ESPN and ESPN2 are.

The Big Ten and SEC are the ones with the favorable networks and windows which makes sense due to the brands and alumni bases.

Quote:A similar percentage of each leagues inventory seems fine if you can adjust a disproportionate amount of national REGIONAL games?

When you say regional games, do you mean split coverage on ABC or is it something else? We need to define our terminology here.

"The breakdown between the PAC-ACC-B12 ends up pretty even when networks are grouped by how they perform."

Holy cow, this is about as deep as I want to go with this. It really isn't worth the effort.

There is nothing wrong with being in the P5 no matter where you are in the audience count. It's still a lot of people watching games.

The article in the OP has no axe to grind against any P5 conference. If anything, they would try to paint the MW more favorably.

In terms of ranking, the article tracks well with a presentation I saw from Nielson... I believe it was on Frank The Tanks site a while back. Sometimes simple is better.

But its quoting an "analysis" by an Aggie who is trying to trumpet how well all the SEC schools are doing and how "poorly" the Big 12 is doing when its just not a very useful analysis.

By any quantifiable measure, I don't think anyone has to trumpet how well the SEC is doing in TV ratings. It is what it is.

http://frankthetank.me/2012/02/27/sports...edia-buzz/

Since this article I believe the B12 has moved a lot of games to FoxSports1. Do I go with Nielsen and the landscape changes since this article, or some B12 guys parsing the ratings numbers?