From Clay Travis- the ten most watched games of the year:

#1 Auburn at Alabama (13.5 million views; 11/30/14) ESPN
#2 Notre Dame at Florida State (13.25 million viewers; 10/18/14) ABC
#3 Alabama vs. Missouri (12.8 million viewers; 12/6/14; SEC Championship) CBS
#4 Mississippi State at Alabama (10.3 million viewers; 11/15/14) CBS
#5 FSU vs. Georgia Tech 10.1 million views; 12/6/14; ACC title game) ABC
#6 Alabama at LSU (9.2 million viewers; 11/8/14) CBS
#7 FSU at Miami (8.74 million viewers 11/15/14) ABC
#8 Clemson at FSU (8.1 million viewers 9/20/14) ABC
#9 Florida at Alabama (8.0 million viewers; 9/20/14) CBS
#10 Texas A&M at Auburn (7.2 million viewers; 11/8/14) CBS

Alabama or FSU with the top 9 games of the year.

SEC: 6
ACC: 4
The rest: 0

(12-11-2014 04:10 PM)Hokie4Skins Wrote:  From Clay Travis- the ten most watched games of the year:

#1 Auburn at Alabama (13.5 million views; 11/30/14) ESPN
#2 Notre Dame at Florida State (13.25 million viewers; 10/18/14) ABC
#3 Alabama vs. Missouri (12.8 million viewers; 12/6/14; SEC Championship) CBS
#4 Mississippi State at Alabama (10.3 million viewers; 11/15/14) CBS
#5 FSU vs. Georgia Tech 10.1 million views; 12/6/14; ACC title game) ABC
#6 Alabama at LSU (9.2 million viewers; 11/8/14) CBS
#7 FSU at Miami (8.74 million viewers 11/15/14) ABC
#8 Clemson at FSU (8.1 million viewers 9/20/14) ABC
#9 Florida at Alabama (8.0 million viewers; 9/20/14) CBS
#10 Texas A&M at Auburn (7.2 million viewers; 11/8/14) CBS

Not surprised.

For the B12--ouch. How about defectors Texas A&M and Mizzou in two of those top ten games? The B12 is beginning to resemble an old, cash rich life insurance company that has no idea how to do business in 2014 and beyond. It's actually a pretty good analogy because that insurance company can live off the fat of invested assets for years but may be clueless about how to find new revenue streams.

(12-11-2014 04:21 PM)indycat Wrote:  For the B12--ouch. How about defectors Texas A&M and Mizzou in two of those top ten games? The B12 is beginning to resemble an old, cash rich life insurance company that has no idea how to do business in 2014 and beyond. It's actually a pretty good analogy because that insurance company can live off the fat of invested assets for years but may be clueless about how to find new revenue streams.

Missouri-Alabama in a pretty much exclusive time slot for the ccg got beat by Auburn-Alabama.

Virtually all of CBS's lowest rated SEC games involve Missouri or South Carolina. There was an article last year where CBS justified not covering a high profile Missouri game.

And all of the top 10 involved at least one of the last 5 MNC schools (there have only been Alabama, Auburn and FSU).

I'm kinda surprised.

(12-11-2014 04:30 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(12-11-2014 04:21 PM)indycat Wrote:  For the B12--ouch. How about defectors Texas A&M and Mizzou in two of those top ten games? The B12 is beginning to resemble an old, cash rich life insurance company that has no idea how to do business in 2014 and beyond. It's actually a pretty good analogy because that insurance company can live off the fat of invested assets for years but may be clueless about how to find new revenue streams.

Missouri-Alabama in a pretty much exclusive time slot for the ccg got beat by Auburn-Alabama.

Virtually all of CBS's lowest rated SEC games involve Missouri or South Carolina. There was an article last year where CBS justified not covering a high profile Missouri game.

And all of the top 10 involved at least one of the last 5 MNC schools (there have only been Alabama, Auburn and FSU).

There was more than a little hopeful Winston schadenfreude in those numbers as well. F.S.U. draws well, but not that well usually.

(12-11-2014 04:10 PM)Hokie4Skins Wrote:  From Clay Travis- the ten most watched games of the year:

#1 Auburn at Alabama (13.5 million views; 11/30/14) ESPN
#2 Notre Dame at Florida State (13.25 million viewers; 10/18/14) ABC
#3 Alabama vs. Missouri (12.8 million viewers; 12/6/14; SEC Championship) CBS
#4 Mississippi State at Alabama (10.3 million viewers; 11/15/14) CBS
#5 FSU vs. Georgia Tech 10.1 million views; 12/6/14; ACC title game) ABC
#6 Alabama at LSU (9.2 million viewers; 11/8/14) CBS
#7 FSU at Miami (8.74 million viewers 11/15/14) ABC
#8 Clemson at FSU (8.1 million viewers 9/20/14) ABC
#9 Florida at Alabama (8.0 million viewers; 9/20/14) CBS
#10 Texas A&M at Auburn (7.2 million viewers; 11/8/14) CBS

CBS got 50% and ABC got 40%. Nice job.

(12-11-2014 04:21 PM)indycat Wrote:  For the B12--ouch. How about defectors Texas A&M and Mizzou in two of those top ten games? The B12 is beginning to resemble an old, cash rich life insurance company that has no idea how to do business in 2014 and beyond. It's actually a pretty good analogy because that insurance company can live off the fat of invested assets for years but may be clueless about how to find new revenue streams.

This. Hell, the 3.4 rating for the ESPN CFP selection show beat most high profile Big 12 games this year.

(12-11-2014 04:15 PM)ren.hoek Wrote:  SEC: 6
ACC: 4
The rest: 0

Alabama: 5
FSU: 4
The rest: 1

(12-11-2014 04:46 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(12-11-2014 04:30 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(12-11-2014 04:21 PM)indycat Wrote:  For the B12--ouch. How about defectors Texas A&M and Mizzou in two of those top ten games? The B12 is beginning to resemble an old, cash rich life insurance company that has no idea how to do business in 2014 and beyond. It's actually a pretty good analogy because that insurance company can live off the fat of invested assets for years but may be clueless about how to find new revenue streams.

Missouri-Alabama in a pretty much exclusive time slot for the ccg got beat by Auburn-Alabama.

Virtually all of CBS's lowest rated SEC games involve Missouri or South Carolina. There was an article last year where CBS justified not covering a high profile Missouri game.

And all of the top 10 involved at least one of the last 5 MNC schools (there have only been Alabama, Auburn and FSU).

There was more than a little hopeful Winston schadenfreude in those numbers as well. F.S.U. draws well, but not that well usually.

FSU played ND during the regular season and had GT (coming off wins over Clemson and Georgia) in the championship game instead of Duke or a 6-6 GT.

However, in terms of TV ratings, they were also hurt by Florida not being good.

Still, the SEC was slightly down in comparison to say last year when the Top 10 most watched games were

Auburn/Mizzou (SEC Championship game)
Michigan State/Ohio State (BiG Championship game)
Alabama/Auburn
Alabama/Texas A&M
Alabama/LSU
Ohio State/Michigan
Notre Dame/Michigan
Miami/FSU
Georgia/Clemson
Texas A&M/LSU

SEC was hurt this year in comparison with last likely due to Ole Miss and Mississippi State being more regional than national attractions.

ACC's TV fortunes will continue to rest upon FSU, a good Miami, Clemson, and at least one of GT, VT, or Louisville being Top 25 caliber to support the above. And don't discount the partial affiliation with ND.

But I don't see any conference overcoming the strength and appeal of the SEC long term in regard to TV ratings. Every other conference is playing for second place in the long view.

Cheers,
Neil

(12-11-2014 05:10 PM)omniorange Wrote:  

(12-11-2014 04:46 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(12-11-2014 04:30 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(12-11-2014 04:21 PM)indycat Wrote:  For the B12--ouch. How about defectors Texas A&M and Mizzou in two of those top ten games? The B12 is beginning to resemble an old, cash rich life insurance company that has no idea how to do business in 2014 and beyond. It's actually a pretty good analogy because that insurance company can live off the fat of invested assets for years but may be clueless about how to find new revenue streams.

Missouri-Alabama in a pretty much exclusive time slot for the ccg got beat by Auburn-Alabama.

Virtually all of CBS's lowest rated SEC games involve Missouri or South Carolina. There was an article last year where CBS justified not covering a high profile Missouri game.

And all of the top 10 involved at least one of the last 5 MNC schools (there have only been Alabama, Auburn and FSU).

There was more than a little hopeful Winston schadenfreude in those numbers as well. F.S.U. draws well, but not that well usually.

FSU played ND during the regular season and had GT (coming off wins over Clemson and Georgia) in the championship game instead of Duke or a 6-6 GT.

However, in terms of TV ratings, they were also hurt by Florida not being good.

Still, the SEC was slightly down in comparison to say last year when the Top 10 most watched games were

Auburn/Mizzou (SEC Championship game)
Michigan State/Ohio State (BiG Championship game)
Alabama/Auburn
Alabama/Texas A&M
Alabama/LSU
Ohio State/Michigan
Notre Dame/Michigan
Miami/FSU
Georgia/Clemson
Texas A&M/LSU

SEC was hurt this year in comparison with last likely due to Ole Miss and Mississippi State being more regional than national attractions.

ACC's TV fortunes will continue to rest upon FSU, a good Miami, Clemson, and at least one of GT, VT, or Louisville being Top 25 caliber to support the above. And don't discount the partial affiliation with ND.

But I don't see any conference overcoming the strength and appeal of the SEC long term in regard to TV ratings. Every other conference is playing for second place in the long view.

Cheers,
Neil

On the flip side of the comparison Neil the ACC clearly supplanted the Big 10 across the board. My point was that pro FSU and anti Winston people tuned in to the F.S.U. games. I'm sure much more of the former than the latter but it would be interesting to see a differentiation of the numbers.

The trend to me: ratings are driven by the playoff race even more so than the BCS era. In the BCS era, simply having two big brand names (i.e. some combo of Notre Dame, Michigan, Texas and/or USC) was enough to get a big ratings number even if they weren't championship contenders. Now, there's a bit less emphasis on those brand names in and of themselves if they're not highly ranked. Granted, it still helps immensely to have brand name power (which is the case with Alabama and Florida State). You also see the likes of Ohio State, Michigan State and Oregon peppered in the next 10 most watched games of the year (at least from what I see from the data at Sports Media Watch). The Big 12 was the one conference that wasn't boosted at all by the high rankings of their teams and it was almost certainly because Baylor, TCU and Kansas State were the ones involved.

(12-11-2014 05:20 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  The trend to me: ratings are driven by the playoff race even more so than the BCS era. In the BCS era, simply having two big brand names (i.e. some combo of Notre Dame, Michigan, Texas and/or USC) was enough to get a big ratings number even if they weren't championship contenders. Now, there's a bit less emphasis on those brand names in and of themselves if they're not highly ranked. Granted, it still helps immensely to have brand name power (which is the case with Alabama and Florida State). You also see the likes of Ohio State, Michigan State and Oregon peppered in the next 10 most watched games of the year (at least from what I see from the data at Sports Media Watch). The Big 12 was the one conference that wasn't boosted at all by the high rankings of their teams and it was almost certainly because Baylor, TCU and Kansas State were the ones involved.

The Big 12's means of delivery likely also played a part in their lack of numbers. FOX just isn't the draw that ESPN is, at least not yet.

(12-11-2014 05:18 PM)JRsec Wrote:  On the flip side of the comparison Neil the ACC clearly supplanted the Big 10 across the board. My point was that pro FSU and anti Winston people tuned in to the F.S.U. games. I'm sure much more of the former than the latter but it would be interesting to see a differentiation of the numbers.

The huge value of Florida State is why I never bought the thought that the ACC was really in danger. Granted, long-term, the Big Ten still has a significantly deeper bench of brands to rely upon. Also, if Ohio State was in the top 4 all year (like it was last season) as opposed to getting knocked out and slowly rising back up to #4 in the last week of the season, the ratings likely would have looked much different. The media punditry didn't think that the Big Ten had a chance at the playoff by the third week of September after both MSU and OSU lost, so it wasn't until the very end of the year that the hype crept back up.

(12-11-2014 05:25 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(12-11-2014 05:20 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  The trend to me: ratings are driven by the playoff race even more so than the BCS era. In the BCS era, simply having two big brand names (i.e. some combo of Notre Dame, Michigan, Texas and/or USC) was enough to get a big ratings number even if they weren't championship contenders. Now, there's a bit less emphasis on those brand names in and of themselves if they're not highly ranked. Granted, it still helps immensely to have brand name power (which is the case with Alabama and Florida State). You also see the likes of Ohio State, Michigan State and Oregon peppered in the next 10 most watched games of the year (at least from what I see from the data at Sports Media Watch). The Big 12 was the one conference that wasn't boosted at all by the high rankings of their teams and it was almost certainly because Baylor, TCU and Kansas State were the ones involved.

The Big 12's means of delivery likely also played a part in their lack of numbers. FOX just isn't the draw that ESPN is, at least not yet.

That might be part of it, although many of the Big 12's biggest games were still on ABC/ESPN. Baylor-Kansas State was on ESPN this past weekend and Baylor-Texas Tech was on ABC on Thanksgiving weekend. The Pac-12 has essentially the same TV split between Disney/Fox as the Big 12 and the Oregon games generally drew well on the Fox networks.

(12-11-2014 05:10 PM)omniorange Wrote:  

(12-11-2014 04:46 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(12-11-2014 04:30 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(12-11-2014 04:21 PM)indycat Wrote:  For the B12--ouch. How about defectors Texas A&M and Mizzou in two of those top ten games? The B12 is beginning to resemble an old, cash rich life insurance company that has no idea how to do business in 2014 and beyond. It's actually a pretty good analogy because that insurance company can live off the fat of invested assets for years but may be clueless about how to find new revenue streams.

Missouri-Alabama in a pretty much exclusive time slot for the ccg got beat by Auburn-Alabama.

Virtually all of CBS's lowest rated SEC games involve Missouri or South Carolina. There was an article last year where CBS justified not covering a high profile Missouri game.

And all of the top 10 involved at least one of the last 5 MNC schools (there have only been Alabama, Auburn and FSU).

There was more than a little hopeful Winston schadenfreude in those numbers as well. F.S.U. draws well, but not that well usually.

FSU played ND during the regular season and had GT (coming off wins over Clemson and Georgia) in the championship game instead of Duke or a 6-6 GT.

However, in terms of TV ratings, they were also hurt by Florida not being good.

Still, the SEC was slightly down in comparison to say last year when the Top 10 most watched games were

Auburn/Mizzou (SEC Championship game)
Michigan State/Ohio State (BiG Championship game)
Alabama/Auburn
Alabama/Texas A&M
Alabama/LSU
Ohio State/Michigan
Notre Dame/Michigan
Miami/FSU
Georgia/Clemson
Texas A&M/LSU

SEC was hurt this year in comparison with last likely due to Ole Miss and Mississippi State being more regional than national attractions.

ACC's TV fortunes will continue to rest upon FSU, a good Miami, Clemson, and at least one of GT, VT, or Louisville being Top 25 caliber to support the above. And don't discount the partial affiliation with ND.

But I don't see any conference overcoming the strength and appeal of the SEC long term in regard to TV ratings. Every other conference is playing for second place in the long view.

Cheers,
Neil

The non-playoff bowl games involve Mississippi, Mississippi St., Michigan St., Arizona, Boise St., TCU, Baylor, Georgia Tech.

Boise may be the biggest name in the bunch! After that you would argue about Michigan St., Georgia Tech or TCU.

Under the old system, UCLA and Georgia probably would have beaten out some of those schools.

(12-11-2014 05:25 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(12-11-2014 05:20 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  The trend to me: ratings are driven by the playoff race even more so than the BCS era. In the BCS era, simply having two big brand names (i.e. some combo of Notre Dame, Michigan, Texas and/or USC) was enough to get a big ratings number even if they weren't championship contenders. Now, there's a bit less emphasis on those brand names in and of themselves if they're not highly ranked. Granted, it still helps immensely to have brand name power (which is the case with Alabama and Florida State). You also see the likes of Ohio State, Michigan State and Oregon peppered in the next 10 most watched games of the year (at least from what I see from the data at Sports Media Watch). The Big 12 was the one conference that wasn't boosted at all by the high rankings of their teams and it was almost certainly because Baylor, TCU and Kansas State were the ones involved.

The Big 12's means of delivery likely also played a part in their lack of numbers. FOX just isn't the draw that ESPN is, at least not yet.

Someone did a calculation of the ratings on the major networks. West Virginia lead the Big 12 according to his calculations (it was a Longhorn fan, not a Mountaineer).

(12-11-2014 05:33 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(12-11-2014 05:25 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(12-11-2014 05:20 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  The trend to me: ratings are driven by the playoff race even more so than the BCS era. In the BCS era, simply having two big brand names (i.e. some combo of Notre Dame, Michigan, Texas and/or USC) was enough to get a big ratings number even if they weren't championship contenders. Now, there's a bit less emphasis on those brand names in and of themselves if they're not highly ranked. Granted, it still helps immensely to have brand name power (which is the case with Alabama and Florida State). You also see the likes of Ohio State, Michigan State and Oregon peppered in the next 10 most watched games of the year (at least from what I see from the data at Sports Media Watch). The Big 12 was the one conference that wasn't boosted at all by the high rankings of their teams and it was almost certainly because Baylor, TCU and Kansas State were the ones involved.

The Big 12's means of delivery likely also played a part in their lack of numbers. FOX just isn't the draw that ESPN is, at least not yet.

That might be part of it, although many of the Big 12's biggest games were still on ABC/ESPN. Baylor-Kansas State was on ESPN this past weekend and Baylor-Texas Tech was on ABC on Thanksgiving weekend. The Pac-12 has essentially the same TV split between Disney/Fox as the Big 12 and the Oregon games generally drew well on the Fox networks.

Can't vouch for the guys calculations or assumptions, but what he came up with by conference (he included ESPN2 as a major network) was:
SEC 2.6 average rating
ACC 2.1
B1G 2.0
Big 12 2.0
Pac 12 1.6

Some of the Pac games, especially involving USC, did surprisingly poorly.