(09-05-2015 09:09 AM)CougarRed Wrote:  So . . . Big East hoops has no excuse.

I would like to see FS1 pick up another conference for basketball - the Big 10 would be ideal, but even getting a bigger share of the Big 12 or a prominent non-football conference like the A-10 would help too.

The Big East was a great match for ESPN because it provided quality content with good brands. Now most of the top brands are gone but there is still quality basketball being played. I don't believe casual fans search out Big East basketball but they would certainly watch them if they were on ESPN during the middle of the week. Its same reason why the American is good fit for ESPN. Nobody outside the core fan bases is going to out of there way to watch those schools but if you happen to find one their games on ESPN, ESPN2, or ESPNU it probably will keep you occupied if the game is close.

The Big Ten's top brands have the power to move people to FS1 but it probably wouldn't help the Big East during basketball season.

The Big East still has quality basketball. Seven of the ten teams were ranked at some point during the year. The conference had a winning percentage against the P5 in 43 games played. But schools like Xavier, Creighton, Butler and Providence only have enrollments of around 4,000, so you are not talking huge alumni bases like you get with a state school.

One issue I noticed today with FS1 was no football. Baseball and UFC prefight.

If they want people to remember them for college football they might want to have some on Saturdays.

(09-06-2015 12:17 AM)Okielite Wrote:  One issue I noticed today with FS1 was no football. Baseball and UFC prefight.

If they want people to remember them for college football they might want to have some on Saturdays.

Yeah, a huge mistake. I would have at least put the UCLA/Virginia game on FS1 and have to take the Pac 12 Big Fox game later. Move the baseball to Big Fox.

First of all, regarding Big East hoops on FS1, yes, the ratings are not great but there are a couple of things to consider.

1st, FS1 needs tons of live events during the winter time as there is pretty much just Big East basketball, occasional Pac-12 basketball, UFC and boxing. That is it. So a positive for all fans of the Big East is that almost all our games get shown on national TV. The negative about that is that ALL our games are shown which include cupcake games against teams from the MEAC, Southland, SWAC, DII teams etc.....These games if they were on ESPN would be shown on ESPN3 or not even shown at all. If you look at the ratings for those types of games, they are typically really low and why wouldn't they be? There is no interest in those games except for fans of those Big East teams. So when everyone says the Big East has low ratings, a major reason why is because games like those are shown and then they average the ratings with games on FS2 which no one has and it gets even worse.

2nd, if you compare Big East ratings with PAC-12 basketball ratings on FS1, they are pretty much identical. I don't hear anyone saying the PAC-12 has basketball rating issues yet when their games are shown on FS1, their ratings are very similar.

With that said, I do think FS1 needs some Big Ten basketball to compliment Big East/PAC-12 basketball. The Big Ten and Big East teams overlap similar regions so there is some natural crossover interest...

(09-06-2015 01:05 AM)Jet915 Wrote:  First of all, regarding Big East hoops on FS1, yes, the ratings are not great but there are a couple of things to consider.

1st, FS1 needs tons of live events during the winter time as there is pretty much just Big East basketball, occasional Pac-12 basketball, UFC and boxing. That is it. So a positive for all fans of the Big East is that almost all our games get shown on national TV. The negative about that is that ALL our games are shown which include cupcake games against teams from the MEAC, Southland, SWAC, DII teams etc.....These games if they were on ESPN would be shown on ESPN3 or not even shown at all. If you look at the ratings for those types of games, they are typically really low and why wouldn't they be? There is no interest in those games except for fans of those Big East teams. So when everyone says the Big East has low ratings, a major reason why is because games like those are shown and then they average the ratings with games on FS2 which no one has and it gets even worse.

2nd, if you compare Big East ratings with PAC-12 basketball ratings on FS1, they are pretty much identical. I don't hear anyone saying the PAC-12 has basketball rating issues yet when their games are shown on FS1, their ratings are very similar.

With that said, I do think FS1 needs some Big Ten basketball to compliment Big East/PAC-12 basketball. The Big Ten and Big East teams overlap similar regions so there is some natural crossover interest...

The problem with that though is when Big East teams play over on ESPN they are drawing well. Georgetown last year vs Wisconsin on ESPN got more viewers than any FS1 basketball game.

The ratings for the conference games aren't good. The conference championship game drew barely over 400k viewers. The Xavier/Cincy game on ESPN2 drew like 7000 fewer viewers than the title game.

Regular season conference games averaged less than 130k per game last year. Everyone has been like, well FS1 is new, no one knows about it. That's gone.

Regarding your 2nd point, that's fine- but the Pac 12 was smart to not give 100% of their product to FS1. The Pac 12 has an ESPN component. Like it or not, but ESPN is the gold standard. That's why folks don't say the Pac 12 has a ratings problem.

The difference now though is that FS1 has had a great summer. The excuses now are totally gone.

With the Big Ten basketball- the problem is that the ESPN package(which isn't going to grow much as Big Ten Basketball fuels the Big Ten Network)- is only like about 4-5 games a week. Big Ten is going to want to keep a presence on ESPN. So we're talking about 2-3 games a week for FS1. That's not enough to make that much of a difference.

(09-06-2015 01:20 AM)stever20 Wrote:  Regarding your 2nd point, that's fine- but the Pac 12 was smart to not give 100% of their product to FS1. The Pac 12 has an ESPN component. Like it or not, but ESPN is the gold standard. That's why folks don't say the Pac 12 has a ratings problem.

For basketball, the split of Pac-12 regular-season games between ESPN channels and Fox is about 2-1 ESPN. Football is 1-1.