(10-29-2015 01:21 AM)DavidSt Wrote:  I tune in to games like the Boise State's win over Oklahoma or when Butler almost beat Duke in the Men's basketball championship. When so many people really don't care about a game between Oklahoma and Alabama, but a lot would like to see the underdogs beat the big guys. Look at last years Fiesta Bowl? Almost near to 10 million viewers watched Boise State beating Arizona is a clear example of something new. Having the same teams in Alabama, Ohio State, Oregon and Florida State in the running for the playoff spots gets boring and people tend to tune out.

Memphis, Toledo, Houston and Temple are new teams being mentioned for a possible playoff spots winds up tending more people watch their games on TV. Temple selling out their games this year is a clear example that these teams can be supportive once they get a bigger spotlight. It is snobbery among the power 5 who cares about being associated with schools like Kansas, Northwestern, Duke, Wake forest. Miami Florida and Vanderbilt instead of power football schools like Boise State, Cincinnati and so forth.

Are we just supposed to ignore the sellouts are because of all the Penn State and Notre Dame fans?

(10-29-2015 05:20 AM)PGEMF Wrote:  

(10-29-2015 01:21 AM)DavidSt Wrote:  Temple selling out their games this year is a clear example that these teams can be supportive once they get a bigger spotlight.

Are we just supposed to ignore the sellouts are because of all the Penn State and Notre Dame fans?

Yes, we are, indeed, supposed to ignore inconvenient, though quite obvious, facts like those.

(10-29-2015 05:20 AM)PGEMF Wrote:  

(10-29-2015 01:21 AM)DavidSt Wrote:  I tune in to games like the Boise State's win over Oklahoma or when Butler almost beat Duke in the Men's basketball championship. When so many people really don't care about a game between Oklahoma and Alabama, but a lot would like to see the underdogs beat the big guys. Look at last years Fiesta Bowl? Almost near to 10 million viewers watched Boise State beating Arizona is a clear example of something new. Having the same teams in Alabama, Ohio State, Oregon and Florida State in the running for the playoff spots gets boring and people tend to tune out.

Memphis, Toledo, Houston and Temple are new teams being mentioned for a possible playoff spots winds up tending more people watch their games on TV. Temple selling out their games this year is a clear example that these teams can be supportive once they get a bigger spotlight. It is snobbery among the power 5 who cares about being associated with schools like Kansas, Northwestern, Duke, Wake forest. Miami Florida and Vanderbilt instead of power football schools like Boise State, Cincinnati and so forth.

Are we just supposed to ignore the sellouts are because of all the Penn State and Notre Dame fans?

And all the Temple fans coming out of the wood works right now. A few years back when they played Villanova, there were only less than 10,000 fans showing up to the game. With the upswing with the AAC this year, and all the buzz? I would not be surprise that they have improved from last year in overall attendance.

(10-29-2015 06:16 AM)DavidSt Wrote:  

(10-29-2015 05:20 AM)PGEMF Wrote:  

(10-29-2015 01:21 AM)DavidSt Wrote:  I tune in to games like the Boise State's win over Oklahoma or when Butler almost beat Duke in the Men's basketball championship. When so many people really don't care about a game between Oklahoma and Alabama, but a lot would like to see the underdogs beat the big guys. Look at last years Fiesta Bowl? Almost near to 10 million viewers watched Boise State beating Arizona is a clear example of something new. Having the same teams in Alabama, Ohio State, Oregon and Florida State in the running for the playoff spots gets boring and people tend to tune out.

Memphis, Toledo, Houston and Temple are new teams being mentioned for a possible playoff spots winds up tending more people watch their games on TV. Temple selling out their games this year is a clear example that these teams can be supportive once they get a bigger spotlight. It is snobbery among the power 5 who cares about being associated with schools like Kansas, Northwestern, Duke, Wake forest. Miami Florida and Vanderbilt instead of power football schools like Boise State, Cincinnati and so forth.

Are we just supposed to ignore the sellouts are because of all the Penn State and Notre Dame fans?

And all the Temple fans coming out of the wood works right now. A few years back when they played Villanova, there were only less than 10,000 fans showing up to the game. With the upswing with the AAC this year, and all the buzz? I would not be surprise that they have improved from last year in overall attendance.

Of course they improved.

They're attendance other than Penn State/Notre Dame is improving, but to act like these sellouts are strictly a result of them is ignoring the obvious. If they sell out for Memphis, then you can say it is Temple

Remember that MONEY drives the bus more than anything else...
Here's three ways conferences can get MORE money by having auto-bids for their champs.
1. Their TV contracts each go up for the regular season. Every conference game in Sept/October matters...and many do in November as well--some will be of IMMENSE importance.
2. Better OOC scheduling. If you lose 4 tough OOC games, but still win your conference, who cares? There is very little incentive not to schedule as well as you can...and that means better TV deals and more ticket-payers in seats.
3. (As was already stated) If the bowls are the quarterfinals games and conferences control those (for the most part), that's increased revenue.
Again, Frank's 8-team model makes the most sense to me.

It's not "Frank's 8 team model". It's just an 8 team model.

Notre Dame Vs Temple 7 PM CST on ABC this Saturday. When was the last time a G5 school been featured on a major broadcast network channel on ABC besides NAVY?

(10-28-2015 04:00 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(10-28-2015 02:28 PM)RUScarlets Wrote:  There are a good segment who just tune in on New Year's as everyone sits down with the family after sobering up. But I think the casual sports fan in this context refer to sports fans that do not consider CF to be a top 2-3 sport for them as a viewer. There are casual tennis/golf fans who would only watch a Sunday Final, but the sports themselves are virtually no priority for them any other time of the year. The people who only tune in to watch a SB, or a half of those Rose Bowl, are not sports fans. Besides the SB, networks have zero chance of luring these people over consistently. You have to be a sports fan first and foremost if you are going to watch sports on television. There are many football fans in this country obviously. They key is luring the NFL only fan to watch a college game. These are the majority of the "casual fan" block. And the playoff, regardless of participants (you are going to have a top 4 caliber team in there regardless), has drawn more of the NFL only fan in this case, as well as national CF enthusiasts that wouldn't otherwise watch unless their conference was involved.

That's actually a pretty good definition of what I'm thinking of as a "casual fan". It's someone that watches major sporting events, but wouldn't consider college football specifically to be a priority. In the basketball context, they're the types of people that would only watch the NCAA Tournament (or in the golf context, only watch the Masters). The CFP ratings numbers were definitely driven by those people - it had an incredibly great crossover appeal. Those weren't merely Big Ten, SEC and other power conference fans getting together watching those games at all. Note that the CFP semifinals and national championship game were the three most watched programs in the history of cable for *anything*. It scored higher than several NFL *playoff* games (the gold standard for broad American sports audiences) and every single other non-NFL event in the past year (including but not limited to the NBA Finals, World Series, Final Four, Masters, the U.S. winning the Women's World Cup Final, and American Pharaoh winning the Triple Crown). That hardly sounds like a niche audience to me.

Again, I'll just have to agree to disagree with you.

The CFP boost worked as follows, in my world:

- you have the fan bases of the schools in the power conferences, together that's a lot of viewers

- in the old system, only two of five power conferences were represented in the BCS national champ game

- this is a new system, so it has novelty, plus you have four power conferences represented


That's where the boost came in. Novelty plus more inclusion equals a much higher percentage of the P5 fan bases tuned it.

That's where I think the viewership boost came from.


Not from people who aren't fans of college football.

(10-28-2015 02:28 PM)RUScarlets Wrote:  There are a good segment who just tune in on New Year's as everyone sits down with the family after sobering up. But I think the casual sports fan in this context refer to sports fans that do not consider CF to be a top 2-3 sport for them as a viewer. There are casual tennis/golf fans who would only watch a Sunday Final, but the sports themselves are virtually no priority for them any other time of the year. The people who only tune in to watch a SB, or a half of those Rose Bowl, are not sports fans. Besides the SB, networks have zero chance of luring these people over consistently. You have to be a sports fan first and foremost if you are going to watch sports on television. There are many football fans in this country obviously. They key is luring the NFL only fan to watch a college game. These are the majority of the "casual fan" block. And the playoff, regardless of participants (you are going to have a top 4 caliber team in there regardless), has drawn more of the NFL only fan in this case, as well as national CF enthusiasts that wouldn't otherwise watch unless their conference was involved.

But I think at that level, advertisers have to start questioning if the "increased" viewership really results in increased sales.

And only advertising revenue is driven by viewership.


Carriage fees get paid regardless if a single subscriber ever tunes the game in.

(10-30-2015 12:24 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(10-28-2015 04:00 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(10-28-2015 02:28 PM)RUScarlets Wrote:  There are a good segment who just tune in on New Year's as everyone sits down with the family after sobering up. But I think the casual sports fan in this context refer to sports fans that do not consider CF to be a top 2-3 sport for them as a viewer. There are casual tennis/golf fans who would only watch a Sunday Final, but the sports themselves are virtually no priority for them any other time of the year. The people who only tune in to watch a SB, or a half of those Rose Bowl, are not sports fans. Besides the SB, networks have zero chance of luring these people over consistently. You have to be a sports fan first and foremost if you are going to watch sports on television. There are many football fans in this country obviously. They key is luring the NFL only fan to watch a college game. These are the majority of the "casual fan" block. And the playoff, regardless of participants (you are going to have a top 4 caliber team in there regardless), has drawn more of the NFL only fan in this case, as well as national CF enthusiasts that wouldn't otherwise watch unless their conference was involved.

That's actually a pretty good definition of what I'm thinking of as a "casual fan". It's someone that watches major sporting events, but wouldn't consider college football specifically to be a priority. In the basketball context, they're the types of people that would only watch the NCAA Tournament (or in the golf context, only watch the Masters). The CFP ratings numbers were definitely driven by those people - it had an incredibly great crossover appeal. Those weren't merely Big Ten, SEC and other power conference fans getting together watching those games at all. Note that the CFP semifinals and national championship game were the three most watched programs in the history of cable for *anything*. It scored higher than several NFL *playoff* games (the gold standard for broad American sports audiences) and every single other non-NFL event in the past year (including but not limited to the NBA Finals, World Series, Final Four, Masters, the U.S. winning the Women's World Cup Final, and American Pharaoh winning the Triple Crown). That hardly sounds like a niche audience to me.

Again, I'll just have to agree to disagree with you.

The CFP boost worked as follows, in my world:

- you have the fan bases of the schools in the power conferences, together that's a lot of viewers

- in the old system, only two of five power conferences were represented in the BCS national champ game

- this is a new system, so it has novelty, plus you have four power conferences represented


That's where the boost came in. Novelty plus more inclusion equals a much higher percentage of the P5 fan bases tuned it.

That's where I think the viewership boost came from.


Not from people who aren't fans of college football.

I think you're making this way too complicated.

Sports fans (not just college football fans) LOVE "win or go home" games. The CFP provided those in spades (with huge brand names to boot). I understand your personal belief, but I'm telling you that those ratings could NOT have been achieved without a huge number of casual sports fans. If you were saying that *casual* sports fans tuned in for the novelty aspect, you might have had a point there. However, the college football fans were all already in the bag for the CFP - the newness of it was irrelevant.

Once again, the CFP games were the most watched programs in cable history for *ANYTHING* (whether for sports or non-sports). They all beat an NFL playoff game on the same network during the same week!!! That statistically doesn't happen without a seriously large number of people with little to no connection to college football for the rest of the year watching.

(10-30-2015 12:35 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(10-30-2015 12:24 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(10-28-2015 04:00 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(10-28-2015 02:28 PM)RUScarlets Wrote:  There are a good segment who just tune in on New Year's as everyone sits down with the family after sobering up. But I think the casual sports fan in this context refer to sports fans that do not consider CF to be a top 2-3 sport for them as a viewer. There are casual tennis/golf fans who would only watch a Sunday Final, but the sports themselves are virtually no priority for them any other time of the year. The people who only tune in to watch a SB, or a half of those Rose Bowl, are not sports fans. Besides the SB, networks have zero chance of luring these people over consistently. You have to be a sports fan first and foremost if you are going to watch sports on television. There are many football fans in this country obviously. They key is luring the NFL only fan to watch a college game. These are the majority of the "casual fan" block. And the playoff, regardless of participants (you are going to have a top 4 caliber team in there regardless), has drawn more of the NFL only fan in this case, as well as national CF enthusiasts that wouldn't otherwise watch unless their conference was involved.

That's actually a pretty good definition of what I'm thinking of as a "casual fan". It's someone that watches major sporting events, but wouldn't consider college football specifically to be a priority. In the basketball context, they're the types of people that would only watch the NCAA Tournament (or in the golf context, only watch the Masters). The CFP ratings numbers were definitely driven by those people - it had an incredibly great crossover appeal. Those weren't merely Big Ten, SEC and other power conference fans getting together watching those games at all. Note that the CFP semifinals and national championship game were the three most watched programs in the history of cable for *anything*. It scored higher than several NFL *playoff* games (the gold standard for broad American sports audiences) and every single other non-NFL event in the past year (including but not limited to the NBA Finals, World Series, Final Four, Masters, the U.S. winning the Women's World Cup Final, and American Pharaoh winning the Triple Crown). That hardly sounds like a niche audience to me.

Again, I'll just have to agree to disagree with you.

The CFP boost worked as follows, in my world:

- you have the fan bases of the schools in the power conferences, together that's a lot of viewers

- in the old system, only two of five power conferences were represented in the BCS national champ game

- this is a new system, so it has novelty, plus you have four power conferences represented


That's where the boost came in. Novelty plus more inclusion equals a much higher percentage of the P5 fan bases tuned it.

That's where I think the viewership boost came from.


Not from people who aren't fans of college football.

I think you're making this way too complicated.

Sports fans (not just college football fans) LOVE "win or go home" games. The CFP provided those in spades (with huge brand names to boot). I understand your personal belief, but I'm telling you that those ratings could NOT have been achieved without a huge number of casual sports fans. If you were saying that *casual* sports fans tuned in for the novelty aspect, you might have had a point there. However, the college football fans were all already in the bag for the CFP - the newness of it was irrelevant.

Once again, the CFP games were the most watched programs in cable history for *ANYTHING* (whether for sports or non-sports). They all beat an NFL playoff game on the same network during the same week!!! That statistically doesn't happen without a seriously large number of people with little to no connection to college football for the rest of the year watching.

Here is the correct statement (in my world/opinion):

"That statistically doesn't happen without a seriously large number of fans of P5 schools, with little to no connection to the teams playing in the game except for P5 affiliation, watching."


I refuse to believe that people who don't watch college football:

- would not tune into the BCS national championship game (a 2-team playoff)

- but fell over themselves to tune into the CFP playoff games (a 4-team playoff)


Will not believe it. I refuse.

College football is a regional game. Much like baseball. The CFP was meant to incorporate more regions into the mix. Luckily, last year had representation from all the brand names. Heisman candidates plus marquee programs and coaches. A lot of NFL fans wanted to see the QB's in the Rose Bowl game. It was the easiest sell in the business. The problem with the BCS was that it was always skewed toward the SEC, and the other conferences were down for the most part. This killed ratings nationally. They had to expand the field. The ratings will never be as good every year.

My argument is that the difference between schools like Clemson/Baylor versus Memphis/Houston would be negligible in ratings regardless of which four teams play in the playoff. None of those schools deserve to compete for a title unless they go undefeated given their perennial schedules. There will be years where it will be impossible to decipher 4-6 or 3-8 even, but there is usually 1-3 clear cut teams with the body of work to back that ranking up. We don't need to dilute the field and I don't believe regular season ratings would improve at all if you expand the field. Look at MLB. Expansion has done nothing for its ratings.

(10-30-2015 04:45 PM)RUScarlets Wrote:  College football is a regional game. Much like baseball. The CFP was meant to incorporate more regions into the mix. Luckily, last year had representation from all the brand names. Heisman candidates plus marquee programs and coaches. A lot of NFL fans wanted to see the QB's in the Rose Bowl game. It was the easiest sell in the business. The problem with the BCS was that it was always skewed toward the SEC, and the other conferences were down for the most part. This killed ratings nationally. They had to expand the field. The ratings will never be as good every year.

My argument is that the difference between schools like Clemson/Baylor versus Memphis/Houston would be negligible in ratings regardless of which four teams play in the playoff. None of those schools deserve to compete for a title unless they go undefeated given their perennial schedules. There will be years where it will be impossible to decipher 4-6 or 3-8 even, but there is usually 1-3 clear cut teams with the body of work to back that ranking up. We don't need to dilute the field and I don't believe regular season ratings would improve at all if you expand the field. Look at MLB. Expansion has done nothing for its ratings.

I think that your first paragraph exactly supports my opinion for why the CFP had better ratings than the BCS.

College football fans from all the major fanbases tuned in. And I don't consider those to be casual fans.