The comparison of Uconn to places like Iowa St in this thread is not looking closely at the market.
In case people didn't know this, UConn is the only show in the state, no pro sports. There are 3.5 million residents. While the Hartford TV market is about 30th nationally, 1/3rd of the state is actually located in New York City's DMA. That might not be relevant for over-the-air broadcasts and ratings, but when it comes to cableTV and cable channels like BTN, it is VERY relevant.
One example: While it was in the OldBE, UConn owned its 3rd tier rights for women's bball. The BE didn't own them. UConn sold the rights for a few million a year to SNY (Sportschannel NY). At the time, SNY was available in the state to premium sports tier cable subscribers for $1.60 a month. Only 10% of subscribers had the package. Some cable systems in the eastern part of the state didn't even have SNY because they only carried the NY Mets. When SNY added UConn's 3rd tier (the BE kept the men's $$ but UConn kept the women's), SNY was moved to BASIC cable and also added to systems without SNY. This meant that every cable household in CT (between 1m and 1.5m) now paid SNY monthly for UConn 3rd tier rights. The monthly fee was jacked up to $2.50+.
This deal had an impact not only on Conn. cable systems, but also in New York state, where SNY has a big presence. For instance, check out this thread:
http://syracusefan.com/threads/looks-lik...yed.40752/
The UConn women's bball team preempted Syracuse men's game against Providence.
Then consider this: the auxiliary income from the UConn shows on SNY outside of sports (i.e. pre and post game shows, coaches' shows, etc.) drove up revenues for IMG, which produced those shows and sold ads. When UConn listed its royalties and ad sales on USA Today's database, they were in the mid 20m range, which was 2x as much as the next top team in the BE, that being Louisville.
UConn's strength is its market.
Consider the ACC's choice of Louisville over UConn. While Ville has better football, it's in the south, and it has intense interest locally (which explains the ACC's choice over UConn), the market is 1/3rd the size of Connecticut, AND a lot of the intense interest comes from UK fans.
Someone recently pointed out that Louisville's market did a 44 and 47 rating for the national championship men's bball games, tops in the nation for 2 straight years when Ville and UK were in the game, while Conn. only did a 33 rating for UConn's champ games. But the demographics in Conn. are different than the Ville market. Not only are there more people, but the average per capita in Louisville is $18k, while the average per capita in Connecticut is $56k. Advertisers care about such numbers. I'm sure the comparison to Iowa st's market would benefit UConn as well. The per capita income is also what allowed SNY to charge so much for basic cable in Conn.
Not to mention this fact: the UConn women did a 4.7 in NYC in the women's champ game, which was a top 10 number nationally. Consider that this literally means that more people in NYC watched the women's champ game than people in Louisville watched the Ville men's champ game.
That's the power of markets right there.