(07-29-2017 10:38 AM)Section 200 Wrote:  Markets work very well for the NFL, where folks in Pittsburgh watch the Steelers and folks in Chicago watch the Bears, and most large cities overwhelming support 1 local team. There are too many college teams to use market as an accurate metrics.

They don't really use "market". NFL games are distributed by region. No one would consider Little Rock to be a market for any Texas college program but it is now deemed a Cowboys market because the backlash was so severe when the Cowboys sucked and CBS quit feeding the Cowboys to Little Rock for some games.

In the past in determining distribution to non-obvious markets (ie. figuring out which southern markets get the Falcons and which get the Saints) the network would talk to station managers, local newspaper editors and rely on ratings data. I would bet they now have good enough ratings data to not require other input.