(10-07-2017 10:44 AM)stever20 Wrote:  

(10-07-2017 10:20 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  Wow, FOX really loaded in this week. Did they really have no other properties doing anything today??


stever, the $50M more was basically to guarantee the Ohio St Michigan game and the CCG, if I recall correctly. I'd say that's worth roughly $50M. The rest will be a wash, more or less.

except the overall ratings with all the games give the advantage to ESPN. I mean right now there's 3 games in the overall top 10, and ESPN has all 3 of them. Tonight's Michigan/Michigan St game should crack the top 10 easily. Regular season ABC/ESPN will have many more viewers than Fox/FS1 did. The Ohio St/Michigan game is great, but ABC/ESPN will always get the best OOC game. And a lot of times, the gap between Ohio St/Michigan and 2nd game that weekend is less than the gap between the top OOC game and the 2nd best game that particular weekend.

Just a case in point. In 4 of the 5 weeks the top rated ABC/ESPN game has outdrawn the top rated Fox/FS1 game.... In those 5 games-
ABC/ESPN- 21.979 million viewers total
Fox/FS1- 9.921 million viewers total

so that's a 12 million viewer gap just there. And that gap is going to grow dramatically today when Fox shows Ohio St/Maryland while ABC gets Michigan/Michigan St. And while Fox does get a good Ohio St/Penn St game in a few weeks, ESPN gets a good Michigan/Penn St game as well. And that game will be in prime time, while Ohio St/Penn St won't be. All in all, ABC/ESPN will almost certainly have more viewers in the regular season.

I think everyone expects ABC to beat Fox on Big 10 games. Fox just hasn't developed a practice among the casual fans in looking their way for college football. They are thinking long term.

Realistically, Fox has traditionally been around ESPN's ratings, notably below ABC/CBS and FS1 has been below ESPN2. They want to get Fox close to ABC/CBS and FS1 close to ESPN. But it will take years, not weeks.