I have now completed my review of the ACC football ratings that are currently on the Sports Media Watch site for 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013. While I also reviewed the 2012 data I have some concerns about including that data set since the site itself claims it includes "almost all" college football games and for some of the ones it does include it either doesn't report total viewers or gives an overnight data point and not the final actual numbers.

I have compartmentalized the data into about 6 different sets, but for the purposes of this post, I will only include the 4 sets I believe the most pertinent.

This is looking at the data from a conference standpoint, not by individual team within the conference, which I will do at a later time.

The four sets I will present are:

1) Conference Games Ratings - excluding ESPNU/ESPNews broadcasts as well as split games (where there is one broadcast channel, but different parts of the country get a different game) as well as the ABC/ESPN2 Mirror Games similar to split, except being broadcast over two channels instead of one.

{Note: I see this category as probably more significant when comparing P5 conferences against one another since the conference games that appear on ESPNU/ESPNews as well as FS2 (not pertinent for the ACC) are likely the games that would be shown on a conference network, if each P5 had one up and running. And the fact that the trend of mirror games appear to be dwindling over time. Unfortunately this data set can also be somewhat deceiving since the games involving the cream of the conference are in this set whereas the lesser programs tend not to be. This can give the perception that the league is doing better than it actually might be.}

2) All Conference Games Ratings excluding split/mirror games. I believe this data set is important since it can show how ESPNU/ESPNews/FS2 games may significantly impact the average viewers per game and also perhaps impact perception of the conference like data set 1, but in the opposite (or negative) direction. The truth is probably betwixt and between the two.

3) Conference TV Contract Games - this data set includes all conference games (except split/mirror games) as well as either home out-of-conference games or neutral site games (like the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Games) in which both participating conferences will receive credit when the final data sets are presented for each P5 conference.

4) ALL Games - including away out-of-conference as well as split/mirror games with the latter having the total number of viewers equally divided between the conferences involved since the site doesn't break down which game accounted for what number of the total viewers. Personally I don't like including split/mirror games, but this was a request from a couple of posters the last time I presented the data, so I am providing it.

Hope the above makes sense.

ACC Conference Games (excluding ESPNU/ESPNews and mirror games)

2017 - 27 games; 63.343 million viewers; 2.346 average per game
2016 - 26 games; 67.089 million viewers; 2.580 average per game
2015 - 19 games; 45.470 million viewers; 2.393 average per game
2014 - 21 games; 60.614 million viewers; 2.886 average per game
2013 - 17 games; 48.255 million viewers; 2.840 average per game

ACC Conference Games (excluding only mirror games)

2017 - 33 games; 65.102 million viewers; 1.973 average per game
2016 - 33 games; 69.978 million viewers; 2.120 average per game
2015 - 29 games; 49.862 million viewers; 1.719 average per game
2014 - 34 games; 66.802 million viewers; 1.965 average per game
2013 - 30 games; 54.281 million viewers; 1.809 average per game

ACC TV Conference Games (excluding mirror games):

2017 - 46 games; 109.084 million viewers; 2.371 average per game
2016 - 42 games; 106.520 million viewers; 2.536 average per game
2015 - 39 games; 90.433 million viewers; 2.319 average per game
2014 - 45 games; 101.715 million viewers; 2.260 average per game
2013 - 41 games; 82.121 million viewers; 2.003 average per game

ALL ACC games

2017 - 58 games; 135.085 million viewers; 2.329 average per game
2016 - 57 games; 136.594 million viewers; 2.396 average per game
2015 - 55 games; 127.417 million viewers; 2.317 average per game
2014 - 59 games; 135.754 million viewers; 2.301 average per game
2013 - 56 games; 111.264 million viewers; 1.987 average per game

Cheers,
Neil