(07-13-2022 10:28 AM)CardinalBlackTrojan Wrote: (07-12-2022 07:28 PM)slhNavy91 Wrote: This is worth drilling down a little more.
In 2021, Tulane had eight nationally televised games.
Seven of those eight were on the AAC media deal.
Of those seven, three on ESPNU don't have reported viewers.
In four AAC games with reported viewers, Tulane had 3,962,000 viewers. That's 15% of the AAC's conference controlled inventory viewers, so Tulane is pulling their weight.
....
(Some Sun Belt fans will come on here and saying those home ooc games don't matter, so I'll get ahead of that by saying those Sun Belt fans - or others saying that - are ignorant).
Funny you go for that OOC slant, because Tulane would have contributed a very small amount of viewers toward that 2.53 million-viewer game against Oklahoma, and we both know that.
Otherwise, Tulane only has 1,436,000 viewers through three games against the AAC's top teams in 2021 (Cincy, Houston, SMU), which is pretty average G5.
In previous years, Tulane has pulled very little weight regarding viewership.
(07-12-2022 07:28 PM)slhNavy91 Wrote: Louisiana does edge ahead of Tulane when viewers are added for other conference's inventory -- Louisiana's body bag / paycheck game at Texas was a big number.
Louisiana didn't just edge Tulane in viewers when accounting for OOC... it wasn't even close. The difference was 1.10 million viewers. That's not an edge. The difference would actually be greater at 2.17 million viewers, if we count Louisiana's bowl game.
(07-12-2022 07:28 PM)slhNavy91 Wrote: The difference is that Tulane has the juice to get a home and home with Oklahoma...
It wasn't a home-and-home. It was a 2-for-1 series. Big difference in many ways.
(07-12-2022 07:28 PM)slhNavy91 Wrote: (Some Sun Belt fans will come on here and saying those home ooc games don't matter, so I'll get ahead of that by saying those Sun Belt fans - or others saying that - are ignorant. In addition to the AAC vs AAC inventory we're selling Notre Dame at Navy every other year, and that Oklahoma game, and Florida at USF, and, and, and)
Troy? One Nielsen rated game - at Coastal got 290,000 viewers.
You've also only accounted for one season... a small sample size. You haven't gone back further than 2020 in your data.
In previous seasons, Troy has had more viewership than Tulane:
2019
Total viewership
Troy - 448K
Tulane - 3.73 million
2018
Total viewership
Troy - 1.94 million
Tulane - 1.12 million
2017
Total viewership
Troy - 2.74 million
Tulane - 284K
2016
Total viewership
Troy - 3.08 million
Tulane - 254K
For the record, I don't personally get a lot out of engaging on Tulane vs Louisiana or Tulane vs Troy.
I jumped in on this particular point because I thought it was enlightening about the conference strength overall. Everyone has fun pointing and laughing at our small privates. (See that was fun right there.) We do it on this board - "Tulsane" ha ha ha. But here is Tulane, targeted for being a weak link in the chain, whereas in fact when you look at data it's stronger than outsiders realize.
I'll wade into this one more time, because there are still larger points about the conference to draw from this example.
My first framing point is that the viewer numbers really worth talking about are conference-controlled inventory. That's what the AAC is selling to the media partner(s), and that's what the Sun Belt is selling to your media partner.
You are fundamentally and foundationally wrong, CardinalBlackTrojan, to dismiss the home OOC games' value. It doesn't matter if 91% of the OU-Tulane viewers are tuned in for the Sooners, the AAC is cashing the check. It doesn't matter if ZERO viewers of Notre Dame at Navy are there for the Midshipmen, the AAC is cashing the check. The AAC secured the Billion dollar deal in part because the AAC was selling seven games hosting Notre Dame, and three games hosting Oklahoma, and Alabama at USF, and Penn State at Temple (and the value of other inventory OOC games, but those are the OOC names to make a network sit up and take notice).
Regular season total viewers, that is to say those away OOC games that some other conference gets paid for? I suppose those viewers are good for the school - total reach kind of aspect, school's overall brand. There's no direct monetary benefit to the conference as a whole. If the 8,000,000 watching Army-Navy hear about how tough the AAC is, that is some non-zero branding value to the conference, but not direct financial benefit. Casual fans (i.e. not anyone reading this - if you're on message boards about college football you're beyond "casual fan") might know App State beat Michigan in the Big House and that's good for App, but how much for the Sun Belt?
Regular season total viewers gets to another back-and-forth with you. 2021 Tulane and Louisiana. In your numbers you omitted Tulane's away ooc.
2021 Conference Controlled Inventory Viewers Tulane 3,962,000 Louisiana 2,186,000
2021 Total Regular Season Viewers Tulane 4,312,000 Louisiana 5,065,000.
Difference is NOT 1.1 million. Was 753k "edged" ? Okay fine, drop that word. Point is, more viewers delivered to the AAC contract by Tulane than to the Sun Belt contract by Louisiana. UL only surpasses Tulane when the Longhorns game, worth $0 to the Sun Belt contract, is added in.
Then you showed Troy's numbers. This isn't the W you think it is for you.
Let's add up those 2016-2021 numbers:
Tulane 14,771,000
Troy 11,107,000
I see that you were counting bowl numbers there. That's another soapbox for me - I need to be better about saying "total regular season viewers" instead of just "total" but counting bowl viewers in my opinion is even less valuable than counting regular season totals instead of conference controlled. Like away ooc games, bowls deliver $0 to the conference media deal. Moreover, bowl games are gonna get what bowl games are gonna get. I could pretty well predict the ordinal ranking of viewership of the 2022 bowls today, based on day and timeslot and conference matchups where they're not "pool." Specific matchups will change that a little, but that's only the small handful of Notre Dame type programs and the occasional matchup with a spicy storyline.
Bowls do offer the ability to compare from year to year. If you look at comparing regular season games for same network same timeslot, you pretty quickly end up with no comps or at best very small samples. But bowls often have similar time slots year by year -- Troy's 2016 Mobile Bowl is the best viewership I see for that, so that's pretty cool. Well done Troy. It might be saying something, but I still doubt the conference commissioner is saying it in the media negotiations.
I understand G4 fans assigning excessive importance to the bowls and viewership. 2015-2021 the Sun Belt had 11 bowl games over a million viewers, 7 regular season games for other conferences' checkbooks over a million viewers, and 5 conference controlled games over a million viewers. The AAC doesn't have the same outlook -- '15-'21 40 bowl games over a million and 62 conference controlled games over a million. That 2,512,000 viewers for the 2016 Mobile Bowl was one of four Sun Belt bowl games over two million viewers and the Louisiana Texas 2021 game was the only Sun Belt regular season game over two million viewers in seven years. The AAC has had 27 conference controlled games over two million, 16 of them intra-conference (six of the eight remainer AAC teams are in those two-million-viewer intra-conference games; all eight have intra-conference games over a million viewers; been looking through this lens for several years, full breakdown at
https://csnbbs.com/thread-938049-post-17...id17991225 ).
Speaking quickly to intra-conference games, they don't have any special importance. I suppose if you're trying to quantify some esoteric intrinsic brand value, but they're not inherently more important for a conference media deal. You can't suck, because there are twice as many intra-conference games as OOC games in the inventory you're selling. The AAC's intraconference viewership has consistently been more than 2/3 of conference controlled viewership, but I for one would rather look at the latter.
So looking at those six year totals again:
2016-2021 viewers, regular season and bowls:
Tulane 14,771,000
Troy 11,107,000
2016-2021 viewers, regular season total:
Tulane 12,117,000
Troy 5,570,000
2016-2021 conference controlled inventory viewers:
Tulane 10,484,000
Troy 2,050,000
Four years are in Tulane's favor in the last two breakdowns, rather than three years favoring each.
That conference controlled number for Tulane is 6.8% of the total conference controlled inventory viewers. So a little shy of fully pulling their weight. I'm in favor of keeping them if I'm the conference commissioner, though.
Back to big picture - this is Tulane exemplifying one of my big points to counter those speaking the doom of the AAC: the remaining eight teams are underestimated in a lot of analyses. The doomsayers also give too much credit to the three departing teams as some Big Three rather than just three of our top five/six teams. I think in this thread I already observed that some set the bar higher than necessary for the inbounds: we only need a couple of them to be pack or pack-plus right out the gate.
