A Primer on Tier-One, College Football Media Rights.
With the B1G currently in negotiations for it's future media right, I thought the board might be interested in an article that does a good job giving the current lay of the land. A bit of history and some good stats, worth a quick peek.
http://big12fanatics.com/media-matters-tier-one-analysis/
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where people don't really care about football very much.
It's actually less that people in the Pac-12 footprint care about football less, it's that there are less people in the Pac-12 to care about football. Almost 80% of the people in the US live in either the Eastern or Central time zones and only 14.1% live in the Pacific time zone, so when UCLA plays Washington at 7 on the West coast, most people aren't staying up to watch it.
also they miss a lot of the east coast fans who would tune in to a game if it was say at 3:30 in the afternoon, but so many good games at 11pm or midnight START times its hard to tune in.
I like to stay up watch certain games, like anything involving Stanford (Harbaugh influence, ya'know...). But it's tough staying awake much into the second half. And that is why Christian McCaffrey didn't have a realistic shot at the Heisman, despite meaning far more to his team than Henry meant to his. Both players are dynamic and deserving, but less than half of viewers ever saw McCaffrey actually play.
The sad thing is that without McCaffrey, Stanford doesn't win 10 and look like a playoff team. Without Henry, Alabama is still a playoff team with a very good running game.
Of the 10 largest media markets for college football, LA at #3 has to 2nd lowest share of the population that follows college football at 17% (Per a Wall Street Journal Article)
New York: 14% **
Atlanta: 41% *
LA: 17%
Dallas: 27%
Chicago: 19%
Birmingham: 85%
Philadelphia: 20%
Houston: 28%
Tampa: 30%
Detroit: 28%
* This is one reason I want Georgia Tech going to the B1G, that and Georgia is only behind California, Florida and Texas for the most amount of college football recruits, they are in the AAU, have a decent football team, are a good academic school AND most importantly it will take B1G powehouse teams to Atlanta in the middle of SEC country EVERY year.... Since they won't come up here... we'll go down there!
** Delany is betting we can bring this number up with B1G Ten network coverage AND the B1G powerhouses playing in their backyard ALL season....
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and I am not certain what the ultimate message was behind this article, but I do know that prior to what we cfb followers consider the greatest gift to us ever - absolutely every team, no matter who you are a fan of - is available every Saturday on live broadcast, there were certain teams, not unlike the SEC enjoys now(for other reasons), that held a distinct advantage over the rest of the nation simply by being followed by more television viewers than all the others. And it only stands to reason that those teams viewed by the most fans, in addition to all the other benefits, i.e., apparel sales, a result, no doubt, of the increased marketing simply by more views, increased and continuous name recognition, probably finishing 2 spots higher in the final and preseason polls than was actually warranted, etc., also had to do far less work in recruiting simply because a certain percentage of the high school players of that era had to be among those making these teams the most watched.
It was the preceding year mentioned in your article, 1983, while living in OKC for a year I learned of this, following a nationally televised contest between ND and UM. The program, with Bob Costas as the host and a nationally renowned jouranilist whose work was dedicated primarily toward cfb were discussing the importance of television making the wisest decisions possible in regard to their nationally televised games. Certain games, UM vs ND, OSU vs. UM were going to be national, regardless, just like TX vs. OU, OU vs. NE,, even if scheduled on the same date, merely by alternating kickoff times. The changes that were made had nothing to do with fairness because all teams were restricted by the 3 game rule. However, popularity was key as to those viewed most. Money, as is always the case in anything to do with collegiate sports, was obviously the main consideration.
Looking back, I find it interesting that two out of the top three teams named by the guest - I am thinking Mike DeBord - as the three most viewed were also second and third in terms of on field success during the preceding decade. OU was no.1 in that decade, followed by TX and UM in both games won and winning pct. The other team, ND, actually nipping at our heels up until '75 as to overtaking us in number of all-time wins, went into decline after the Devine retirement and we, of course, kept moving along to enjoy our greatest decade of on-field success in the past fifty years.
Obviously these deals had not yet been struck because the guest when questioned by Costas, stated, "If I were in charge of televising cfb, without restrictions, I would televise as many games involving TX, UM and ND for the simple reason they are the three most watched teams in cfb". A year later, 1984, as the article points out, television changed its course and its obvious which conference was the greatest beneficiary.
I try to watch Pac 12 football as much as I can, but I have to admit, I am usually drunk and heading to the bar by the time their 9:15 PM central game comes on. Plus some of their late matchups just are not enticing. I am not that interested in a Cal / Oregon State game if it means staying up until 1 AM on the east coast.