• The KillerFrogs

FWST: TCU, Texas Tech and Baylor’s future as Power 5 schools depends on ESPN, Fox and Big Ten

Endless Purple

Full Member
Big 10 Network was already on most of not all NY metro cable networks as part of their sports package BEFORE Rutgers joined. That's exactly where it is placed now so no change.
You missed the point of the little things add up comment.

Cable companies pay carriage fees to the cable channels (ie. Big 10 network). Before Rutgers was invited to join, the NY market was considered out-of-market as the Big 10 did not have a team in that viewing area. The cable companies paid about .10 - .15 for each subscriber that had the channel to the network. (very close estimate as I don't remember the exact number).

Once Rutgers joins the Big 10, NY media is now considered an in-market area. Now every cable company had to pay about .75-.95 per subscriber and the channel could be on lower level tiers thus more people.

A change like that can go from $10 million a year to $10 million a month in revenue.

Similar for the DC market with Maryland. Now Los Angeles.

No one actually has to watch Rutgers or Maryland as the carriage fees went up regardless.

Edit to add: Those were numbers back when Rutgers joined. Do not know how much they may have gone up by now.
 

Eight

Member
People in Texas are HUGE fans of college football. People in the NE (and LA from what I can tell) region really only watch and talk about their pro teams. It's very strange. I lived up there for a bit, and everyone just gave me grief about the cowboys because I was from Texas. They thought it was weird I didn't have much interest in the pro banter. Occasionally, I would let them know I couldn't care less about them, and generally just watch games where TCU players were playing.

Summary...being in the NYC/tri-state area is meaningless. It's not about Rutgers...it's just that nobody cares in general. People in Texas will watch big games regardless of the team...especially if it's a local team.

texans with all their ineptitude draw far more attention in the houston area than college football. when you look at the ratings the nfl dominates.

college football still draws eyes on saturday, but it isn't uh, it is texas, atm, lsu etc......

maybe dallas is different, but i don't seem to recall it that way. again, you will get eyes on saturday, but 6 days a week who dominates the attention. the cowboys or college football?

then we go one step further and on those saturdays who is drawing most of the attention?
 

Froggy Style

Active Member
texans with all their ineptitude draw far more attention in the houston area than college football. when you look at the ratings the nfl dominates.

college football still draws eyes on saturday, but it isn't uh, it is texas, atm, lsu etc......

maybe dallas is different, but i don't seem to recall it that way. again, you will get eyes on saturday, but 6 days a week who dominates the attention. the cowboys or college football?

then we go one step further and on those saturdays who is drawing most of the attention?
Cool story...but hardly the point I was making. Simply...people in the northeast care very little about college football. So it's great that NY media market has 20 million people. However, if none of them watch college football...it doesn't matter. Many of the schools up there don't even have D1 football, so it's just not part of their normal conversation.

It's true that Cowboys and Texans get more viewers than college, but 25-30% watch college too. 30% of a million person market is a ton more than 2% of a 20 million person market.

Our games do draw several million viewers...especially when we're ranked. Yes, Texas gets more viewers...but that's not the point either. To the original point, if we were in the Big 10, then we would have an enormous set of eyeballs from Texans and the Northeast as we would be one of only three relevant schools in the largest state that cares about football.

Chances of it happening, low...when it comes to trying to enter the fourth largest TV market (yes, DFW has passed Philly) you can bet the Big 10 is looking at it.
 

Big Frog II

Active Member

Froggy Bottom

Active Member
The way I see it is good news bad news.

The bad news is that despite the expansion, we are not a serious candidate for the Power 2 (B1G/SEC) and neither is anyone else in the B12 with (Big) MAYBE of KU

The good news is that thanks to our DFW location (which the PAC has said is a priority for any expansion candidate due to need to replace LA for coming contract negotiations) it kind of doesn’t matter who wins the death match between the B12 and the PAC to retain true power conference status because we will be on the survivors side.
 

Wexahu

Full Member
I can't wait until Rutgers, Maryland, Purdue, Illinois, Minnesota, et.al. come to the Carter - Man, that'll get DFWs attention.

Outside OSU, Michigan, State Penn, USC, and maybe Wisky or UCLA, The BIG is a bit of an empty suit.IMO.

All this acclaim and cash for a conference that is NOT the SEC! Doesn't make logical sense to me.
You are drastically underestimating the size of the schools and the loyalty of the fan bases at places like Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan State, Indiana, Purdue, etc.......

The product on the field isn't always good but everything else is absolutely there. The conference is full of big flagship state schools, exactly what the networks and money people are going after.
 

Endless Purple

Full Member
Couple thoughts looking at those 2 postings:
NY may not be the biggest college football world, but the sheer numbers put them at #1 with most people watching.

TCU was shown at 370,000 in the MWC even after the Rose Bowl and the 2021 (a bad year for TCU) showed 900,000. That is also fans vs viewers so not sure how they are doing their measurements, but it just shows me that there is a wide range of how you can look at numbers. Also need to consider access to network TV vs cable channels only for games and other factors.
 

McFroggin

Active Member
If Cal doesn't go to the Big 10, we need to get them.

From what I’m hearing with my contacts, we are attacking UA, ASU, Colorado, and Utah. When they come (highly likely), we can shift attention to Oregon and Wash. Both seem unlikely, but 1 is very reasonable. Assuming 1, we get Stanford and leave out Cal. Cal is back-up to get a round number.

The wrench is Big10 taking ND. If they do, they’ll likely take Oregon. Then it’s whether the ACC falls to take leftovers there.
 

Eight

Member
Cool story...but hardly the point I was making. Simply...people in the northeast care very little about college football. So it's great that NY media market has 20 million people. However, if none of them watch college football...it doesn't matter. Many of the schools up there don't even have D1 football, so it's just not part of their normal conversation.

It's true that Cowboys and Texans get more viewers than college, but 25-30% watch college too. 30% of a million person market is a ton more than 2% of a 20 million person market.

Our games do draw several million viewers...especially when we're ranked. Yes, Texas gets more viewers...but that's not the point either. To the original point, if we were in the Big 10, then we would have an enormous set of eyeballs from Texans and the Northeast as we would be one of only three relevant schools in the largest state that cares about football.

Chances of it happening, low...when it comes to trying to enter the fourth largest TV market (yes, DFW has passed Philly) you can bet the Big 10 is looking at it.

first, where did you get the 30% and 2% from in your response and you might want to check your math.

30% of 1 M is 300,000 and 2% of 20M is, presuming i didn't use as my brain power coming up with a cool story, 400,000 which means that 2% of 20M is actually more than 30% of 1M and not a ton less.

go find my tcu games without texas or ou that draws MILLIONS of viewers because unless we are playing a large market school the ratings does match the sales pitch.

show me the actual ratings because this get claimed but not backed up and guys like gary's seem to agree that tcu does not bring the ratings some believe but then again i am more about cool stories than real numbers i guess
 

Froggy Style

Active Member
first, where did you get the 30% and 2% from in your response and you might want to check your math.

30% of 1 M is 300,000 and 2% of 20M is, presuming i didn't use as my brain power coming up with a cool story, 400,000 which means that 2% of 20M is actually more than 30% of 1M and not a ton less.

go find my tcu games without texas or ou that draws MILLIONS of viewers because unless we are playing a large market school the ratings does match the sales pitch.

show me the actual ratings because this get claimed but not backed up and guys like gary's seem to agree that tcu does not bring the ratings some believe but then again i am more about cool stories than real numbers i guess
Left out the 8 in front of the DFW market. That's about 3 million when 30% care about college football to the NY market of almost nobody caring. TCU v Baylor in 2021 got 1.81 million viewers. Is that small enough schools for you?

My point is still only that people want the DFW market, not just for ratings...but for an easy place to fly in to for games, recruiting, and eyeballs. Only one team gets you that on a weekly basis. Have fun bending over backwards trying to win an argument that disputes something so basic.
 

Wexahu

Full Member
Left out the 8 in front of the DFW market. That's about 3 million when 30% care about college football to the NY market of almost nobody caring. TCU v Baylor in 2021 got 1.81 million viewers. Is that small enough schools for you?

My point is still only that people want the DFW market, not just for ratings...but for an easy place to fly in to for games, recruiting, and eyeballs. Only one team gets you that on a weekly basis. Have fun bending over backwards trying to win an argument that disputes something so basic.
If all the things you are saying are true the Big 10 will surely come knocking.

Let’s see if they do.
 

BrewingFrog

Was I supposed to type something here?
You missed the point of the little things add up comment.

Cable companies pay carriage fees to the cable channels (ie. Big 10 network). Before Rutgers was invited to join, the NY market was considered out-of-market as the Big 10 did not have a team in that viewing area. The cable companies paid about .10 - .15 for each subscriber that had the channel to the network. (very close estimate as I don't remember the exact number).

Once Rutgers joins the Big 10, NY media is now considered an in-market area. Now every cable company had to pay about .75-.95 per subscriber and the channel could be on lower level tiers thus more people.

A change like that can go from $10 million a year to $10 million a month in revenue.

Similar for the DC market with Maryland. Now Los Angeles.

No one actually has to watch Rutgers or Maryland as the carriage fees went up regardless.

Edit to add: Those were numbers back when Rutgers joined. Do not know how much they may have gone up by now.
With these facts in mind, does the B1G gain anything by expanding into the D/FW Metroplex? Are there carriage fees to exploit in this same manner?

Ratings are only one factor in the complex calculus that the Media Suits scrutinize when deciding on conquest, and it seems that their importance is diminishing.
 
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