It is all relative. Is 2.4 million a good number in general for a nationally televised college game? I'm not sure. It is clearly good for a game when the second half starts at midnight Eastern/ 11 pm Central apparently.

Saturday's @AlabamaFTBL - @TexasFootball matchup averaged 10,595,000 viewers on FOX.

🏈 2022's most-watched college football game across any network.
🏈 @CFBonFOX's 4th most-watched regular season matchup in history.

*Full ratings details to be released shortly. pic.twitter.com/RITWrSNy6m

— FOX Sports PR (@FOXSportsPR) September 13, 2022

I haven't seen week 2 figures released yet….but for some context here is Week 1.

Ohio St/ND also did 10 million viewers

bear2be2 said:

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That's a hell of a number, period, for Baylor and BYU. That's more than double what those two have averaged the past five or six years.

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Agreed. It's elite for those two programs, but it likely won't be elite nationally.

Looks like the highest rated late games the previous week were Boise vs Ore St and TCU vs Colo which each had 1.25 million....so we doubled that.

Aberzombie1892 said:

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bear2be2 said:

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That's a hell of a number, period, for Baylor and BYU. That's more than double what those two have averaged the past five or six years.

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Agreed. It's elite for those two programs, but it likely won't be elite nationally.

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Did anyone expect it to be? Everything is relative when talking about the Big 12 and all other non-blue bloods.

As a general rule, 4 million is the benchmark for national ratings. When the networks consider what properties advertisers care about, they like that number. It's usually what they base projections on.

No response yet from the Baghdad Bob's of the PAC 12 Jon Wilner and John Carazono?.. so 2 teams that weren't good enough for PAC 12 just smashed ratings for that time slot in last 6 years?

There is a market for good late night games (maybe not that late lol).

More proof that raiding the Pac-12 (if we decide to do that) makes some sense.

Baylor vs BYU
Tech vs Arizona
Okie State vs Utah
Ect.

These would be decedent 2-3 million person viewership games easy.

Mississippi State played at Arizona around the same time, I wonder the ratings were for that game.

Aberzombie1892 said:

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bear2be2 said:

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That's a hell of a number, period, for Baylor and BYU. That's more than double what those two have averaged the past five or six years.

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Agreed. It's elite for those two programs, but it likely won't be elite nationally.

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Its elite for a 10:15 kickoff. East of the Mississippi doesnt watch those games.

Well we had almost as much as a prime time Pac game involving their soon to be leaving blue blood . So there is that.

Jack Bauer said:

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Mississippi State played at Arizona around the same time, I wonder the ratings were for that game.

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Looks like we got the answer in GoBears post....we had about 2 million more viewers

Look at that P5 Illinois vs Virginia matchup pulling in 159K

How do they measure this now with all the different streams? Also, what if you watched 10 minutes of the game, does that count, or do you have to watch x amount of time?

Mr Tulip said:

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As a general rule, 4 million is the benchmark for national ratings. When the networks consider what properties advertisers care about, they like that number. It's usually what they base projections on.

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That's the benchmark for Big Ten and SEC programs ... or more accurately, blue blood or blue blood adjacent programs.

That's not what we are or are talking about here. And given that there are only a handful of games that are going to reach or exceed that number in most weeks, there's still value in programs that can consistently do a million plus. It's not Big Ten or SEC value, but ESPN and Fox need to fill a ton of programing, and they'll happily take a million plus viewers in their secondary and tertiary programing when the alterative is highlight shows that no one watches or G5 games that will do a fraction of that number.

The Big 12 still has a niche in modern college football. And that will be borne out in the league's next TV contract.

bear2be2 said:

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Mr Tulip said:

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As a general rule, 4 million is the benchmark for national ratings. When the networks consider what properties advertisers care about, they like that number. It's usually what they base projections on.

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That's the benchmark for Big Ten and SEC programs ... or more accurately, blue blood or blue blood adjacent programs.

That's not what we are or are talking about here. And given that there are only a handful of games that are going to reach or exceed that number in most weeks, there's still value in programs that can consistently do a million plus. It's not Big Ten or SEC value, but ESPN and Fox need to fill a ton of programing, and they'll happily take a million plus viewers in their secondary and tertiary programing when the alterative is highlight shows that no one watches or G5 games that will do a fraction of that number.

The Big 12 still has a niche in modern college football. And that will be borne out in the league's next TV contract.

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That's actually what worries me.

So is the moral of the story that we either add the 4 corner schools or allow BYU to play 11 home games in the new Big 12?

The XII was supposed to start talking to Fox and ESPN last week about the new contract, at the request of the two networks. Any word out on the numbers yet? I have seen nothing further so far unless they were supposed to start this week.

JP1037 said:

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I assure you that with a game starting at 10:15 ET (eliminating a large percentage of casual football fans) 2.4 Million is a big boy number. No need to make excuses or apologize. A couple of you have beaten dog syndrome.

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Timing is great too for the new B12

PartyBear said:

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It had the highest rating of a late night game since 2016.

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Don't tell Wilner

Mr Tulip said:

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bear2be2 said:

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Mr Tulip said:

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As a general rule, 4 million is the benchmark for national ratings. When the networks consider what properties advertisers care about, they like that number. It's usually what they base projections on.

---

That's the benchmark for Big Ten and SEC programs ... or more accurately, blue blood or blue blood adjacent programs.

That's not what we are or are talking about here. And given that there are only a handful of games that are going to reach or exceed that number in most weeks, there's still value in programs that can consistently do a million plus. It's not Big Ten or SEC value, but ESPN and Fox need to fill a ton of programing, and they'll happily take a million plus viewers in their secondary and tertiary programing when the alterative is highlight shows that no one watches or G5 games that will do a fraction of that number.

The Big 12 still has a niche in modern college football. And that will be borne out in the league's next TV contract.

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That's actually what worries me.

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How so? I'm not following.

Mr Tulip said:

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As a general rule, 4 million is the benchmark for national ratings. When the networks consider what properties advertisers care about, they like that number. It's usually what they base projections on.

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Only four games met that benchmark in week two. Most be lots of disappointed advertisers.

PartyBear said:

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Well we had almost as much as a prime time Pac game involving one of their blue bloods . So there is that.

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Further proof the Arizona markets don't matter in CFB. I would still take Arizona (not State) for basketball though.

DanaDane said:

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So is the moral of the story that we either add the 4 corner schools or allow BYU to play 11 home games in the new Big 12?

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University of Arizona, SDSU and Utah (maybe Oregon and Washington if we can get them) only.

I actually had hoped very few saw that boring sloppy game. That is not the Baylor football we are accustomed to.

Mothballs said:

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DanaDane said:

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So is the moral of the story that we either add the 4 corner schools or allow BYU to play 11 home games in the new Big 12?

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University of Arizona, SDSU and Utah (maybe Oregon and Washington if we can get them) only.

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I'm with you. I don't want any school that's not on this list.

bear2be2 said:

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Mr Tulip said:

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bear2be2 said:

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Mr Tulip said:

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As a general rule, 4 million is the benchmark for national ratings. When the networks consider what properties advertisers care about, they like that number. It's usually what they base projections on.

---

That's the benchmark for Big Ten and SEC programs ... or more accurately, blue blood or blue blood adjacent programs.

That's not what we are or are talking about here. And given that there are only a handful of games that are going to reach or exceed that number in most weeks, there's still value in programs that can consistently do a million plus. It's not Big Ten or SEC value, but ESPN and Fox need to fill a ton of programing, and they'll happily take a million plus viewers in their secondary and tertiary programing when the alterative is highlight shows that no one watches or G5 games that will do a fraction of that number.

The Big 12 still has a niche in modern college football. And that will be borne out in the league's next TV contract.

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That's actually what worries me.

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How so? I'm not following.

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I'm worried that the Big 12 will be that niche. It doesn't matter whether the game falls at 2:30 (almost always a tough "regional" slot) or 9:00pm. There's no advertising return on a game that holds a small audience. That's not "small for the time slot". That's just categorically small. Few eyeballs means less demand from advertisers. It doesn't matter if it's 90% of the football viewers at the time.

If having the Big 12's current champion and #9 ranked team play a tough game against a ranked opponent in an unopposed slot garners 2.3million, that doesn't exactly have a provider ready to over-pay for a contract. They'd have a tough time convincing themselves that any of the league's games would threaten that 4million mark that bumps up advertising rates.

Executive Summary: Niche is not good. Mainstream gets paid.

Ghostrider said:

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I actually had hoped very few saw that boring sloppy game. That is not the Baylor football we are accustomed to.

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That's how most of us feel as Baylor fans but trust me, other fan forums around the country enjoyed it. The consensus is that it was a very close entertaining game.