In particular, it was this comment that triggered me the most: "Six remaining schools rate higher than any Big 12 holdover." It's dumb. It's not true. He's too smart to write that. He's intentionally being obtuse to reach that conclusion.
Here was my response altogether:
When it comes to TV ratings, the time of day, the day of the week, and the channel that a game is on influence those numbers as much as who is actually playing in the games. Comparing raw numbers between the Big 12 and claiming a Pac 12 team "rates higher" is dumb.
It's also dumb to cherry pick comparisons like I'm about to do. But it's the offseason and other people are doing dumb comparisons.. so why not? All of these numbers discussed below are from last year. And they don't include any games involving UT/OU/USC/UCLA.
In general, Pac 12 games are played later in the day (better for TV numbers) and on more-watched channels (ABC/ESPN > Fox / FS1). Many Pac 12 games last year were also played on Friday, when there's no other sports on TV. It leads to higher ratings.
This is extremely significant. When people talk about non-OU/UT TV ratings for the Leftover 8 Big 12 schools, keep in mind that a vast majority of the games they are talking about were played early in the day on Saturday & on FS1 or ESPNU.
When people talk about non-USC/UCLA tv ratings for the Pac 12, they are generally talking about games being played when essentially no other P5 team is playing football (Friday night or Saturday night at 10 pm central).
To cherry pick some comparisons, last year, one of the PAC12's biggest brands (UW) played a night game on FS1 against Stanford that generated 402k viewers. Baylor/KSU, TCU/ISU, WVU/BU, and Tech/BU all generated more eyeballs on FS1.
There were only 2 ESPNU games played by the conferences last year. WVU / TCU generated 369k, while Stanford / Washington St. generated just 210k.
W/out question, Oregon's a big brand. They're propping up the PAC 12's numbers big time. But they also benefitted tremendously by playing on ESPN (4x) and ABC (3x) and Fox(1x). Those Oregon games averaged 2.411m viewers. The non-Oregon / Saturday-only Pac 12 games avged 515k...
Colorado v Utah on Fox the day after Thanksgiving (a great time to be on TV) generated 1.5mil eyeballs, the most for any PAC12 game not involving Oregon. 5 out of the Big12's 6 games on FOX were higher and they averaged over 2m eyeballs. All were on Sat. & only 2 were at night.
The Pac 12 played just one game on ESPN2. It was a late Friday night game between Washington and Arizona. 3 out of the Big 12's 4 games on ESPN2 drew more viewers.
FS1 games (Sat. only)
BU/KSU - 665k
TCU / ISU - 476k
WVU/BU - 456k
Tech/BU - 412k
Wash. / Stan. - 402k
KSU / Tech - 359k
KU / KSU - 344k
KU / OSU - 344k
Wash. St/Zona St - 337k
KU / ISU - 262k
2 Pac 12 games v. 8 Big 12, w/ the Pac 12 games performing worse.
Still controlling for channel, USC/UCLA played on Fox and generated 1.836mil eyeballs. On the same day and same channel, Tech v. Oklahoma State generated more. The Big 12championship almost doubled up the Pac12 championship games. Both on ABC & both regular season rematches.
What would Mandel's comparison look like if the leftover Pac12 were playing an equal number of games on FS1? What if Oregon leaves the Pac12? The Big12 is balanced when it comes to TV numbers. It's a group effort. That's a big positive when it comes to negotiating a new TV deal.
What if the Big 12 hand-picks a few Pac12 teams and steals some of these late Saturday / Friday time slots?
There's a reason why unbiased folks, like the ones at @NVGTInsights, believe the leftover Big 12 will command a higher TV deal than the leftover Pac 12. It's because the Big 12 generates more interest from TV viewers.
This was Mandel's response:
He definitely doesn't defend the statement that triggered me so hard that 6 Pac 12 schools "rate higher" than any Big 12 team.
