What do you all think about Andy's perspective?
I think Andy has a decent point and no one would argue Auburn is likely a better draw than Tech no matter the excuses we come up with. But is the disparity as great as Andy thinks?
But, Andy does not take into account when Auburn games are on, what network they are on and matchups besides the games he mentions i.e. Tech playing kansas or tcu vs auburn playing georgia or even kentucky. IMO, yes there is most certainly a disparity even if you factor in those types of variables.
Just looking at the last 5 years of TV numbers accentuates that disparity quite a bit. What if Tech were in the SEC and Auburn was in the Big 12. Would the TV viewership be on a different foot? Compare Auburn's bowl game viewrship with Tech's this past season. 5 years from now when auburn and texas are playing and they are 5-7 and 6-6 type teams is anyone gonna get excited to tune into that except for ut and auburn fans? What would be the backstory? There's zero history or tradition.
What do you all think?
The Athletic
4h ago
It’s officially talking season, and you have questions…
(Note: Submitted questions have been lightly edited for length and clarity.)
Loved the perspective of viewership to look through the lens of realignment. My question: How many games will truly move the dial in terms of viewership? Does Oklahoma-Mississippi State really bring in more viewers than Oklahoma-Kansas State? Does USC-Purdue outpace USC-Arizona State? Oklahoma-Texas is just a reallocation of monies. And undoubtedly Texas-Alabama will outshine nearly anything. But I really wonder if losing Texas-Texas Tech replaced by Texas-Auburn is like for like. Probably not, but is it more than made up by forcing Texas-Texas A&M? — Mark
The consolidation into the Big Ten and SEC is all about one thing: creating blockbuster matchups for the TV networks willing to pay top dollar for them. That’s why I keep writing about TV ratings and audience numbers. No matter how the product gets distributed — be it through a satellite dish, linear cable TV or a streaming service — the only sure way to make money is to have the thing that the most people want to see.
The flaw in Mark’s argument is thinking Texas Tech and Auburn are similar as television properties. No offense intended to the Red Raiders, but they just don’t bring the audience the Tigers do. They’re not even in the same galaxy.
Using our ratings data set from 2015-19 and 2021 — the 2020 pandemic year is omitted because some leagues weren’t playing some weeks, skewing the numbers — we can compare the two programs in terms of audience.
Auburn had 49 rated games during that period. Those games had a median audience of 3.5 million. Texas Tech had 53 rated games in that period. Those games had a median audience of 834,000. Because channel does matter, the Red Raiders can get a boost if we remove their 24 rated games on Fox Sports 1. That brings their median audience up to 1.7 million. Unfortunately, that’s still a little less than half of what games involving Auburn drew.
Logic fails in thinking Auburn’s numbers were big because the Tigers play Alabama. (Though the Iron Bowl does monster numbers.) Mark theorized that Auburn’s audience minus its top opponents would look similar to Texas Tech’s minus Texas and Oklahoma. A test of that hypothesis doesn’t fare well for the Red Raiders.
Without Texas and Oklahoma, Texas Tech’s median audience falls to 676,000. Taking away FS1 games, that number rises to 1.1 million.
Now let’s look at Auburn. We’ll take away Alabama and Georgia, annual opponents that are bigger draws than Texas and Oklahoma. The Tigers’ median audience drops by more than a million viewers. (Told you the Iron Bowl does massive numbers.) But that still means Auburn’s games that didn’t include those opponents drew a median audience of 2.4 million.
Not including games against Alabama or Georgia, Auburn games drew an audience of more than five million on six occasions (Penn State in 2021, LSU in 2019, Oregon in 2019, Florida in 2019, LSU in 2018, Washington in 2018). Such games drew more than two million on 28 occasions.
Not including games against Texas and Oklahoma, Texas Tech games drew an audience of more than five million zero times. They actually didn’t crack five million playing Texas or Oklahoma, either. The biggest audience for any of those games was the 2017 Texas game with 3.6 million viewers. That would have come in at No. 24 on Auburn’s list.
Absent Oklahoma or Texas, the Red Raiders played games that drew two million viewers three times (Oklahoma State in 2015, TCU in 2015, Oklahoma State in 2017). When Auburn does a thing 28 times and Texas Tech does the same thing only three times, we’re not going out on a limb when we surmise that Auburn is better at that thing than Texas Tech.
This was not done to pick on the Red Raiders. That happens to be the program Mark named, so direct all complaints to him. I chose this question because it resembles a lot of the questions I get here and on Twitter where people assume they know a team’s audience without looking at the numbers.
The leagues and networks have much more detailed numbers than these. They know who is watching and when. They break it down by gender, age and hour. These realignment decisions do not happen by accident. Leagues know what networks crave, and they strive to deliver that.
These numbers tend to make some people very mad. And that’s understandable. No one wants to be given hard data that shows the rest of the world does not think their favorite thing is as special as they think it is. They try to rationalize why their team’s numbers are lower than another team’s numbers. And some of the factors do matter. Time slot and channel affect viewership. For example, the Big 12 might be able to poach from the Pac-12 in spite of marginally better audience numbers for the top of the Pac-12 versus the top of the Big 12. But leagues and networks understand that there is a this-is-the-only-game-on bump. Because Pac-12 teams tend to play in more games that start later and finish the night as the only game on a major network, that league’s schools’ numbers are helped by that bump. And that bump can be accounted for in the calculations of leagues and networks.
But some teams are simply more popular, and that has driven these most recent moves. The Big Ten and the SEC did this so they can throw Alabama-Oklahoma, Texas-Auburn and USC-Penn State at networks, which will in turn make networks throw money at those leagues.
I think Andy has a decent point and no one would argue Auburn is likely a better draw than Tech no matter the excuses we come up with. But is the disparity as great as Andy thinks?
But, Andy does not take into account when Auburn games are on, what network they are on and matchups besides the games he mentions i.e. Tech playing kansas or tcu vs auburn playing georgia or even kentucky. IMO, yes there is most certainly a disparity even if you factor in those types of variables.
Just looking at the last 5 years of TV numbers accentuates that disparity quite a bit. What if Tech were in the SEC and Auburn was in the Big 12. Would the TV viewership be on a different foot? Compare Auburn's bowl game viewrship with Tech's this past season. 5 years from now when auburn and texas are playing and they are 5-7 and 6-6 type teams is anyone gonna get excited to tune into that except for ut and auburn fans? What would be the backstory? There's zero history or tradition.
What do you all think?
The Athletic
Dear Andy: Here’s why trading Texas-Texas Tech for Texas-Auburn is huge for TV
By Andy Staples4h ago
It’s officially talking season, and you have questions…
(Note: Submitted questions have been lightly edited for length and clarity.)
Loved the perspective of viewership to look through the lens of realignment. My question: How many games will truly move the dial in terms of viewership? Does Oklahoma-Mississippi State really bring in more viewers than Oklahoma-Kansas State? Does USC-Purdue outpace USC-Arizona State? Oklahoma-Texas is just a reallocation of monies. And undoubtedly Texas-Alabama will outshine nearly anything. But I really wonder if losing Texas-Texas Tech replaced by Texas-Auburn is like for like. Probably not, but is it more than made up by forcing Texas-Texas A&M? — Mark
The consolidation into the Big Ten and SEC is all about one thing: creating blockbuster matchups for the TV networks willing to pay top dollar for them. That’s why I keep writing about TV ratings and audience numbers. No matter how the product gets distributed — be it through a satellite dish, linear cable TV or a streaming service — the only sure way to make money is to have the thing that the most people want to see.
The flaw in Mark’s argument is thinking Texas Tech and Auburn are similar as television properties. No offense intended to the Red Raiders, but they just don’t bring the audience the Tigers do. They’re not even in the same galaxy.
Using our ratings data set from 2015-19 and 2021 — the 2020 pandemic year is omitted because some leagues weren’t playing some weeks, skewing the numbers — we can compare the two programs in terms of audience.
Auburn had 49 rated games during that period. Those games had a median audience of 3.5 million. Texas Tech had 53 rated games in that period. Those games had a median audience of 834,000. Because channel does matter, the Red Raiders can get a boost if we remove their 24 rated games on Fox Sports 1. That brings their median audience up to 1.7 million. Unfortunately, that’s still a little less than half of what games involving Auburn drew.
Logic fails in thinking Auburn’s numbers were big because the Tigers play Alabama. (Though the Iron Bowl does monster numbers.) Mark theorized that Auburn’s audience minus its top opponents would look similar to Texas Tech’s minus Texas and Oklahoma. A test of that hypothesis doesn’t fare well for the Red Raiders.
Without Texas and Oklahoma, Texas Tech’s median audience falls to 676,000. Taking away FS1 games, that number rises to 1.1 million.
Now let’s look at Auburn. We’ll take away Alabama and Georgia, annual opponents that are bigger draws than Texas and Oklahoma. The Tigers’ median audience drops by more than a million viewers. (Told you the Iron Bowl does massive numbers.) But that still means Auburn’s games that didn’t include those opponents drew a median audience of 2.4 million.
Not including games against Alabama or Georgia, Auburn games drew an audience of more than five million on six occasions (Penn State in 2021, LSU in 2019, Oregon in 2019, Florida in 2019, LSU in 2018, Washington in 2018). Such games drew more than two million on 28 occasions.
Not including games against Texas and Oklahoma, Texas Tech games drew an audience of more than five million zero times. They actually didn’t crack five million playing Texas or Oklahoma, either. The biggest audience for any of those games was the 2017 Texas game with 3.6 million viewers. That would have come in at No. 24 on Auburn’s list.
Absent Oklahoma or Texas, the Red Raiders played games that drew two million viewers three times (Oklahoma State in 2015, TCU in 2015, Oklahoma State in 2017). When Auburn does a thing 28 times and Texas Tech does the same thing only three times, we’re not going out on a limb when we surmise that Auburn is better at that thing than Texas Tech.
This was not done to pick on the Red Raiders. That happens to be the program Mark named, so direct all complaints to him. I chose this question because it resembles a lot of the questions I get here and on Twitter where people assume they know a team’s audience without looking at the numbers.
The leagues and networks have much more detailed numbers than these. They know who is watching and when. They break it down by gender, age and hour. These realignment decisions do not happen by accident. Leagues know what networks crave, and they strive to deliver that.
These numbers tend to make some people very mad. And that’s understandable. No one wants to be given hard data that shows the rest of the world does not think their favorite thing is as special as they think it is. They try to rationalize why their team’s numbers are lower than another team’s numbers. And some of the factors do matter. Time slot and channel affect viewership. For example, the Big 12 might be able to poach from the Pac-12 in spite of marginally better audience numbers for the top of the Pac-12 versus the top of the Big 12. But leagues and networks understand that there is a this-is-the-only-game-on bump. Because Pac-12 teams tend to play in more games that start later and finish the night as the only game on a major network, that league’s schools’ numbers are helped by that bump. And that bump can be accounted for in the calculations of leagues and networks.
But some teams are simply more popular, and that has driven these most recent moves. The Big Ten and the SEC did this so they can throw Alabama-Oklahoma, Texas-Auburn and USC-Penn State at networks, which will in turn make networks throw money at those leagues.
