[Sigh.] Those numbers are from Nielson.........you know, the company that tracks TV trends & viewership nationwide. They are provided w/in the industry on a daily basis, and are currently sitting on my computer in pdf form. If other websites are regurgitating them, then that's where they came from. I would imagine they were leaked from Nielson's recent year-end report on the state of sports viewership, which is where I got them from.
As for the #s themselves, they represent the average number of viewers for each conference (divided out by sport). My apologies for not stating that in my previous post. The SEC averaged 4.45M viewers per football game. That is NOT 9% of the US population.
As for the Big XII's contract...........I am amazed that for someone who's so hell bent on disproving who I am, you know so little about network sports contracts. For Tier 1 & Tier 2 programing, the market a team is in has minimal impact on the overall value that team has to a network contract. The most important variable is two-part: (a) the number of markets tuned in, and (b) the number of sets turned on. There is an algorithm that looks at total markets, total sets, national market share, regional market share, and length of viewership (i.e. how long someone has the TV tuned into the game). Colorado is and has been, dead weight for the Big XII. It doesn't matter that they're "in" the Denver market. Fans don't tune in. In the 6 years I've been at my job, they have never ranked higher than 8th in TV viewership in the Big XII. Their value to the Pac-12 was simply that while CU doesn't turn on sets, there are a ton of Californians in Colorado who would tune in to watch Pac-12 games. And, when Pac-12 games are on, CO isn't a state that gets Pac-12 coverage (unless there isn't a competing Big XII game). So, CU gives them entrance into a market they wouldn't always have otherwise.
Missouri was similar to Colorado in that they are not very popular in their home DMA. And, that's one of the reason they weren't amongst the SEC's top 10 choices for expansion. But, their fans do tune in significantly better than do CU's fans. And, it's a market that SEC games often aren't broadcast in when up against Big XII games (same as the Pac-12 and CO before adding CU). So, they expand the conference's viewership footprint.
The Big XII didn't "lose" any major markets, they simply lost priority coverage in St. Louis & Denver, and the viewers each team drew. The two big losses were actually Nebraska and Texas A&M. Nebraska's fans would watch anything Big XII related. So, even when Nebraska wasn't playing in the game on TV, they'd tune in. It's one of the reasons they're such a valuable entity. A&M was similar, but more watered down. That's largely b/c being a Nebraska fan is a matter of birth, while being an A&M fan is more a matter of having attended college there. So, there are far more Nebraska fans than A&M fans, despite the fact that A&M is in a larger state. FWIW, West Virginia out draws all of the teams the Big XII lost, except for Nebraska. Now, what we won't know until they start playing in the Big XII is if there is any cross-marketing; meaning, if WVU isn't playing, whether their fans will tune in. That's what makes Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and to a lesser extent, A&M so valuable to a TV contract......b/c you're not just getting their fans when they're on the TV, you're getting their fans when any quality Big XII game is on the TV (this is also why the SEC & Big Ten dominate, b/c they're fans are even more rabid in their viewership). TCU, is much like Boise State in that they actually draw decently well on a national scale, but not as strong regionally. That's due in large part b/c of the novelty factor that successful mid-majors present. If TCU performs poorly (same with BSU), their viewership will tank, b/c they don't have large fan bases. So, TCU could be a better draw than CU & Missouri, but could also be worse. In the end, the Big XII lost in terms of "value added" to their TV contract........just not as much as you'd expect.
And dude, seriously, stop running around trying to grasp onto anything you can to justify branding me a fraud. A week before it happened, I posted on this board how much the Big XII would get out of their ABC/ESPN deal, and what the total payout would be per team. Do you think I just "guessed" right? Come on! Babe Ruth would have applauded calling that shot. Yet, you still are grasping at straws, trying to find some way to distort & contort my words, so you can make yourself believe I don't know what I'm talking about, so thereby, your own theories/logic won't be proven faulty. Do you really think some guy off the street would know as much, and have as much insight into sports network contracts, valuations, etc as I have? If it wouldn't get me in hot water, I'd gladly give you deeper insight and information, all of which could corroborate who I am and what I do for a living. But, that's not going to happen. So, rather than taking every post I make and trying to twist it into something it's not, how about you engage in actual dialog. I've thrown insight after insight after you, and repeatedly you ignore the meat of my posts and toss back some sort of fraud reference.
