Comparing # of viewers for AAC-ACC football

[whaler11]

Very few college football teams have a national interest and to say UCONN football has "barely any interest" in CT is utterly stupid.

Yeah almost 15k non student season tickets, 30k homes for the road win at Louisville on SNY in the Hartford DMA and crowds in the teens to close out last season.

The buzz is electric.

 

[metsfan2323]

Yeah almost 15k non student season tickets, 30k homes for the road win at Louisville on SNY in the Hartford DMA and crowds in the teens to close out last season.

The buzz is electric.

So in your opinion our absolute worst season since the Rent opened is the only season that counts. Got it. You are a freaking genius.

 

[upstater]

I'm not saying a real analysis wouldn't make the AAC look better, but you can't draw conclusions from these numbers. I wouldn't assume the AAC always has worse times and slots relative to the ACC. The ACC has a ton of ESPNU games. If ESPNNews games are included that may as well be the Boston College Network and ESPNNews games draw almost literally zero.

Also, since the ACC has twice the games in this data, the dreg AAC games on WatchESPN and CBSSN don't get the opportunity to drag the averages down.

For a guy who constantly talks about research done at Universities, you think you'd pick something up about how to actually analyze data.

You were in the twilight zone last year when the AAC had a lot of games on U and News. Where the heck do you think Memphis and such was playing?

 

[whaler11]

You were in the twilight zone last year when the AAC had a lot of games on U and News. Where the heck do you think Memphis and such was playing?

I said the AAC might look even better in a real analysis didn't I? I know where the games were on.

I suspect that the AAC would look better with real analysis and the contracts won't make a lot of sense.

I imagine if you really dig into multi year numbers youll find there are 10-12 programs that move the needle, 40-50 that are similar and everyone else does nothing above a college football baseline. I would guess UConn is right in the middle of the middle group.

The problem the AAC has is that they have no one in the first group and only a couple (Navy, UConn, the Florida Schools and Cinci potentially) in the second group. The majority of the schools lie in the third group with MAC and CUSA schools.

The ACC has probably FSU and Clemson in the top tier. a couple of schools like VPI that are towards the top of the middle tier and only Wake and Duke in the last tier.

 

[whaler11]

So in your opinion our absolute worst season since the Rent opened is the only season that counts. Got it. You are a freaking genius.

Yep that's exactly what I said. Only 2013 counts. Season ticket sales falling after a Fiesta Bowl trip was a sign of a vibrant fanbase that has been well cultivated.

Just read this board - so many of the people who really care about the football program don't live in Connecticut.

Hopefully Diaco changes things and the spring game turnout was pretty good - but there is almost zero energy around the program locally and it was lower in 2008-2011 than it should have been.

 

[freescooter]

I said the AAC might look even better in a real analysis didn't I? I know where the games were on.

I suspect that the AAC would look better with real analysis and the contracts won't make a lot of sense.

I imagine if you really dig into multi year numbers youll find there are 10-12 programs that move the needle, 40-50 that are similar and everyone else does nothing above a college football baseline. I would guess UConn is right in the middle of the middle group.

The problem the AAC has is that they have no one in the first group and only a couple (Navy, UConn, the Florida Schools and Cinci potentially) in the second group. The majority of the schools lie in the third group with MAC and CUSA schools.

The ACC has probably FSU and Clemson in the top tier. a couple of schools like VPI that are towards the top of the middle tier and only Wake and Duke in the last tier.

In fairness, though whaler, every league has a few in the bottom tier, not just the MAC and CUSA...nobody outside Starkville is changing their Saturday night dinner plans so they won't miss Miss State-Vanderbilt. Nobody is skipping their cousin's wedding because they absolutely have to be home to watch Illinois-Indiana or Kansas-Iowa State, either. Most people don't even know Cal and Berkley are the same school. They think of one as an academic bastion and the other as the team that played the Stanford Band that time.

 

[whaler11]

In fairness, though whaler, every league has a few in the bottom tier, not just the MAC and CUSA...nobody outside Starkville is changing their Saturday night dinner plans so they won't miss Miss State-Vanderbilt. Nobody is skipping their cousin's wedding because they absolutely have to be home to watch Illinois-Indiana or Kansas-Iowa State, either. Most people don't even know Cal and Berkley are the same school. They think of one as an academic bastion and the other as the team that played the Stanford Band that time.

That sort of gets to my point that a handful of schools drive the revenue at the conference level it just gets shared with schools who generate little.

The AAC has nobody on the football side that can in the current environment. Rutgers would be financially useless to the ACC - but because of the Big 10's model they may be very useful.

If the AAC wants a contract more like the ACC in the next go round they need to move in a different direction than a national contract that sells everything to a network.

Moving to things that may exist in the future that don't exist now, or moving to something like Netflix or Google may generate more short term revenue but there is a tradeoff in exposure - how that impacts recruiting and eventually the onfield results.

Just taking this same membership and inventory back to ESPN, Fox, NBC & CBS is not going to change the answer.

Even something closer to the Big 12 model where the schools can sell tier 3 to MASN, SNY, Sun Sports etc individually may lead to a better answer than they have now.

 

[Carl Spackler]

Pretty sure it's a good idea to at least wait until AAC football has it's first season under it's actual television broadcasting contract before making any conclusions about some things.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but last season was the last year under the Big East TV contract.

The money sucks, that's for sure, but as far as other things go - we'll just have to wait and see. The 2014 season will be a baseline and the 2015 season will be the first opportunity to mark either growth or decline or no change.

 

[freescooter]

That sort of gets to my point that a handful of schools drive the revenue at the conference level it just gets shared with schools who generate little.

The AAC has nobody on the football side that can in the current environment. Rutgers would be financially useless to the ACC - but because of the Big 10's model they may be very useful.

If the AAC wants a contract more like the ACC in the next go round they need to move in a different direction than a national contract that sells everything to a network.

Moving to things that may exist in the future that don't exist now, or moving to something like Netflix or Google may generate more short term revenue but there is a tradeoff in exposure - how that impacts recruiting and eventually the onfield results.

Just taking this same membership and inventory back to ESPN, Fox, NBC & CBS is not going to change the answer.

Even something closer to the Big 12 model where the schools can sell tier 3 to MASN, SNY, Sun Sports etc individually may lead to a better answer than they have now.

I don't generally disagree with that outlook. But I also think it is possible to at the same time "create" One of those tier 1, or at least a high tier 2, programs that you talk about. I may be getting old, but I can recall when Florida State was not such a big deal. More recently Boise State was, well some school in Oregon or Washington or Utah or somewhere. Then they went unbeaten and shocked Oklahoma in a bowl game and suddenly they were Boise State. And the amazing thing is that they did it not by regularly beating up on names, but by winning lots of football games and winning the occasional opportunity games they needed to win. Not sure who it could be, but my money is on Central Florida to have the best chance to be the AAC team who could replicate that. You know, the one who has the talking heads questioning why a 2 loss Big 10 team gets a championship tourney bid while unbeaten Central Florida gets relegated to the Orange Bowl. Or featured in SI as the team the big names are afraid to play. I wish it would be UConn, but I suspect it will be Central Florida.

 

[whaler11]

When you figure out how to create one let Aresco know.

Boise never got there and UCF has no chance of getting there in this century.

 

[Carl Spackler]

When you figure out how to create one let Aresco know.

Boise never got there and UCF has no chance of getting there in this century.

I think you need your medication dude. LOL.

Why such negative outlook? The league has yet to complete it's first full year completely detached from the Big East media deals and exposure. The league has yet to actually complete it's membership plan so far.

Winning will go a long way to generate viewership. If the entire league is a disaster and can't generate top 10 type programs at the top each season, then so be it - who would watch and why? Nobody.

But the league has programs situated in large media exposure markets with schools that a handful of schools that have lots of alumni and fan following.

There is plenty of potential for growth. That cannot be said for other leagues, that are completely saturated.

UCONN is in the AAC, as long as we're here, we're better off making the thing grow and get as big as possible, while elevating our own profile as high as it can go.

So far, the AAC can claim a BCS bowl victory and a top 10 football program, a men's basketball national championship, and women's basketball national championship - in it's first year.

The bar is up - got to make it higher.

I think it's entirely reasonable and probable that matchups between schools in the AAC could regularly out draw viewership of ACC matchups in the not too distant future.

 

[freescooter]

Oh I don't know that Boise "never got there." If "there" is Michigan or Alabama or Notre Dame, probably not. If "there" is to be considered a legitimate program that gets talked about on a pretty regular basis and is considered capable of playing with the bigs, I would say they did. FWIW, being located on the west coast, well not really the coast but far west, is a huge problem for them yet they still have managed to elevate themselves to at least the top of the Gang of 5. Being a western team is a problem for virtually everyone not named USC really.

 

[whaler11]

Oh I don't know that Boise "never got there." If "there" is Michigan or Alabama or Notre Dame, probably not. If "there" is to be considered a legitimate program that gets talked about on a pretty regular basis and is considered capable of playing with the bigs, I would say they did. FWIW, being located on the west coast, well not really the coast but far west, is a huge problem for them yet they still have managed to elevate themselves to at least the top of the Gang of 5. Being a western team is a problem for virtually everyone not named USC really.

Well the conversation is about teams that can truly drive television ratings and rights fees.

So if you change the criteria every other post sure you can make a case for anyone.

 

[whaler11]

I love the Boneyard. That the AAC won a women's basketball championship is brought up in a discussion about football television ratings.

It's especially funny when someone who is completely detached from reality talks about medication. Yes, maybe I do need some of what you are taking it seems to alter reality in fun ways.