Expansion Study

[BamaCoug]

I had a bad link in there about the Academic stack up ... this one should work.

 

[FDNY99]

@BamaCoug face it if BYU would play sports on Sunday and wasn't so needy/high maintenance they would be in a P-5 conference already. They sit in a great location between both the Pac12 and B12. BUT they aren't for those 2 reasons I stated above! Face the facts...they are easy to see!
@temery time to shut this guy @BamaCoug down...his act is getting old VERY quickly!

 

[CL82]

Well, first off, I don't think the Big12 Expansion committee cares one bit about how many MLB players were drafted. Baseball?!?

I think it is an indication of the overall health of the Athletic department, if you consistently turn out pro athletes. The big pro sports in the US are football, baseball and basketball. All four of the prospects listed do well in generating MLB pros, with UConn coming in second to Houston.

I suggest that this isn't as random as "distinguished alumni top 30" and has far more probative value regarding a universities value to an athletic conference.

It's also very selective on the time frame. Some of the figures start at 2000, others at 2003 & 2004. ...You just can't ignore everything before 2003 and pass it off as "comprehensive."

The Huskies began their two-year Division I-A transition period in 2000, and became a full-fledged Division I-A team in 2002. From 2000 to 2003 the team played as an independent. The years before that really aren't relevant. Do you care how many Yankee Conference Championships we won? So if you are looking at UConn football this period you want to examine. This isn't cherry picking data, like for example creating categories for which you only have data for BYU.

Since our football program is young, this approach hurts UConn as it does not show 9 of our national championships. Our all inclusive total is 22 national championships.

Some of the figures start at 2000, others at 2003 & 2004. Yet ALL of those capture the "heyday" of UConn Football while ignoring the fact that those few good years may have been an aberration on the radar screen of UConn football (which was atrocious before that time, and is pretty bad right now).

Actually "bad" years are the aberration for the program. One bad coaching hire, Paul Pasqualoni, set us back, but prior to that national commentators noted that UConn had a fairly meteoric rise as I-A program. We like our current coach, and feel like were headed in the right direction.

It is noteworthy that even with very short 1-A history, UConn already has two conference championships and 1 BCS bowl. Tough to characterize that negatively.

Here's the thing UConn isn't a one hit wonder when comes to sports. We have a history of success across many sports. The evidence, outside of one bad hire, suggests that that will be no different for football.

And everyone keeps on spouting off about how LARGE the Media market is (slices of NY too) but not addressing the fact that the NE cares relatively little about CFB.

Sometimes I think it is tough for westerners to realize the population density of the Northeast. Here is a frame of reference according to the national census:

Connecticut's total population as of 7-1-15 was 3,590,886 in a state of about 5,000 square miles.
Utah's total population as of 7-1-15 was 2,995,919 in a state of about 82,000 square miles.

Connecticut does not compete with a P-5 program. UConn reach extends to NYC and into the rest of the New England. Now for networks, the primary value is total number of cable households not the number of that tuned in to any one game. So your argument that the NE doesn't watch football isn't relevant. Now I will say, there is a secondary value for conference networks from advertising revenue. There viewers do matter. But the truth is that Connecticut's ratings have been pretty solid. Heck the woman basketball team played Notre Dame on ESPN last year and outdrew some football games.

 

[Matrim55]

Now for networks, the primary value is total number of cable households not the number of that tuned in to any one game. So your argument that the NE doesn't watch football isn't relevant. Now I will say, there is a secondary value for conference networks from advertising revenue. There viewers do matter. But the truth is that Connecticut's ratings have been pretty solid. Heck the woman basketball team played Notre Dame on ESPN last year and outdrew some football games.

Meanwhile BYU's ratings are dismal.

To put it into perspective: A regular-season women's basketball game between UConn and Notre Dame had a bigger TV audience than either of BYU's last two bowl appearances.

I don't see the value in adding that school. They don't really win, they don't turn out pros, they don't draw viewers, and they're the second team in their own market for pretty much every Olympic sport as well as (arguably) football.

 

[BamaCoug]

That's because it's not a legitimate study of the facts. It's propaganda, designed to promote BYU. I can't believe anyone here is seriously debating the merits of this cr@p. In fact, when it first hit Twitter, it was presented as a leaked version of the study the B12 had commissioned. Obviously, that's completely false because it's just something a BYU fan compiled to appease the LDS higher-ups.

BYU is great at propaganda, same as the Scientologists. All fanatical religious sects are willing to distort the facts to suit their narrative. That's why, despite @BamaCoug 's seemingly sweet and friendly entrance into the Boneyard, he has refused to correct the rather glaring (and easily fixed) misreporting of our market size. (You'll notice he did find the time to cut/paste his crap Tweets about BYU's superiority to all other expansion candidates.)

BYU is also great at putting aside their religious beliefs when it's convenient for them. Within an hour of the WTNH article/poll, the results had been tainted by an LDS member running the poll through a macro to give BYU 10x more votes than any other school, including UConn. Hey, I guess it's not a sin if it's done to promote the faith.

Yet the Boneyard wants to be civil and try to have a rational discussion with someone trying to put a shiv in UConn's back by intentionally misreporting data.

How lovely.

You're completely insane and rather asinine in your analysis. Downright offensive at other points. Propaganda? Scientology?

You want me to change all my data sheets and re-calculate everything because of your re-ranking of your media market size? Even if it's accurate, that's a lot of work to appease a few people on a UConn message board. Do you insist that every national reporter that uses your actual media market size give you those extra 10 points?

Many argue that BYU is the most followed/favored team in the Las Vegas Market. Do we get to add that to our numbers too? Did I do that?

In your insular view you don't seem to understand how complex it is to truly value fan bases and media markets for each individual school.

At the end of the day I hope it's BYU and UConn because I think most sane people view us as having the best resumes by quite a bit. But I hope you're not representative of your fan base in general.

 

[BamaCoug]

Meanwhile BYU's ratings are dismal.

To put it into perspective: A regular-season women's basketball game between UConn and Notre Dame had a bigger TV audience than either of BYU's last two bowl appearances.

Nice google search with cherry-picking an article written by the MWC that still feels spurned that we left them for independence.

First off, our last Bowl game 3.575 million viewers ... a HUGE jump for the LV Bowl, so your claim is incorrect.

College Football TV Ratings — Sports Media Watch

And does a UConn fan really want to bring up Bowls? You've only been to one since 2010 and haven't won one since 2009. We're going on 11 straight bowl appearances. And BYU's the team that "doesn't really win?" ... coming from a UConn fan ... REALLY?

Here's a comparison of our TV ratings just last year ...

 

[BamaCoug]

@BamaCoug face it if BYU would play sports on Sunday and wasn't so needy/high maintenance they would be in a P-5 conference already. They sit in a great location between both the Pac12 and B12. BUT they aren't for those 2 reasons I stated above! Face the facts...they are easy to see!
@temery time to shut this guy @BamaCoug down...his act is getting old VERY quickly!

Are you calling for me to be banned from the site for posting sourced data? I've taken a lot more criticism than I've doled out too. We realize that we may get shut out because of Sunday play or people thinking we're weird religious people. I can pretty much promise that you like most of the Mormons you actually know. Easy to paint us a weird/needy/high-maintenance online, but we are actually very easy to get along with ... assuming people are open to that possibly being an option.

 

[BamaCoug]

...

Sometimes I think it is tough for westerners to realize the population density of the Northeast. Here is a frame of reference according to the national census:

Connecticut's total population as of 7-1-15 was 3,590,886 in a state of about 5,000 square miles.
Utah's total population as of 7-1-15 was 2,995,919 in a state of about 82,000 square miles.

Connecticut does not compete with a P-5 program. UConn reach extends to NYC and into the rest of the New England. Now for networks, the primary value is total number of cable households not the number of that tuned in to any one game. So your argument that the NE doesn't watch football isn't relevant. Now I will say, there is a secondary value for conference networks from advertising revenue. There viewers do matter. But the truth is that Connecticut's ratings have been pretty solid. Heck the woman basketball team played Notre Dame on ESPN last year and outdrew some football games.

Yeah, I get that theres a whole lot of people in the Northeast that don't care about college football (present company excluded of course)

 

[Matrim55]

Here's a comparison of our TV ratings just last year ...

These numbers are actually wrong. Just a little bit of googling shows as much.

And you're missing the basic point, anyway: The only thing BYU really brings to the table is a football team that A) draws fewer viewers than the UConn women's hoops team, B) never, ever competes for the title, and C) doesn't put guys into the league.

Mountain West feels like the right level for you guys.

 

[CAHUSKY]

Yeah, I get that theres a whole lot of people in the Northeast that don't care about college football (present company excluded of course)

And the fact that you think it matters if anyone cares about football in the northeast shows how little you understand the situation. Cable boxes matter, not viewers (see Rutgers/Maryland). That said, interest in UCONN in CT is extremely high (see SNY carriage fees).

 

[Dooley]

Yeah, I get that theres a whole lot of people in the Northeast that don't care about college football (present company excluded of course)

A touch unfair. If this was true, then the B1G surely wouldn't have added Rutgers a few years back. RUTGERS. You have taken shots at UConn's football history and that's your choice. But if you truly want to scoff at a northeastern football program with no history of success (over 100 years of losing), look no further than New Jersey State U. UConn has a BCS bowl on its resume. Rutgers can't even say that. And despite all this, Rutgers was an crucial piece of the puzzle that just saw FOX pay an obscene amount of money for half of the B1G's Tier 1 rights. When the second half of the B1G contract is bid and won, all conference members are looking at a $40M-$50M/yr payday. And why is that? Because Rutgers, complete with their 100 year resume of losing and scandals, brought new cable boxes to the conference. The same cable boxes that UConn can bring...but with a much more complete and competitive athletic department.

 

[Dooley]

I felt BOTH types of spreadsheets were important and people making decisions and writing/posting about CR would find them relevant. There were a few items that were interesting, but, because of a lack of data, I weighted VERY lightly. Among the current Big12 plus the 4 expansion candidates, only 2 (BYU and Texas) showed up in two of the columns ("Powerful" and "Distinguished" Alumni). Only 3 schools (Texas, Oklahoma, and BYU) showed up in "Social Media Top 25". Because of a lack of full data/complete ranking these 3 factors together only totaled 4% (1%, 1%, 2% respectively) of the end result.

Thanks BamaCoug, you certainly took on quite an undertaking trying to dive into many of these criteria!

Social media rankings is really so misunderstood with so many gray areas. For example, your sheet ranks UConn fan engagement very low. However, I can conduct a quick Google search and the results show completely otherwise. But here's the thing - I have no idea which is right, your data or what I can find online. That's why these fan indexes are so difficult to trust.

AddThis Reports March Madness Social Media Trending Stats

• During the Championship Game, UConn fans were 66 percent more engaged than University of Kentucky (UK) fans.
• However, leading up to the Championship Game, UK fans were the most engaged online. When compared to the Final Four teams, UK fans were 60 times more engaged than the next most active group of fans, the Florida Gators. They were also 70 percent more engaged than the University of Wisconsin fans and 75 more engaged than fans of their championship rival, The University of Connecticut.
• Online engagement peaked at 11:15 p.m. EDT when momentum turned in favor of the UConn Huskies and became the subject of two-thirds of the 1.8M tweets about the game.
• In the lead-up to the Final Four, fans of UK and UConn were 11 times more likely to share via Twitter compared to Facebook while Wisconsin and Florida fans preferred Facebook to Twitter by 3:1.
• As expected, the most engaged state throughout the series was Connecticut.This was followed byKentucky and Wisconsin.

Then there is this...

So, as you can see, there is plenty of data out there that paints a VERY different picture of UConn fan engagement on social media.

However the data is put together or presented, the theme remains the same. UConn and BYU have the most fans, by far, in comparison to any of the other rumored B12 candidates.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Nice google search with cherry-picking an article written by the MWC that still feels spurned that we left them for independence.

First off, our last Bowl game 3.575 million viewers ... a HUGE jump for the LV Bowl, so your claim is incorrect.

College Football TV Ratings — Sports Media Watch

And does a UConn fan really want to bring up Bowls? You've only been to one since 2010 and haven't won one since 2009. We're going on 11 straight bowl appearances. And BYU's the team that "doesn't really win?" ... coming from a UConn fan ... REALLY?

Here's a comparison of our TV ratings just last year ...

BYU has a better football program and history than UConn. It's true. I don't think anyone here disagrees. On the other hand, UConn's FBS history is impressive in a short time span if you really look at it, and see that all the down years came due to a single ineffective coach. Upon hiring a new coach we were back in a bowl in the second season. We will be again this year.

Now, aside from football.

• UConn has 4 men's basketball national championships in recent years. BYU has had some decent teams, we recall Jimmer, and Danny Ainge, but it's an easy win. NCAA tournament games bring significant money to the league.
• In women's hoops, UConn is the only program in the country that fundamentally alters both fans and tv viewers. The only one. Simply adding UConn will double or triple home attendance for every other team in the league. The TV impact is even bigger. With a network, that is hugely valuable.
• Population density and cable reach to support a network is much stronger for UConn. BYUtv already exists and is incompatible with a B12N. Do you plan to dump it? I didn't think so. So BYU can't contribute content to the B12N. While you are right that BYU has lots of loyal alumni, they are spread out, which is a negative for cable rights fees. UConn has a history of driving very high rights fees statewide (including Fairfield county that you cut off).
• You laughed about baseball...do you even know anything about the B12? Baseball is pretty serious at UT and OU and OSU. The best player on the Houston Astros? UConn guy.
• Academics are a wash. Both are fine schools well above the mean for the league. Giving either any points for this or that is just stupid. It's data that is looked at only to determine whether the school will drag down or lift up the league in general. Both lift it up. Memphis, UCF and USF would drag it down. Cinci is average.

 

[Slasher]

You have to be very careful when you're looking at ratings. You can't compare an AAC game on ESPNews to a BYU game on ESPN. A lot of the AAC games got relegated to U and News because ESPN has (had after B1G leaves) so much Saturday content. There's never a highly rated ESPNews game because so few people actually get the channel. The AAC does pretty darn warn well when they actually have an ESPN time slot.

 

[mavblues]

You're completely insane and rather asinine in your analysis. Downright offensive at other points. Propaganda? Scientology?

You want me to change all my data sheets and re-calculate everything because of your re-ranking of your media market size? Even if it's accurate, that's a lot of work to appease a few people on a UConn message board. Do you insist that every national reporter that uses your actual media market size give you those extra 10 points?

Many argue that BYU is the most followed/favored team in the Las Vegas Market. Do we get to add that to our numbers too? Did I do that?

In your insular view you don't seem to understand how complex it is to truly value fan bases and media markets for each individual school.

At the end of the day I hope it's BYU and UConn because I think most sane people view us as having the best resumes by quite a bit. But I hope you're not representative of your fan base in general.

And now you're true colors finally come out.

You're spreading outright less about the size of our media market and I'm asinine in my analysis?

You claimed on Twitter that this was "leaked" information from the B12 study and I'm insane?

Your wacko sidekicks went so far as to rig an online poll, giving BYU 10X more votes than any other school (by cheating, btw; the votes were there almost immediately).

Like I said, anything goes if it's for the church.

 

[Jimbo]

You want me to change all my data sheets and re-calculate everything because of your re-ranking of your media market size? Even if it's accurate, that's a lot of work to appease a few people on a UConn message board. Do you insist that every national reporter that uses your actual media market size give you those extra 10 points?

Many argue that BYU is the most followed/favored team in the Las Vegas Market. Do we get to add that to our numbers too? Did I do that?

In your insular view you don't seem to understand how complex it is to truly value fan bases and media markets for each individual school.

You really still don't get it. One more time: UConn is a STATE flagship university. As a result, UConn (predictably) dominates the attention and viewership of its STATE when it comes to college sports. Therefore, when it comes to counting up viewers or cable boxes, focusing myopically on solely the Hartford/New Haven DMA understates UConn's reach because it ignores a sizable portion of the STATE that UConn dominates. As another poster said, would you really measure Ohio State's reach within Ohio by focusing solely on the Columbus DMA, or might you also think Cleveland and Cincinnati worthy of consideration?

BYU, by contrast, is not a state flagship university, nor is Las Vegas in Utah to begin with, and thus your Las Vegas argument makes no sense. This isn't about arbitrarily increasing the size of a media market to take into account fans that live in other random places. It's about recognizing the fact that the reach of a state flagship university like UConn extends (at least) out to the state line, not merely to the boundary of a DMA that excludes part of the state that the school represents. So go ahead, omit Fairfield County if you're so determined to ignore that part of the picture, but I sincerely doubt that any conference decision-makers will be relying on data that omits it.

As far as whether or not you want to recalculate your data, I don't really care. You deserve credit for the amount of work you've obviously put into this, but I would be wary that your failure to understand relatively simple issues like this one (as evidenced by your raising this Las Vegas nonsense) threatens to undermine the credibility of what you've created.

 

[upstater]

You really still don't get it. One more time: UConn is a STATE flagship university. As a result, UConn (predictably) dominates the attention and viewership of its STATE when it comes to college sports. Therefore, when it comes to counting up viewers or cable boxes, focusing myopically on solely the Hartford/New Haven DMA understates UConn's reach because it ignores a sizable portion of the STATE that UConn dominates. As another poster said, would you really measure Ohio State's reach within Ohio by focusing solely on the Columbus DMA, or might you also think Cleveland and Cincinnati worthy of consideration?

BYU, by contrast, is not a state flagship university, nor is Las Vegas in Utah to begin with, and thus your Las Vegas argument makes no sense. This isn't about arbitrarily increasing the size of a media market to take into account fans that live in other random places. It's about recognizing the fact that the reach of a state flagship university like UConn extends (at least) out to the state line, not merely to the boundary of a DMA that excludes part of the state that the school represents. So go ahead, omit Fairfield County if you're so determined to ignore that part of the picture, but I sincerely doubt that any conference decision-makers will be relying on data that omits it.

As far as whether or not you want to recalculate your data, I don't really care. You deserve credit for the amount of work you've obviously put into this, but I would be wary that your failure to understand relatively simple issues like this one (as evidenced by your raising this Las Vegas nonsense) threatens to undermine the credibility of what you've created.

He's just going to ignore you.

As he has ignored the fact that a sportschannel already charges all corners of the state a monthly fee for showing UConn sports. On basic cable no less.

 

[CL82]

You want me to change all my data sheets and re-calculate everything because of your re-ranking of your media market size? Even if it's accurate, that's a lot of work to appease a few people on a UConn message board. Do you insist that every national reporter that uses your actual media market size give you those extra 10 points?

Dude, I think you are a little too invested in your spreadsheet. I understand that it must have been a lot of work. Surely you understand that it is deeply flawed, from creating irrelevant categories for which you have data only for BYU to being flat out wrong on the numbers you were using.

That's fine though, it is a fan created spreadsheet. It's not a big deal that it has issues. Why get your panties in a bunch when the flaws are pointed out to you? What did you expect to happen when you brought it here? Did you really believe that we go "well gosh much of it is pointless or wrong, but golly there are a lot of columns?" You had to expect it to be critiqued, right? Once you start posting "well you are right but I'm not going to correct it to appease a few UConn fans" you go from being a fan of a different program with a different viewpoint, which we welcome here, to a troll.

So take a breath and take it easy. Don't be so defensive. It's a spreadsheet not your schools hopes and dreams.

 

[HuskyHawk]

He's just going to ignore you.

As he has ignored the fact that a sportschannel already charges all corners of the state a monthly fee for showing UConn sports. On basic cable no less.

It's really amazing that people won't do basic research. The LHN pulls in an estimated .35 to .40 per subscriber. SNY in CT gets an estimated $2.65 per subscriber for UConn.

People like Dodds who think this is "all about football" are almost a decade behind. If there is a Network involved, I'd argue that UConn is light years beyond every G5 and most P5 in value. Network value isn't about football, those rights are elsewhere. It's about the passion of your fanbase for all your sports, and UConn has that in spades.

 

[Dooley]

You have to be very careful when you're looking at ratings. You can't compare an AAC game on ESPNews to a BYU game on ESPN. A lot of the AAC games got relegated to U and News because ESPN has (had after B1G leaves) so much Saturday content. There's never a highly rated ESPNews game because so few people actually get the channel. The AAC does pretty darn warn well when they actually have an ESPN time slot.

10000x Likes. When doing a ratings compare, you have to compare channel-to-channel (and game time, time slot competition, etc), not a broad strokes comparison. The ratings comparisons between programs played on the same channel are the best representation and, as we can all research, our games on ESPN and ESPN2 this past season (there were 3 of them), did quite well nationally and locally.

1. 9/19 at Missouri (Saturday Noon EST kickoff): 1.903M TVs national/4.1 local rating. Head to head games on "major" networks - Air Force vs Michigan St (2.531M on ABC); Illinois vs UNC (590K on ESPN2)

2. 10/2 at BYU (Friday night 10PM EST kickoff): 1.24M TVs national/Local rating not found. Head to head game - None, but Memphis vs USF drew 1.155M before our game

3. 12/26 St Pete Bowl vs Marshall (Sat 11am EST day after Christmas): 2.4M TVs national. No head to head game. Other B12 candidate bowl game ratings:

Houston vs FSU Thurs 12/31 (NYE 6 Peach Bowl) Noon EST 5.604M TVs
BYU vs Utah Sat 12/19 3:30PM EST 3.675M TVs;
Tulsa vs Virginia Tech (Frank Beamer's last game) Sat 12/26 6PM EST ESPN 3.416M TVs
Memphis vs Auburn Wed 12/30 Noon EST ESPN 2.412 M TVs
Cincinnati vs SDSU Thurs 12/24 (8PM EST Christmas Eve) ESPN 1.636M TVs
USF vs Western Kentucky Mon 12/21 2:30PM EST ESPN 1.152M TVs
*UCF played in the 0-12 Toilet Bowl in 2015

Lots of crappy time slots for the bowl games but even still, UConn pulled a very solid number at 11AM local, morning after Christmas, in an admittedly boring game against a mediocre brand opponent.

The game to note is obviously the first one listed: the Missouri game. A 4.1 local rating is very solid. No, it's not Birmingham, AL on Alabama gameday solid, but solid nonetheless. The fact that UConn/Mizzou outdrew Illinois/UNC by 300% on the ESPN networks gives additional weight to the rating.

The myth about UConn football TV ratings being "too low" for the Big 12 has been busted time and time again...including in 2015, coming off of a dismal 2-win season.

 

[CallMeBruce]

In case anyone was wondering why BYU hasn't gotten into a P5 yet despite all of their incredible football history, it's because this is how their fans generally behave.

 

[Matrim55]

• Academics are a wash. Both are fine schools well above the mean for the league. Giving either any points for this or that is just stupid. It's data that is looked at only to determine whether the school will drag down or lift up the league in general. Both lift it up. Memphis, UCF and USF would drag it down. Cinci is average.

Undergrad, yeah. Postgrad is all UConn, though:

NSF – NCSES Academic Institution Profiles – Rankings by total R&D expenditures

I just don't see them as a p5 school. The only thing they bring is a decent football program that's still the #2 draw in their very small home market.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Undergrad, yeah. Postgrad is all UConn, though:

NSF – NCSES Academic Institution Profiles – Rankings by total R&D expenditures

I just don't see them as a p5 school. The only thing they bring is a decent football program that's still the #2 draw in their very small home market.

The point is that those differences don't matter. There is an academic cut line of sorts...beyond that they don't care. Sweating the details is pointless.

BYU has pretty good basketball. They have a strong national following through the LDS. It means that their nationally televised games often do well. Like a mini ND in that regard. The question is whether the Big XII and its network partners feel that they can monetize that and whether it offsets the fact that outside of Provo they don't do much even in Utah.