I love college football, but....

[Yonick]

You cannot tell me the college football bowl season creates more excitement, nationally, than hoops March Madness does.
I understand regular season football games get better TV ratings than regular season hoop games. But combine the TV ratings in March from CBS, and the Turner networks, it far outdistances the individual football bowl games. Plus, everybody is talking about brackets, etc.
My point is football shouldn't control college sports as much as it does.

 

[mauconnfan]

It does to some but I wonder how……..this stuff is truly the best. This weekend is my favorite time to watch basketball period and only the The Masters is close to me……..now that the Huskies are alive next weekend is still wonderful. But watching the Mercer's, SF Auston's and ND States is just really fun to me, nothing like watching these kids throw it ALL out on the floor………for their university, fans, teammates and pride!

 

[mauconnfan]

It does to some but I wonder how……..this stuff is truly the best. This weekend is my favorite time to watch basketball period and only the The Masters is close to me……..now that the Huskies are alive next weekend is still wonderful. But watching the Mercer's, SF Auston's and ND States is just really fun to me, nothing like watching these kids throw it ALL out on the floor………for their university, fans, teammates and pride!

Then Kentucky plays and they throw it all out there to get a BETTER pay check……...

 

[mauconnfan]

Then Kentucky plays and they throw it out there to get a BETTER pay check……...

Then Duke and the Cuse play and they LEAVE it all out there………..uhhh well I guess they leave it in Durham and Syracuse!

 

[Nnocu]

At least they're throwing out the BCS championship

 

[jleves]

You cannot tell me the college football bowl season creates more excitement, nationally, than hoops March Madness does.
I understand regular season football games get better TV ratings than regular season hoop games. But combine the TV ratings in March from CBS, and the Turner networks, it far outdistances the individual football bowl games. Plus, everybody is talking about brackets, etc.
My point is football shouldn't control college sports as much as it does.

I had similar thoughts a while back and wondered with the many more games basketball plays how there could be such a revenue difference. Then I did some math. Michigan puts 110,000 butts in seats for every home game @ $65/game for the least expensive season tickets. If you figure on average $100/seat with obviously much higher priced seats and per game prices being much higher, that's 11 million per home game. They do that 7 times a year (in 2013).

Contrast that with UConn bball and say they average 12,000/game between the two venues (that's generous), season ticket prices start at $27 so again say $50/seat average and you get $600,000/game. For 19 home games, that's 11.4 million. Essentially one Michigan home football game makes as much as en entire season of UConn bball home games. Then they pile 66 million extra on for the rest of the season.

That doesn't take into account people buying food and souvenirs (770,000 yearly fans at games vs 228,000) and of course TV contracts.

So that's why football drives the bus so to speak. But BBall obviously adds to the revenue and we can certainly help navigate the bus. In the end, our football team isn't going to cost any league much money to add and our two basketball programs will more than make up for any loss. Economically, UConn has to be a positive for the Big or ACC.

 

[junglehusky]

I had similar thoughts a while back and wondered with the many more games basketball plays how there could be such a revenue difference. Then I did some math. Michigan puts 110,000 butts in seats for every home game @ $65/game for the least expensive season tickets. If you figure on average $100/seat with obviously much higher priced seats and per game prices being much higher, that's 11 million per home game. They do that 7 times a year (in 2013).

Contrast that with UConn bball and say they average 12,000/game between the two venues (that's generous), season ticket prices start at $27 so again say $50/seat average and you get $600,000/game. For 19 home games, that's 11.4 million. Essentially one Michigan home football game makes as much as en entire season of UConn bball home games. Then they pile 66 million extra on for the rest of the season.

That doesn't take into account people buying food and souvenirs (770,000 yearly fans at games vs 228,000) and of course TV contracts.

So that's why football drives the bus so to speak. But BBall obviously adds to the revenue and we can certainly help navigate the bus. In the end, our football team isn't going to cost any league much money to add and our two basketball programs will more than make up for any loss. Economically, UConn has to be a positive for the Big or ACC.

All of that is true, but the other thing is that TV audiences gravitate to football much more too. In conference you play your rivals only once, and you'll have one or maybe two marquis OOC games per year. In bball there are great rivalries and also some great OOC games, but there's less riding on each singular game in that if you lose that single game it's not going to eliminate your school from the postseason. Having one game a week, usually on Saturday or Friday results in a natural buildup and it's easier for the fanbase to direct all of its attention on that buildup. I think that's a factor in why the contracts for the NFL are bigger than the NBA and college football is bigger than college basketball (and even other pro sports). And it's also why DIA college football has been so reluctant to move towards a playoff, the blueblood traditional powers do not want to give any legitimacy to the outsiders / Cinderellas if they don't have to. That's why the playoff will probably stay at only 4 teams even if the networks throw loads of money at them to expand to 8. If they expand to 8 they'll have to give the likes of Boise or UConn or other AAC / MWC types a chance at the big time, and they don't want that. They saw what Lehigh and Mercer did to Duke and they don't want an AAC team to do that to an SEC team.