UO and UW hold the keys to the future of the PAC - even more than ESPN. If they are willing to sign a new GOR binding them to the conference for a longer term then I don't think anyone will leave. Money in the B12 shouldn't be better than a PAC 10 that has UO, UW, Stanford and Utah. There are a lot of alumni from those schools that li…
UO and UW hold the keys to the future of the PAC - even more than ESPN. If they are willing to sign a new GOR binding them to the conference for a longer term then I don't think anyone will leave. Money in the B12 shouldn't be better than a PAC 10 that has UO, UW, Stanford and Utah. There are a lot of alumni from those schools that live in SoCal and will watch games - SC and UCLA don't control that entire market. But iF UO and UW want to keep their options open and refuse to sign a new GOR then all bets are off and the conference will likely fold.
I've been trying to sort that out too, because it is obvious they aren't watching USC and UCLA there very much, based upon the ratings of those 2 teams last year.
Oregon was the tenth most watched college football team in 2021, ahead of either LA school. Mainly because the LA schools have sucked. You have to go all the way to the 30s to see a few other Pac 12 schools (Utah, UCLA, USC).
The Bay Area schools and Washington are capable of drawing big tv ratings when they are competitive. That seems to be the problem though, the PAC (with the exception of Oregon and Utah) have been dismal in football.
If we're being honest, Oregon's #10 spot was greatly influenced by just one game; Ohio State, which was the 8th most-watched game of the regular season. Of the 7.73 million viewers that game drew, how many were watching for Oregon vs those watching for Ohio St? When estimating, consider that Oregon played in only one other game all season that was in the Top 41, that being the Utah game, which drew 4.82 million viewers (#28 most watched regular season game). Meanwhile, Ohio State played in six other games on that Top 41 list, including the most-watched game of the entire regular season (Michigan).
Not trying to be argumentative that Oregon can't draw viewers on its own, they obviously have some brand appeal that extends beyond the state. But there are a lot of things to consider that can't be fully extrapolated from one single list, and little details like that are what the networks look at when they determine how much a program is worth to them.
If you remove the Ohio State game, Oregon still averaged 2.1 million for the other 11 games, which would still have placed them in 14th place nationally, without adjusting by removing the most watched games of the 13 teams that would be ahead of them.
That's more than Texas A&M, competitive with University of Texas and the best in the Conference.
I wouldn't remove the Utah game because it is not unusual for Oregon to draw 4 million. In fact, Oregon has had 8 games with 4 million or more in the last 5 years, tops in the Conference.
Andy Staples in The Athletic did a deeper dive into this and tried to remove as many potential outliers as he could, and ranked by who drew more than 1 million viewers the most times since 2015 (excluding 2020). By his criteria, Oregon was #4 among schools that were not part of the future Big Ten/SEC or Notre Dame. 1 thru 3 were Clemson, Florida St and Washington, respectively. A surprising #6 was Washington St.
There's also a lot of other factors we can't really extrapolate based on the data provided in those links. The time slot and network can influence viewership no matter who the two teams playing are. A game on ESPN at 3:30pm ET is going to draw more viewers than the exact same teams playing on ESPN+ at the same time, or on the main ESPN at 10:30pm.
That part is where I have real concerns about making a deal right now with ESPN, with no additional bidders involved and no leverage to use to try and get as many of your games in more optimal channels and time slots as you can. That the Pac schools are going to get a lot less money is pretty much guaranteed no matter what happens. But they need to hold the line on visibility of their games, or it will make it hard for even their best programs to recruit.
UO and UW hold the keys to the future of the PAC - even more than ESPN. If they are willing to sign a new GOR binding them to the conference for a longer term then I don't think anyone will leave. Money in the B12 shouldn't be better than a PAC 10 that has UO, UW, Stanford and Utah. There are a lot of alumni from those schools that live in SoCal and will watch games - SC and UCLA don't control that entire market. But iF UO and UW want to keep their options open and refuse to sign a new GOR then all bets are off and the conference will likely fold.
What kind of TV ratings do Pac-12 games that don't involve USC or UCLA draw in Los Angeles?
I've been trying to sort that out too, because it is obvious they aren't watching USC and UCLA there very much, based upon the ratings of those 2 teams last year.
Oregon was the tenth most watched college football team in 2021, ahead of either LA school. Mainly because the LA schools have sucked. You have to go all the way to the 30s to see a few other Pac 12 schools (Utah, UCLA, USC).
The Bay Area schools and Washington are capable of drawing big tv ratings when they are competitive. That seems to be the problem though, the PAC (with the exception of Oregon and Utah) have been dismal in football.
That didn't quite answer my question, but ok. I'm guessing this was your source:
https://medium.com/run-it-back-with-zach/which-college-football-programs-were-the-most-watched-in-2021-49ef4f315858
If we're being honest, Oregon's #10 spot was greatly influenced by just one game; Ohio State, which was the 8th most-watched game of the regular season. Of the 7.73 million viewers that game drew, how many were watching for Oregon vs those watching for Ohio St? When estimating, consider that Oregon played in only one other game all season that was in the Top 41, that being the Utah game, which drew 4.82 million viewers (#28 most watched regular season game). Meanwhile, Ohio State played in six other games on that Top 41 list, including the most-watched game of the entire regular season (Michigan).
Not trying to be argumentative that Oregon can't draw viewers on its own, they obviously have some brand appeal that extends beyond the state. But there are a lot of things to consider that can't be fully extrapolated from one single list, and little details like that are what the networks look at when they determine how much a program is worth to them.
If you remove the Ohio State game, Oregon still averaged 2.1 million for the other 11 games, which would still have placed them in 14th place nationally, without adjusting by removing the most watched games of the 13 teams that would be ahead of them.
That's more than Texas A&M, competitive with University of Texas and the best in the Conference.
I wouldn't remove the Utah game because it is not unusual for Oregon to draw 4 million. In fact, Oregon has had 8 games with 4 million or more in the last 5 years, tops in the Conference.
Andy Staples in The Athletic did a deeper dive into this and tried to remove as many potential outliers as he could, and ranked by who drew more than 1 million viewers the most times since 2015 (excluding 2020). By his criteria, Oregon was #4 among schools that were not part of the future Big Ten/SEC or Notre Dame. 1 thru 3 were Clemson, Florida St and Washington, respectively. A surprising #6 was Washington St.
https://theathletic.com/3410274/2022/07/08/college-football-realignment-tv-viewers/
There's also a lot of other factors we can't really extrapolate based on the data provided in those links. The time slot and network can influence viewership no matter who the two teams playing are. A game on ESPN at 3:30pm ET is going to draw more viewers than the exact same teams playing on ESPN+ at the same time, or on the main ESPN at 10:30pm.
That part is where I have real concerns about making a deal right now with ESPN, with no additional bidders involved and no leverage to use to try and get as many of your games in more optimal channels and time slots as you can. That the Pac schools are going to get a lot less money is pretty much guaranteed no matter what happens. But they need to hold the line on visibility of their games, or it will make it hard for even their best programs to recruit.
Really good points and thanks for the link on the Athletic article.
It seems to me Oregon is an attractive target, but of course I'm biased.
The good thing about the 2015 forward is it also includes 2016 and 2017, which were not good years and yet Oregon did okay on balance.