ACC Media Issues

Aug 11, 2023, 1:48 PM

All of the conference alignment crap has had me digging into some things I've never looked to closely at. At the end of the day, ESPN (or any future network) pay us for viewers. We are far worse than I had ever imagined.

https://medium.com/run-it-back-with-zach/which-college-football-programs-were-the-most-watched-in-2022-94eca4f6acbd

Which college football programs were the most-watched in 2022?

Another college football regular season is in the books, so we have another year’s worth of TV viewership data to dig into. Below, I’ve listed each school’s average game viewership for the regular…

The numbers are simply appalling and it's somewhat surprising ESPN isn't trying to make moves to breakup the ACC and end this contract. Duke averages 115.7k viewers per games. That's worse than Georgia Southern. Northwestern draws 10X as many viewers as Duke. They're over 100k worse than next worst Power 5 program - Virginia. The ACC has 3 teams worse than the lowest rated team from the other 4 conferences - Arizona State at 314k. Boston College is ranked 70th with 322k average viewers despite playing 3 Top 15 most viewed programs last season. The bottom half (7 TEAMS!!!) all average less viewers than Rutgers. 8 ACC teams draw less viewers than Missouri - who are dead last in the SEC.

Regardless of how you feel about them, Cal and Stanford would have been the 4th and 6th ranked teams in the conference by viewership and are 50% above our median.

There are only a few ways this plays out. The GOR is able to be broken at which point everyone promptly scurries to their preferred conference. The GOR is unable to be broken and we all limp along for a dozen years at which point the ACC members will be relegated to the dustbin of college sports history. The Ivy League used to dominate college football. The only other one I see - and least likely - is someone get their head out their ### at the ACC office and attempt to salvage the ACC as a serious conference. I see that requiring two aspects - bringing in more teams who signicantly outdraw
the current ACC average and begin paying out based on a team's actual viewership. This should be done on rolling average to account for schedule variance. It will also motivate teams to schedule significant out of conference home games.

In 2022 the ACC teams cumulatively averaged 10.4 millions viewers. Clemson was first with 2.59 million. This is 25% of the viewership. If Clemson was getting 25% of the media revenue (25% of the $400 ACC contract would be $100 million) then none of us would be sweating the future of the conference. If other teams start earning a bigger piece of the pie it won't be concerning because the pie will be getting larger. So how do we get around the programs that are currently robbing us blind? We need to form a coalition of teams drawing significantly more than median to win the vote on revenue sharing. A majority of the conference currently isn't pulling their weight. Some swing voters might be swayed if new voters are phased into the revenue share (as appears to be the case in all the latest conference changes). If our bottom members can be shown that their total revenue could at least be made consistent until the expiration of the GOR it might hold some sway for salvaging this trash conference. Otherwise we're just playing the worst game of chicken ever over the GOR.

An added bonus of paying based on actual viewership might actually make the conference attractive to some top tier programs. The Big 12 isn't guaranteed anything a whole lot better than the current ACC contract. Maybe TCU and their 2 million viewers would actually like to get paid their worth (top in the Big 12 in 2022) rather than splitting evenly with Kansas or Colorado. Maybe someone like Penn State would rather not subsidize Rutgers.

flag link

military_tech

thumb_down

thumb_up

Re: ACC Media Issues

It aligns the incentives of both the media partner, conference, schools and fans. You can have a crappy product, but your fans have to want to watch said product; and for that you will be rewarded.

But in fairness, viewership has to be aggregated across all revenue sports and then some pool values placed on the sports. Then viewership for each pool can get split by sport to each school. That way a school like Virginia can lean into being a basketball/baseball school.

There’s probably also an argument in there somewhere about a school thats always a bottom feeder and gets no money will not get better; therefore they will not draw higher viewership outside of their alumni base. I’m not really sure I care other than having more competitive schools is a key incentive for the conference. But I’m sure thats a rebuttal from a school like BC or Cuse.

I do know a few Cuse fans and they are passionate

ACC Media Issues

Re: ACC Media Issues

Re: ACC Media Issues

I like it. Best bandaid I’ve heard

Re: I like it. Best bandaid I’ve heard

I do know a few Cuse fans and they are passionate

Re: ACC Media Issues

Thanks for sharing this…

TigerBoard POTD