The Athletic: Vanderbilt left behind? It’s unthinkable, except it’s college football

[Dawgg]

Second batch:

80 Team	90 Team	100 Team	110 Team	120 Team	130 Team	140 Team
Air Force	Charlotte	Appalachian State	Arkansas State	Bowling Green	Akron	Jacksonville State
Army	Colorado State	Boise State	Central Michigan	Louisiana	Ball State	Liberty
BYU	East Carolina	Coastal Carolina	Eastern Michigan	Louisiana Tech	Buffalo	Sam Houston
Florida Atlantic	Fresno State	FIU	Georgia Southern	Louisiana–Monroe	James Madison
Memphis	Nevada	Hawaii	Georgia State	Middle Tennessee	Kent State
Navy	Rice	Marshall	South Alabama	New Mexico State	Miami (OH)
North Texas	SMU	New Mexico	Southern Miss	Northern Illinois	Ohio
San Diego State	Tulsa	San Jose State	Texas State	UTEP	Old Dominion
South Florida	UAB	Temple	Troy	Western Kentucky	Toledo
UTSA	UNLV	Utah State	Western Michigan	Wyoming	UMass

 

[patdog]

The PAC absolutely did it to themselves. Their last two commissioners were absolutely TERRIBLE. Their university presidents are too, when it comes to athletics. The biggest thing was they absolutely BOTCHED the PAC 12 network. The way that was structured was horrendous.

PAC had a contract offer from ESPN for $30M / school a year ago. Their internal analysts had said that value was about right. External analysts were saying that value was about right. Instead of countering with $35M/school and trying to settle about halfway between, they countered with $50M/school. ESPN basically said 17 you and signed the deal with the Big 12 instead.

 

[mcdawg22]

Actually, it was the PAC thinking that the TV market model was dead is THE main reason they died. The bet big on streaming, and lost.

SEC Network launched on Aug. 14, 2014, two years after the debut of Pac-12 Network. On Day 1, SEC Network reported availability in 87 million homes with an estimated 75 million subscribers — a byproduct of Southeastern Conference passion, surely, but also indicative of the league’s partnership with ESPN.

The Fox-partnered Big Ten Network enjoyed 60 million subscribers by 2014. The Pac-12 Network had 26 million subscribers at the same time, making it the Sega Channel of sports.

They never launched Streaming, they tried to go alone with their own network and despite having a TV market over 100 million viewers, nobody signed up. The Apple deal was going to be a life raft with a hole in it. The damage has already been done.

 

[OG Goat Holder]

I may be a dumbass, but I am a dumbass that can read tea leaves. Its coming. This is our last decade of playing at the highest level of college football.

You're also overly, irrationally negative. You doomsayers were out in 2020 too, thinking it would take 10 years for us to get back to normal, yet here we are.

You live long enough, you see that these things come in spurts. The big wave of consolidation happened here recently, it won't continue like this indefinitely. Before that, it's been a series of small ones since the 80s. And here we are, still kicking. So let's consider that this trend continues, we're looking at 40 years from now. And that is AFTER the next big wave when the SEC/B1G get to 20, and then the ACC/Big 12 take the leftovers to get to 20.

My prediction is that we will stay at 4 conferences of 20 for a long, long time. And of course the 12-team playoff. That has the potential to be a pretty good system.

 

[Seinfeld]

Ok, so I was morbidly curious where I really thought State would fall if there really was a "Super League" and how many teams it would have to include for State to make the cut. I went through all 133 FBS teams and tried to honestly think through who would make it for 20, 30, 40, 50, etc. up to 133. I think State could possibly make the cut in a 40 team league and would safely be in a 50 team league.

First batch:

20 Team	30 Team	40 Team	50 Team	60 Team	70 Team
Alabama	Georgia Tech	Arizona	Colorado	California	Baylor
Auburn	Iowa	Arizona State	Duke	Houston	Boston College
Clemson	Miami (FL)	Arkansas	Illinois	Louisville	Cincinnati
Florida	Nebraska	Iowa State	Indiana	Northwestern	Oregon State
Florida State	North Carolina	Kentucky	Kansas	Purdue	TCU
Georgia	Oklahoma State	Minnesota	Kansas State	Rutgers	Tulane
LSU	Texas Tech	Mississippi State	Maryland	Stanford	UCF
Michigan	UCLA	NC State	Missouri	Syracuse	UConn
Michigan State	Virginia	Ole Miss	Pittsburgh	Utah	Wake Forest
Notre Dame	Virginia Tech	West Virginia	South Carolina	Vanderbilt	Washington State
Ohio State
Oklahoma
Oregon
Penn State
Tennessee
Texas
Texas A&M
USC
Washington
Wisconsin

I like the idea, but I’m afraid that you have to look at something like this through the lens of where a school would be without conference payouts, and my guess is that we’d fall a lot closer to the 70 group when that’s taken into account.

With that said, I also think that the fatal flaw with the super conference flag bearers is that this isn’t pro sports where a couple nearby states are going suddenly adopt PSU or USC because they’re nearby. Completely wiping out the schools of an entire state or even half of one is going to alienate huge groups of fans from the entire sport

 

[greenbean.sixpack]

I may be a dumbass, but I am a dumbass that can read tea leaves. Its coming. This is our last decade of playing at the highest level of college football.

I think we are safe. TV execs realize the importance of live sports, and the more interest in college football the better. I don't think turning College Football in the the NFL light with 30ish teams is going to make more money for TV.

 

[greenbean.sixpack]

We are ranked ahead of a many teams I thought would be ahead of us. Why OM scored so high? They probably had better time slots due their hot start last year. ​

​

​

Ranking the most-watched college football programs in 2022​

The numbers next to each school indicate the average number of viewers per week for a 12-week season.

Streaming numbers are included when available. Games that do not have available data are counted as zero.

1. Ohio State — 5.80M
2. Alabama — 5.11M
3. Michigan — 4.37M
4. Tennessee — 4.13M
5. Georgia — 3.50M
6. Notre Dame — 3.30M
7. LSU — 3.22M
8. Texas — 3.06M
9. Penn State — 3.05M
10. Clemson — 2.59M
11. Florida — 2.57M
12. Oregon — 2.21M
13. TCU — 2.20M
14. Southern Cal — 2.07M
15. Florida State — 2.03M
16. Nebraska — 1.98M
17. Michigan State — 1.91M
18. Texas A&M — 1.87M
19. Maryland — 1.864M
20. Auburn — 1.863M
21. Arkansas — 1.80M
22. Mississippi — 1.753M
23. Oklahoma — 1.748M
24. Oklahoma State — 1.68M
25. UCLA — 1.591M
26. Wisconsin — 1.587M
27. Iowa — 1.50M
28. Kentucky — 1.35M
29. Baylor — 1.32M
30. Kansas State — 1.23M
31. Indiana — 1.19M
32. Illinois — 1.17M
33. Utah — 1.16M
34. Washington — 1.15M
35. Northwestern — 1.13M
36. Mississippi State — 1.10M
37. Minnesota — 1.05M
38. BYU — 997K
39. South Carolina — 990K
40. Navy — 976K
41. Washington State — 907K
42. Iowa State — 882K
43. NC State — 881K
44. Purdue -870K
45. California — 857K
46. North Carolina — 849K
47. Stanford — 846K
48. Syracuse — 841K
49. Georgia Tech — 837K
50. Missouri — 793K

 

[POTUS]

Ok, so I was morbidly curious where I really thought State would fall if there really was a "Super League" and how many teams it would have to include for State to make the cut. I went through all 133 FBS teams and tried to honestly think through who would make it for 20, 30, 40, 50, etc. up to 133. I think State could possibly make the cut in a 40 team league and would safely be in a 50 team league.

NC State, Colorado, WVU and yes Ole Miss, would all be in before us. Not to mention Illinois, Kansas, Missouri. Don't think about football success. Think about TV eyeballs and money. Football success is almost irrelevant except that it's tied to TV eyeballs.

 

[POTUS]

We are ranked ahead of a lot teams I'd think would be ahead of us. Why OM scored so high, they probably had better time slot due their hot start last year. ​

​

​

Ranking the most-watched college football programs in 2022​

The numbers next to each school indicate the average number of viewers per week for a 12-week season.

Streaming numbers are included when available. Games that do not have available data are counted as zero.

1. Ohio State — 5.80M
2. Alabama — 5.11M
3. Michigan — 4.37M
4. Tennessee — 4.13M
5. Georgia — 3.50M
6. Notre Dame — 3.30M
7. LSU — 3.22M
8. Texas — 3.06M
9. Penn State — 3.05M
10. Clemson — 2.59M
11. Florida — 2.57M
12. Oregon — 2.21M
13. TCU — 2.20M
14. Southern Cal — 2.07M
15. Florida State — 2.03M
16. Nebraska — 1.98M
17. Michigan State — 1.91M
18. Texas A&M — 1.87M
19. Maryland — 1.864M
20. Auburn — 1.863M
21. Arkansas — 1.80M
22. Mississippi — 1.753M
23. Oklahoma — 1.748M
24. Oklahoma State — 1.68M
25. UCLA — 1.591M
26. Wisconsin — 1.587M
27. Iowa — 1.50M
28. Kentucky — 1.35M
29. Baylor — 1.32M
30. Kansas State — 1.23M
31. Indiana — 1.19M
32. Illinois — 1.17M
33. Utah — 1.16M
34. Washington — 1.15M
35. Northwestern — 1.13M
36. Mississippi State — 1.10M
37. Minnesota — 1.05M
38. BYU — 997K
39. South Carolina — 990K
40. Navy — 976K
41. Washington State — 907K
42. Iowa State — 882K
43. NC State — 881K
44. Purdue -870K
45. California — 857K
46. North Carolina — 849K
47. Stanford — 846K
48. Syracuse — 841K
49. Georgia Tech — 837K
50. Missouri — 793K

We played Georgia in primetime (and Arizona when literally nothing else was on television). Also Egg Bowl on Thanksgiving evening. Let's not kid ourselves here. Our numbers are probably inflated because of those factors and our opponents.

 

[She Mate Me]

We played Georgia in primetime (and Arizona when literally nothing else was on television). Also Egg Bowl on Thanksgiving evening. Let's not kid ourselves here. Our numbers are probably inflated because of those factors and our opponents.

Ole Miss-Bama in the SEC on CBS got 8.7 million viewers. Skewed things a bit.

And, State-Arizona got 471k

 

[mcdawg22]

We played Georgia in primetime (and Arizona when literally nothing else was on television). Also Egg Bowl on Thanksgiving evening. Let's not kid ourselves here. Our numbers are probably inflated because of those factors and our opponents.

While I do generally agree with the sentiment, using the AZ game is not a great example. The second half started around Midnight CT.

ETA: Found it. 471K

So I’ll go back to my Pac 4 comments. In a state with 7 million people, at a school with 45,000 students and 300,000 former students, less than a half a million people watched that game.

 

[thatsbaseball]

If they get too arrogant, they're going to kill the goose with all the golden eggs.

My "give a ****" is waning and I know I'm not alone.

If we get "kicked to the curb" I would lose most (if not all) of what interest I have left in college football. I passed on watching a lot of games (not ours) last year that I would have watched in the past. I've just lost a hell of a lot of interest in the game.

 

[MagnoliaHunter]

If they get too arrogant, they're going to kill the goose with all the golden eggs.

My "give a ****" is waning and I know I'm not alone.

waning? Mine is nosediving at full throttle.

 

[Shmuley]

I may be a dumbass, but I am a dumbass that can read tea leaves. Its coming. This is our last decade of playing at the highest level of college football.

I came here to post that 615 may actually have been on to something. Don't you hate it when that happens?

 

[Rupert Jenkins]

If we moved to the Sunbelt conference tomorrow I would be a huge Sunbelt fan. But we will never get kicked out of the SEC. The top teams may leave and the league collapse but I doubt it

 

[TaleofTwoDogs]

Who are the people driving all this "change" and who made them gods? The greed beast needs to be put back in the jar.

 

[mcdawg22]

Ole Miss-Bama in the SEC on CBS got 8.7 million viewers. Skewed things a bit.

And, State-Arizona got 471k

 

[Dawgg]

I like the idea, but I’m afraid that you have to look at something like this through the lens of where a school would be without conference payouts, and my guess is that we’d fall a lot closer to the 70 group when that’s taken into account.

With that said, I also think that the fatal flaw with the super conference flag bearers is that this isn’t pro sports where a couple nearby states are going suddenly adopt PSU or USC because they’re nearby. Completely wiping out the schools of an entire state or even half of one is going to alienate huge groups of fans from the entire sport

Yeah, I tried to be as objective as I could, but you're not wrong. I was going on name recognition and current reach as much as anything else, which I guess is inherently biased. I still think State is probably in the top 50 unless they go totally towards metro areas, which I think it kind of antithetical to college football.

 

[Dawgg]

We played Georgia in primetime (and Arizona when literally nothing else was on television). Also Egg Bowl on Thanksgiving evening. Let's not kid ourselves here. Our numbers are probably inflated because of those factors and our opponents.

Egg Bowl drew 2 million viewers and was up against an NFL game that drew 25 million viewers.

 

[johnson86-1]

NC State, Colorado, WVU and yes Ole Miss, would all be in before us. Not to mention Illinois, Kansas, Missouri. Don't think about football success. Think about TV eyeballs and money. Football success is almost irrelevant except that it's tied to TV eyeballs.

The eyeballs are the main thing but population doesn't transfer directly to eyeballs. If it did, you'd still have most of the college football fandom in the northeast, florida, texas, and the west coast. If you were starting a super league from scratch without worrying about existing conference membership, I think for the Southeast, you can just about divide a states population by the number of major schools and get a rough guestimate on how valuable the brand is. Florida probably has enough transplants that you have to discount their eyeballs some, which might impact whether you draw the line before or after Miami or whether a UCF makes the cut if you have a larger league. Texas may be moving that way.

Colorado obviously has a lot more potential than MSU or Ole Miss as far as drawing eyeballs. Almost double the population, and it's more affluent, and Colorado and CSU probably have a less even split of that population's fandom than MSU and UM do. But the gap isn't as big as the numbers would suggest at first glance. If MSU or UM dominated the state, I'd think you'd rather have MSU or UM and it's smaller, poorer population that's passionate about football than Colorado's larger population that doesn't care as much.

But I don't think UM would be in before us. It'd be a pretty much a coin toss and depend on politicking and/or undercutting each other financially.

 

[greenbean.sixpack]

Folks, calm down. This is just click bait, the SEC and we aren't going anywhere. That's not even a remote possibility for the foreseeable future.

Now if my school was outside the number 5 or 6th team in the ACC I'd be worried in 5 or so years as the value of their GOR decreases.

 

[Dawgg]

NC State, Colorado, WVU and yes Ole Miss, would all be in before us. Not to mention Illinois, Kansas, Missouri. Don't think about football success. Think about TV eyeballs and money. Football success is almost irrelevant except that it's tied to TV eyeballs.

Mississippi State drew more than all of those teams except Ole Miss and Illinois and were within 70,000 viewers per game of Illinois. Also, as is mentioned elsewhere in this thread, that Alabama CBS game skewed the Ole Miss numbers.

 

[QuaoarsKing]

Ole Miss got all the viewers in 2022 because they were "ranked" the whole season and we weren't, even though it turned out after all the games were played that we were the ranked team and they weren't.

Basically, polls made up that Ole Miss was good and we weren't, and they reaped the benefit of it all year and into this year, even though the truth turned out to be that we were the good ones, not them.

There should be no midseason polls, and especially no preseason ones. Just let the standings take care of it.

 

[HRMSU]

Who are the people driving all this "change" and who made them gods? The greed beast needs to be put back in the jar.

Deep State ***

 

[Maroon13]

State v Arizona 2022 kicked off at 10pm and was televised on FS1. Two huge factors.

 

[Wesson Bulldog]

Alabama won't let this happen. They need their annual warm-up/guaranteed SEC win before they play LSU every year.

 

[Chesusdog]

If State isn't playing I rarely give a **** who is playing; if I'm watching it's because it's on in the background of wherever I'm out for lunch/dinner.

 

[Jrobb]

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Actually, the television executive told me, it won’t be the SEC asking Vanderbilt and Mississippi State to leave. The Big Ten won’t try to give Northwestern and Rutgers an “It’s not you, it’s me” speech.

More likely, he said — and this is someone who has been involved in talks that have influenced the direction of college football — those conferences will just be abandoned for something new.

Vanderbilt left behind? It's unthinkable, even for college football

As college football evolves, the thought of being abandoned by TV and big-brand teams is hard to process. Just remember: SEC charter member.

theathletic.com

Goes on to speculate about us getting booted out in the Super League.

Need to put our top 40 athletic budget to work now building sustainable architecture for a future after conferences, otherwise I think we're gonna get Charlie Brown'd.

In this situation you would have 60-70 D1 schools not in the ‘primary conference’ How many fans of these schools continue to watch the schools that left them behind? I bet a large percentage will not - my thoughts would be F them I’m done with football. Possible at that time viewership decreases as opposed to more interest. Would love to se that model get blown up and all the greedy bastards fired

 

[pseudonym]

I don't think this will happen, but I actually think State would do well in a relegation system. We are in the top half of the SEC in SEC wins and winning percentage since the latest expansion.

School	W	L	%
Alabama	80	10	89%
Georgia	71	18	80%
LSU	58	32	64%
Florida	54	36	60%
Texas A&M	48	41	54%
Auburn	44	46	49%
Mississippi State	42	48	47%
Missouri	41	49	46%
South Carolina	40	50	44%
Ole Miss	39	50	44%
Tennessee	35	55	39%
Kentucky	32	58	36%
Arkansas	23	67	26%
Vanderbilt	21	68	24%

 

[L4Dawg]

SEC Network launched on Aug. 14, 2014, two years after the debut of Pac-12 Network. On Day 1, SEC Network reported availability in 87 million homes with an estimated 75 million subscribers — a byproduct of Southeastern Conference passion, surely, but also indicative of the league’s partnership with ESPN.

The Fox-partnered Big Ten Network enjoyed 60 million subscribers by 2014. The Pac-12 Network had 26 million subscribers at the same time, making it the Sega Channel of sports.

They never launched Streaming, they tried to go alone with their own network and despite having a TV market over 100 million viewers, nobody signed up. The Apple deal was going to be a life raft with a hole in it. The damage has already been done.

You do know how they set it up though, right? They set it up so that each market had its own channel. There is no single PAC 12 channel even today. They set it up to enable streaming to individual markets, but they never got it off the ground. I have FUBO during football season just to get THEM.

 

[L4Dawg]

Eyeballs for TV college football purposes does not equal population. The biggest TV market for college football in the country is Birmingham.

 

[She Mate Me]

Eyeballs for TV college football purposes does not equal population. The biggest TV market for college football in the country is Birmingham.

You got a link for that?

I could see it being the top SEC market or maybe even the top ESPN market considering their ties to the SEC. But I'm a bit doubtful it's the biggest market when it's so far down in total population.

 

[Jack Klompus.sixpack]

Good grief

 

[Maroon13]

Don't we pretty much have this with the SEC and Big 10? About the only big brands not under these two shields are Stanford, FSU, Miami, Clempson, UNC and Virginia. ND ("the" university for a very large religious sect) already has its own network, so there are probably happy.

Kinda. But I think at some point TV will want matchups for every week that generate NFL type ratings.

 

[L4Dawg]

You got a link for that?

I could see it being the top SEC market or maybe even the top ESPN market considering their ties to the SEC. But I'm a bit doubtful it's the biggest market when it's so far down in total population.

It was a few years ago. I think it might have been in the NYT. The thing you have to remember is that college football is very much a regional sport, and it's always second fiddle at best in a market that has pro teams.

 

[L4Dawg]

It was a few years ago. I think it might have been in the NYT. The thing you have to remember is that college football is very much a regional sport, and it's always second fiddle at best in a market that has pro teams.

I remembered it wrong........it was 6th, that's still very impressive. here is the article I saw.

The Geography of College Football Fans (and Realignment Chaos) - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

 

[BigDawg0074]

If Mississippi State ended up on the outside of a super conference I probably just wouldn’t watch college athletics anymore. I don’t have a NFL team and for that reason I don’t care about it or watch it. Not even the Super Bowl. I’d watch Dak in playoffs and a superbowl but that’s it.

 

[BigDawg0074]

I like the idea, but I’m afraid that you have to look at something like this through the lens of where a school would be without conference payouts, and my guess is that we’d fall a lot closer to the 70 group when that’s taken into account.

With that said, I also think that the fatal flaw with the super conference flag bearers is that this isn’t pro sports where a couple nearby states are going suddenly adopt PSU or USC because they’re nearby. Completely wiping out the schools of an entire state or even half of one is going to alienate huge groups of fans from the entire sport

You’re right about that. It would be a cold day in hell before I would convert to be a Johnny Reb fan or a Crismson Tide fan for that matter.

 

[BigDawg0074]

We are ranked ahead of a many teams I thought would be ahead of us. Why OM scored so high? They probably had better time slots due their hot start last year. ​

​

​

Ranking the most-watched college football programs in 2022​

The numbers next to each school indicate the average number of viewers per week for a 12-week season.

Streaming numbers are included when available. Games that do not have available data are counted as zero.

1. Ohio State — 5.80M
2. Alabama — 5.11M
3. Michigan — 4.37M
4. Tennessee — 4.13M
5. Georgia — 3.50M
6. Notre Dame — 3.30M
7. LSU — 3.22M
8. Texas — 3.06M
9. Penn State — 3.05M
10. Clemson — 2.59M
11. Florida — 2.57M
12. Oregon — 2.21M
13. TCU — 2.20M
14. Southern Cal — 2.07M
15. Florida State — 2.03M
16. Nebraska — 1.98M
17. Michigan State — 1.91M
18. Texas A&M — 1.87M
19. Maryland — 1.864M
20. Auburn — 1.863M
21. Arkansas — 1.80M
22. Mississippi — 1.753M
23. Oklahoma — 1.748M
24. Oklahoma State — 1.68M
25. UCLA — 1.591M
26. Wisconsin — 1.587M
27. Iowa — 1.50M
28. Kentucky — 1.35M
29. Baylor — 1.32M
30. Kansas State — 1.23M
31. Indiana — 1.19M
32. Illinois — 1.17M
33. Utah — 1.16M
34. Washington — 1.15M
35. Northwestern — 1.13M
36. Mississippi State — 1.10M
37. Minnesota — 1.05M
38. BYU — 997K
39. South Carolina — 990K
40. Navy — 976K
41. Washington State — 907K
42. Iowa State — 882K
43. NC State — 881K
44. Purdue -870K
45. California — 857K
46. North Carolina — 849K
47. Stanford — 846K
48. Syracuse — 841K
49. Georgia Tech — 837K
50. Missouri — 793K

Yeah Ole Miss was super relevant until they weren’t.

 

[POTUS]

I don't think this will happen, but I actually think State would do well in a relegation system. We are in the top half of the SEC in SEC wins and winning percentage since the latest expansion.

School	W	L	%
Alabama	80	10	89%
Georgia	71	18	80%
LSU	58	32	64%
Florida	54	36	60%
Texas A&M	48	41	54%
Auburn	44	46	49%
Mississippi State	42	48	47%
Missouri	41	49	46%
South Carolina	40	50	44%
Ole Miss	39	50	44%
Tennessee	35	55	39%
Kentucky	32	58	36%
Arkansas	23	67	26%
Vanderbilt	21	68	24%

We definitely are Stoke City in the Premier League/Championship.