BAMANEWSBOT
Staff
Some network's college football television ratings are up and some are down in 2014. In other words, it's a typical year. But this non-news item in its own way carries significance as the regular season winds down.
For years, many leaders within college football warned that creating a playoff would hurt the regular season. Many people didn't really believe the rhetoric, but it was the company line nonetheless.
Today, many conference commissioners and TV executives say viewership for this regular season essentially feels like any other year, only with heightened interest.
Through the first 12 weeks of the season, college football TV ratings were up 7 percent on ABC and down 11 percent on ESPN, according to figures provided by ESPN. Through the first 13 weeks, ratings for SEC games on CBS were down 5 percent, and ratings were up 7 percent on Fox and up 39 percent on Fox Sports 1. (ABC and ESPN did not have updated final ratings from last week at the time of publication.)
"There were many, myself included, who didn't get real warm for the playoff until it became apparent that we could find a way to embed it in the bowl environment," Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby said. "We wanted to make sure we weren't decimating a bowl environment that had kept the regular season strong so a lot of people had a lot of things to play for. Not only has the regular season not been weakened, I think the months of October and November have gotten even better than they were before."
The vast majority of college football games are on an ESPN-owned network. ESPN's platforms averaged 1.72 million viewers on 220 telecasts through the first 12 weeks of 2014, compared to 1.86 million on 204 telecasts through the same period in 2013. Without ESPNews, which has the bulk of the additional 16 telecasts and less distribution than other channels, ESPN's games have averaged 1.89 million viewers in 2014 and 1.97 million in 2013.
ESPN vice president of programming and acquisitions Ilan Ben-Hanan said the reasons for lower ESPN numbers can vary based on the game and could also be due to the launch of the SEC Network, which does not yet have its games rated. SEC teams have regularly appeared on ESPN's Saturday night broadcast this season.
"Some of those fans who maybe used to watch on ESPN on ESPN2, they might be watching on the SEC Network," Ben-Hanan said. "That's fine. It's about making the tent bigger. We're focusing on whether the sport is resonating, and qualitatively and quantitatively, the playoff has made a major impact. You can kind of feel it in the buzz around the sport from the very first week of the season."
Ben-Hanan points to Nov. 8 as a day that showed the value of the playoff. In the BCS era, No. 1 Mississippi State's win over Tennessee-Martin and No. 2 Florida State's win over Virginia that day wouldn't have moved the needle for postseason implications.
In the playoff era, that day also featured these games that had postseason consequences: No. 12 Baylor vs. No. 15 Oklahoma; No. 9 Arizona State vs. No. 10 Notre Dame; No. 6 TCU vs. No. 7 Kansas State; No. 5 Alabama vs. No. 16 LSU; No. 14 Ohio State vs. No. 8 Michigan State; and No. 4 Oregon vs. No. 17 Utah.
"All day there was something with national relevance," Ben-Hanan said. "It's heaven. This is a golden age for college football fans, in my mind."
More buzz with playoff
Across the country, TV executives and commissioners believe there's more buzz with a playoff. But very few of them see a correlation between the playoff and TV ratings.
SEC executive associate commissioner Mark Womack said the playoff hasn't had a significant impact on ratings, "but it certainly has not been a negative impact." CBS's highest-rated SEC game so far this season is Mississippi State-Alabama with a 6.4 rating. At this time last year, CBS had two games rated higher than that: Alabama-Texas A&M (8.6) and LSU-Alabama (6.9).
CBS ratings were up for this season until a 2.1 rating last week for the Ole Miss-Arkansas game. CBS vice president of programming Dan Weinberg sensed no dramatic impact in viewership based on the playoff.
"The SEC continues to be the highest quality in terms of field of play," Weinberg said. "That hasn't changed this year whether the playoff existed or not."
ACC commissioner John Swofford attributes higher ratings for ACC games more to five games against Notre Dame than playoff interest.
Bowlsby said the playoff has created heightened interest in regular-season games that essentially become elimination games. The ratings for the six playoff games and access bowls "will be extraordinary," he said.
Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said anecdotally he thinks there's a connection between the playoff and what he calls "very strong" viewership for Pac-12 games.
"Frankly, as I expected, the playoff is taking college football to even another level in terms of popularity and interest given the fact there's more teams that have a chance to make it to the postseason," Scott said. "There's more storylines, more intrigue, and more at stake for more schools."
After the games are played, the narrative plays out every Tuesday night when the selection committee unveils its weekly rankings on ESPN.
"It's brilliant," Marshall athletic director Mike Hamrick said. "People sit around all week waiting for those rankings and I think that's good for college football. That weekly show is just the buildup to the national championship game."
The ratings for ESPN's playoff rankings show: 1.0 (Oct. 28 debut), 0.7 (Nov. 4), 0.9 (Nov. 11), 0.4 (Nov. 18) and 0.7 (Nov. 25). The Nov. 18 show aired on ESPN2 and opposite a Michigan State-Duke basketball game on ESPN.
So far, the ratings compare to some of the lowest-rated bowl games every December and January. Ben-Hanan said the playoff show's viewership is up compared to last year for ESPN's BCS show, which aired on a Sunday opposite the NFL.
The playoff rankings provide more drama, even though they technically don't mean anything until the final release on Dec. 7. In the past, many college football observers could successfully project the weekly BCS rankings before ESPN's show. Now, the committee has shown a habit of moving some teams around even if they don't lose, as evidenced by Florida State, and there are additional ranking spots people care about.
"There's no question it generates a lot of interest and attention so that's the upside of it," Swofford said. "But I think we're going to need to look at the weekly rankings, and it may be everybody's comfortable with it and felt we hit the right sweet spot. People have different views on whether that's a good idea on a weekly basis. Should it start later than it did? Should it be every other week?" Swofford declined to share his preference on weekly rankings moving forward.
Bowlsby said the committee's approach with weekly rankings is the right one.
"It isn't about giving ESPN something to talk about on Tuesday nights," he said. "It's really about being able to socialize the polls and be able to demonstrate how their thought process is working. This year may not be a great example of it, but in the past we've had teams with flashy records and not much of a portfolio and there are people with two losses that are really good football teams."
For years, many leaders within college football warned that creating a playoff would hurt the regular season. Many people didn't really believe the rhetoric, but it was the company line nonetheless.
Today, many conference commissioners and TV executives say viewership for this regular season essentially feels like any other year, only with heightened interest.
Through the first 12 weeks of the season, college football TV ratings were up 7 percent on ABC and down 11 percent on ESPN, according to figures provided by ESPN. Through the first 13 weeks, ratings for SEC games on CBS were down 5 percent, and ratings were up 7 percent on Fox and up 39 percent on Fox Sports 1. (ABC and ESPN did not have updated final ratings from last week at the time of publication.)
"There were many, myself included, who didn't get real warm for the playoff until it became apparent that we could find a way to embed it in the bowl environment," Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby said. "We wanted to make sure we weren't decimating a bowl environment that had kept the regular season strong so a lot of people had a lot of things to play for. Not only has the regular season not been weakened, I think the months of October and November have gotten even better than they were before."
The vast majority of college football games are on an ESPN-owned network. ESPN's platforms averaged 1.72 million viewers on 220 telecasts through the first 12 weeks of 2014, compared to 1.86 million on 204 telecasts through the same period in 2013. Without ESPNews, which has the bulk of the additional 16 telecasts and less distribution than other channels, ESPN's games have averaged 1.89 million viewers in 2014 and 1.97 million in 2013.
ESPN vice president of programming and acquisitions Ilan Ben-Hanan said the reasons for lower ESPN numbers can vary based on the game and could also be due to the launch of the SEC Network, which does not yet have its games rated. SEC teams have regularly appeared on ESPN's Saturday night broadcast this season.
"Some of those fans who maybe used to watch on ESPN on ESPN2, they might be watching on the SEC Network," Ben-Hanan said. "That's fine. It's about making the tent bigger. We're focusing on whether the sport is resonating, and qualitatively and quantitatively, the playoff has made a major impact. You can kind of feel it in the buzz around the sport from the very first week of the season."
Ben-Hanan points to Nov. 8 as a day that showed the value of the playoff. In the BCS era, No. 1 Mississippi State's win over Tennessee-Martin and No. 2 Florida State's win over Virginia that day wouldn't have moved the needle for postseason implications.
In the playoff era, that day also featured these games that had postseason consequences: No. 12 Baylor vs. No. 15 Oklahoma; No. 9 Arizona State vs. No. 10 Notre Dame; No. 6 TCU vs. No. 7 Kansas State; No. 5 Alabama vs. No. 16 LSU; No. 14 Ohio State vs. No. 8 Michigan State; and No. 4 Oregon vs. No. 17 Utah.
"All day there was something with national relevance," Ben-Hanan said. "It's heaven. This is a golden age for college football fans, in my mind."
More buzz with playoff
Across the country, TV executives and commissioners believe there's more buzz with a playoff. But very few of them see a correlation between the playoff and TV ratings.
SEC executive associate commissioner Mark Womack said the playoff hasn't had a significant impact on ratings, "but it certainly has not been a negative impact." CBS's highest-rated SEC game so far this season is Mississippi State-Alabama with a 6.4 rating. At this time last year, CBS had two games rated higher than that: Alabama-Texas A&M (8.6) and LSU-Alabama (6.9).
CBS ratings were up for this season until a 2.1 rating last week for the Ole Miss-Arkansas game. CBS vice president of programming Dan Weinberg sensed no dramatic impact in viewership based on the playoff.
"The SEC continues to be the highest quality in terms of field of play," Weinberg said. "That hasn't changed this year whether the playoff existed or not."
ACC commissioner John Swofford attributes higher ratings for ACC games more to five games against Notre Dame than playoff interest.
Bowlsby said the playoff has created heightened interest in regular-season games that essentially become elimination games. The ratings for the six playoff games and access bowls "will be extraordinary," he said.
Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said anecdotally he thinks there's a connection between the playoff and what he calls "very strong" viewership for Pac-12 games.
"Frankly, as I expected, the playoff is taking college football to even another level in terms of popularity and interest given the fact there's more teams that have a chance to make it to the postseason," Scott said. "There's more storylines, more intrigue, and more at stake for more schools."
After the games are played, the narrative plays out every Tuesday night when the selection committee unveils its weekly rankings on ESPN.
"It's brilliant," Marshall athletic director Mike Hamrick said. "People sit around all week waiting for those rankings and I think that's good for college football. That weekly show is just the buildup to the national championship game."
The ratings for ESPN's playoff rankings show: 1.0 (Oct. 28 debut), 0.7 (Nov. 4), 0.9 (Nov. 11), 0.4 (Nov. 18) and 0.7 (Nov. 25). The Nov. 18 show aired on ESPN2 and opposite a Michigan State-Duke basketball game on ESPN.
So far, the ratings compare to some of the lowest-rated bowl games every December and January. Ben-Hanan said the playoff show's viewership is up compared to last year for ESPN's BCS show, which aired on a Sunday opposite the NFL.
The playoff rankings provide more drama, even though they technically don't mean anything until the final release on Dec. 7. In the past, many college football observers could successfully project the weekly BCS rankings before ESPN's show. Now, the committee has shown a habit of moving some teams around even if they don't lose, as evidenced by Florida State, and there are additional ranking spots people care about.
"There's no question it generates a lot of interest and attention so that's the upside of it," Swofford said. "But I think we're going to need to look at the weekly rankings, and it may be everybody's comfortable with it and felt we hit the right sweet spot. People have different views on whether that's a good idea on a weekly basis. Should it start later than it did? Should it be every other week?" Swofford declined to share his preference on weekly rankings moving forward.
Bowlsby said the committee's approach with weekly rankings is the right one.
"It isn't about giving ESPN something to talk about on Tuesday nights," he said. "It's really about being able to socialize the polls and be able to demonstrate how their thought process is working. This year may not be a great example of it, but in the past we've had teams with flashy records and not much of a portfolio and there are people with two losses that are really good football teams."
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