Kickoff Time and Game Details for Oklahoma State-TCU Announced

Sweet..... my buddy recently moved from Austin to Dallas, and he has tickets in the upper deck for that game... with all the Pokes in the DFW area, that ticket might be hard to come by.

I was thinking this might be a good season to look at the TV numbers, with both OU and UT both unranked going into the Red River Washout. It would seem there might be diminished interest in their games especially if they stay out of the conference title hunt, so the TV ratings of the other conference games might be more telling... like the KU/TCU game Saturday with GameDay in Lawerence.

It would IF the networks took their inferiority into account. Much of the audience for the network games is driven not by the teams, but by the network and timeslot. Basically there is a large lump of "fans" that simply turn on ABC to watch the game chosen for them. Same with every slot and channel. So the networks continuing to give prime slots to undeserving big name schools prop up their claim to drive tv numbers when they don't at all.

It's why you look at schools on non-network TV and you find out more about their ability to draw fans. It's one reason that the networks like the Big XII. Our fans follow their teams even when you stick them on ESPN U or FS2.

I'm sure that game will be down, but the casual network watcher will bulk up the numbers enough UT will be doing victory laps (since their fans are more concerned about viewers than actually winning football since they can't do that anymore). It would be more telling had they sent it to ESPN2 and put KU/TCU on ABC. Had they done it they'd have gotten a good ESPN2 number as UT has a lot of fans that will flip channels, but KU/TCU would have decent numbers because again the time slot draws the majority of the fans that watch those games.

Interesting, I never heard of that, where do you find stats about folks that watch college football that only watch what is put on ABC for them? I know that was a thing back before Cable became popular in the 90's, but don't most college football watching homes have cable or other access besides Bunny Ears?

Anyway, Michigan is on Fox at the same time as the RR Washout, and Tenn/LSU is on ESPN at that time so the B1G and SEC fans will likely be drawn away (and KU/TCU on the off-channel FS1)

You could be correct, I guess we can review the numbers afterwards and try and see if they show us anything.


Personally, I'll have the KU game on, and just flip occasionally to ABC like I'm checking out a train wreck, take a quick rubber neck look and put my eyes back on the road (KU/TCU)

Unfortunately no one has studied it, but here's where it shows up. Michigan vs Michigan State will draw a lot of eyeballs, say 4M, but Michigan vs E. Michigan will still draw 2-3M viewers. That tells you that at least 2M viewers watch that slot regardless of who's on. The networks consistently put blue bloods on vs no names where you know its going to be a blowout. Now they'll tell you its because they NEED the blue bloods to draw an audience. No there are a lot of people that like to watch CFB (or really any live sport) and just watch a network. They assume that network is going to give them the best game option. Or some don't even realize that the other network is on.

I've seen it tons of places. I've gone to homes and found really bad games like PSU vs Temple on, and this is in MD no one cares about that game, but its what FOX or ABC were showing so they had it on. Same thing at bars and restaurants, they'll have the network games on and its like pulling teeth to get them to put it on a cable channel to find the game you want. The people don't even know what you mean when you say a game is on ESPN2 or FS2. There are a lot of people that casually watch games by network, and don't have awareness of other options.

Look at what happens when UT or OU get put on ESPN2. Their numbers look like any other decent college game. They don't bring big numbers, they bring a few more so OSU vs x on ESPN 2 draws 1.5M, while OU vs x on ESPN2 draws 1.8M.

YIPES.... I don't know about any theoretical anecdotal games like you listed.... I was specifically only talking about a DOWN goon team and down Horns team, in a fairly bad time slot (even though it is ABC)

The fact that they are down (and somewhat historical blue bloods) is what should be telling.

and I've seen folks put on a game just for background and/or for the few guests that might want to watch TV, or even bars where the goof with the remote has no clue (that's every week, almost every bar around here - dang Cowboys ... real Cowboys, not OSU). I don't think those amount to much on the ratings.... the ratings are more of a Neilson thing, or tracked by the cable companies.

The Nielsen ratings are calculated based on a sample of 40,000 homes and about 100,000 people that's demographically representative of the population as a whole. It's a small fraction of the 120 million or so homes with TV

They do count bars in the ratings, and they are almost all on cable so they track them as well. Noon on ABC is their best time slot, so why are you putting such a dog game on? Because they always have, and it will keep them looking relevant.

The fact is that those network slots get about the same numbers every week. A really hyped game will move them some, or a real miss will move them down a little, but there is a core number they always get. Nielson families are notorious for weak or poor choices. If you don't think so just consider the shows that get ratings.

But a lot of the numbers now come from cable boxes that can track everything except how many people are in front of the set.

I think we're talking about two different things, and I don't think that your statements are correct about ratings, but non the less, it will be interesting to see how the ratings fare for that one game.

Here is an interesting look at TV ratings from an economist from April 2022

Analyzing College Football Television Ratings

https://thesportseconomist.com/analyzing-college-football-television-ratings/