And of course we're struggling there compared to a team like Alabama or LSU or Notre Dame. Of course the brand/vieweership isn't supposed to matter, but the reality is that it does for a lot of rankers/pundits
And so far this season, BYU is #42 among P4 teams in TV viewers. Which is...not great. Luckily the committee generally seems to put less emphasis on this stuff than others (in my experience/recollection)
Looking at teams in the current AP Top 25 and ranking them by viewership
- Georgia 44.29M
- Alabama 37.68M
- Texas 33.33M
- Colorado 29.11M
- Tennessee 28.00M
- Ohio St 26.95M
- LSU 26.95M
- Texas A&M 22.85M
- Notre Dame 22.07M
- Oregon 21.66M
- Miami 18.38M
- Penn St 16.45M
- Clemson 13.24M
- Illinois 12.88M
- Ole Miss 12.48M
- Kansas St 11.68M
- Missouri 11.26M
- BYU 7.06M
- Iowa St 5.92M
- Indiana 4.47M
- Pitt 3.79M
- SMU 2.65M
- Washington St 2.46M
- Boise St 0.78M
- Army 0.68M
Which means if any thought of TV matchups comes into play (which, again, I expect the committee to put less weight on), there's only a few teams we'll get the advantage over.
The nice thing is that they HAVE to take at least one Big 12 team and so if we win out, then it doesn't matter what bias anybody has. But I can guarantee the networks are hoping to only have 1 XII team in there (unless Colorado is the 2nd). And among Big 12 teams in contention, we're probably the #3 preferred option of the networks (behind Colorado and Kansas St, ahead of Iowa St).
Here's total viewership for each Big 12 team
- Colorado 29.11M
- Kansas St 11.86M
- Oklahoma St 9.42M
- Arizona 9.06M
- West Virginia 8.63M
- Baylor 7.79M
- TCU 7.62M
- Utah 7.33M
- UCF 7.25M
- BYU 7.06M
- Iowa St 5.93M
- Texas Tech 5.74M
- Kansas 4.54M
- Arizona St 4.43M
- Cincinnati 3.54M
- Houston 2.25M
I'm hoping we draw huge numbers against Utah because right now our best TV game of the year is 1.66M, which is pretty weak. For reference, here's the top 30 Big 12 games of the year (everything that has broken 1M)
- Colorado / Nebraska: 5.67M
- Colorado / North Dakota St: 4.76M
- Colorado / UCF: 4.17M
- Colorado / Baylor: 3.64M
- Colorado / Kansas St: 3.26M
- Colorado / Colorado St: 3.25M
- Penn St / West Virginia: 2.99M
- Arkansas / Oklahoma St: 2.8M
- Kansas St / Arizona: 2.58M
- Texas Tech / TCU: 2.36M
- Colorado / Cincinnati: 2.34M
- Iowa / Iowa St: 2.28M
- Oklahoma St / Utah 2.14M
- Baylor / Utah: 2.08M
- Colorado / Arizona: 2.02M
- Kansas St / Oklahoma St: 1.88M
- Oklahoma St / BYU: 1.66M
- TCU / Houston: 1.51M
- Kansas St / BYU: 1.50M
- TCU / Stanford: 1.49M
- Kansas / UNLV: 1.32M
- Arizona / BYU: 1.31M
- Utah / Arizona St: 1.29M
- UCF /BYU: 1.24M
- West Virginia / Iowa St: 1.22M
- Baylor / Iowa St: 1.20M
- West Virginia / Kansas: 1.15M
- West Virginia /Pitt: 1.15M
- Kansas St / West Virginia: 1.14M
- TCU / UCF: 1.03M
Obviously Colorado dominates there, but the Top 10 (non-Colorado category) games involving Big 12 teams are
- Penn St / West Virginia: 2.99M
- Arkansas / Oklahoma St: 2.8M
- Kansas St / Arizona: 2.58M
- Texas Tech / TCU: 2.36M
- Iowa / Iowa St: 2.28M
- Oklahoma St / Utah 2.14M
- Baylor / Utah: 2.08M
- Kansas St / Oklahoma St: 1.88M
- Oklahoma St / BYU: 1.66M
- TCU / Houston: 1.51M
Means that 10 conference teams (Colorado, West Virginia, Oklahoma St, Kansas St, Arizona, Tech, TCU, Iowa St, Utah, Baylor) have shown a higher viewership ceiling than us, with only Houston, Cincy, UCF, ASU, and Kansas behind. Given our on-field success, that should absolutely not be the case.