Awful Announcing: Will Big East Low Ratings Scare B1G Away?

[MUPanther]

I wouldn't say that's a lock. Cable companies see the ratings the Big East has gotten. Why would they upgrade FS2 to get those?

Because there will be Big Ten games on FS2.

Why would the B1G put their non-marquee games on FS2, instead of BTN? BTN is highly profitable (44cents a viewer, FS1 is somewhere around 70 cents, ESPN2 90 cents, ESPN is $5.44), and the B1G owns 49% of it outright.

The current deal us pretty good, with marquee games going to ESPN/2, others on BTN. FS2 would be a MAJOR downgrade.

I'm sorry, but I'd wager Wisconsin leads MU during in season ratings (which are all that matter for Conferences seeking partnerships with cable companies) and I hate the Badgers.

How do we not know in three years from now FS2 is not many more homes? The picks don't go by marquee to non-marquee. It goes by whatever goes in the contract.

As for Wisconsin/Marquette, if both teams are good as a said it's 53/47, which let's face it is even. The last two years Wisconsin has dominated. In 2013 when Marquette won the Big East and went to the Elite 8, Marquette had the numbers. All of them not on the radar when it comes to the Packers.

[MUPanther]

UConn-South Carolina was 1 vs 2 and there was really no other games going on a Monday night, while a Saturday early afternoon when 10 other games are going on at the same time on national TV.

#21 Oklahoma Stata @ #16 Baylor ran simultaneously on ESPNU, Duke played a road game that they nearly lost (always a huge draw, especially on the road) and Iowa State @ Oklahoma (two more ranked teams) overlapped the game too. Also, FOX is a national channel not on cable!

Yes, I know what was on Monday night, as I said and you confirmed not too many games.

[stever20]

and you don't think that the Big Ten would dictate with their contract that all of their games would be on FS1? The Big Ten would hold pretty much all the leverage, and you can better believe they would use every last bit of it.

[Frank the Tank]

How do we not know in three years from now FS2 is not many more homes? The picks don't go by marquee to non-marquee. It goes by whatever goes in the contract.

As for Wisconsin/Marquette, if both teams are good as a said it's 53/47, which let's face it is even. The last two years Wisconsin has dominated. In 2013 when Marquette won the Big East and went to the Elite 8, Marquette had the numbers. All of them not on the radar when it comes to the Packers.

Gopher+RamFan is right. The Big Ten isn't putting football and men's basketball games on FS2 at all. The league has a 49% interest in the BTN - if it's a non-marquee game, the league is waaaaay better off having that game on BTN. For that matter, Fox is better off putting that game on BTN, as well, since Fox gets a much higher carriage rate for BTN than FS2. Now, FS2 could certainly become an additional outlet for Big Ten women's basketball, hockey, baseball, volleyball, and other Olympic sports that BTN doesn't have room for. However, the Big Ten isn't moving games from the ESPN networks in order for any of them to end up on FS2 - only the only-the-air Fox network and FS1 are compelling to the league at all (and they're still far behind the 24/7 ESPN machine).

On the other issue, I like Marquette a lot and they're probably the most dependable fan base in the Big East, but Wisconsin has arguably the best top-to-bottom athletic fan support in the country when you look at football and basketball together (and then you add on their hockey fan base on top of that). It looks like you're a Marquette fan, so it's not surprising to see you try to downplay the Badgers, but from an objective standpoint, Wisky is a juggernaut athletic department with a massive fan base. Data ranging from Facebook to TV ratings to attendance to revenue indicate that the Badgers have one of the strongest and complete holds over their home state of any athletic department in the country (and about as good as you can get in an area with prominent pro sports competition). As a result, Wisconsin is now ranked #2 in the nation for athletic revenue, with only Texas ahead of them. (Yes, Wisconsin is now ahead of schools like Ohio State, Michigan, Alabama and Florida on that metric, and the Badgers garner a larger proportion of revenue from basketball than all of those schools.) Absolutely no one should underestimate the strength of Wisconsin.

[Frank the Tank]

3) True, Illinois runs Chicago right now. But their games are still played more than 2 hours away. DePaul can turn it around.

I'm a lifelong Chicagoan and an alum of both Illinois (undergrad) and DePaul (law school). If DePaul can start making NCAA Tournaments again, then it would make a huge difference. The new arena will also help a ton. However, there's simply no comparison between the school spirit and athletic culture at Illinois (or any other Big Ten school) and what I saw at DePaul. It's not even in the same vicinity and that won't change even if DePaul could rekindle its glory days of the 1970s and early-1980s. As soon as I stepped onto campus at Illinois, it was clear that sports were an integral part of the student experience (and we're probably one of the more fair-weather fan bases in the Big Ten for both football and basketball). Then, you're applying that experience to 30,000-plus full-time undergraduates, most of whom are from Chicago and will end up moving back to Chicago. That simply wasn't the case at DePaul when I was there (and this was when they were coming off of NCAA Tournament appearances, so it wasn't as if though it was in the middle of this awful period they've been going through for the past decade). For the Chicago market, it's not so much the proximity of Illinois alone, but rather the sheer number of alums from all of the Big Ten schools that live there. Several thousand newly-minted Big Ten grads move into Wrigleyville and Lincoln Park every single summer and they take their loyalties with them (as evidenced by how virtually every bar in the city has an allegiance to one school or another). That's a much larger force that DePaul is going up against (which is made all the more difficult during one of their worst periods on-the-court in their program's history) since Big Ten schools like Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan State and Ohio State also draw big TV ratings (in college basketball terms) in the Chicago market on top of Illinois.

[TheBall]

It doesn't matter what they pick. Minny/Nebraska isn't going to push Nova/Gtown off FS1. Fox gets the final say guys, they are the ones who write the checks (if they win the B1G rights).

Really going out on a limb there.....comparing two of the lower Big Ten brand names to the top two Big East Brands. Let's hope Villanova and Georgetown can hold the viewers over a Nebraska/ Minnesota game. But try Wisconsin / Indiana up against a Butler / Marquette game. You know what happens there.

We both agree. Fox writes the checks and Fox will put the product on the main channel in the good time slots that will bring them to most revenue. IU of 10X bigger than Butler, they have 10X the alumni, they have 10X the viewers. What do you think Fox will do? Will they pick my Bulldogs over the Hoosiers simply because, well simply because they are in the Big East.

The marquette v butler game will be aired because the network has a fan base of big east teams who tune in, and the Wisconsin v Indiana will also be aired. It's not an either or thing.

And this will build up fox sports 2 as well.

The big east didn't always have their best games as espn show pieces. They put plenty of solid games on espn 2 or even espn 3 when they were pumping that concept while "lesser" games were aired in espn.

If fox gets the bug ten, it will be an addition to the big east, not as a replacement. They want both brands to remain strong. They would want viewers of both conferences tuning in to fs1 and fs2.

[NJRedman]

3) True, Illinois runs Chicago right now. But their games are still played more than 2 hours away. DePaul can turn it around.

I'm a lifelong Chicagoan and an alum of both Illinois (undergrad) and DePaul (law school). If DePaul can start making NCAA Tournaments again, then it would make a huge difference. The new arena will also help a ton. However, there's simply no comparison between the school spirit and athletic culture at Illinois (or any other Big Ten school) and what I saw at DePaul. It's not even in the same vicinity and that won't change even if DePaul could rekindle its glory days of the 1970s and early-1980s. As soon as I stepped onto campus at Illinois, it was clear that sports were an integral part of the student experience (and we're probably one of the more fair-weather fan bases in the Big Ten for both football and basketball). Then, you're applying that experience to 30,000-plus full-time undergraduates, most of whom are from Chicago and will end up moving back to Chicago. That simply wasn't the case at DePaul when I was there (and this was when they were coming off of NCAA Tournament appearances, so it wasn't as if though it was in the middle of this awful period they've been going through for the past decade). For the Chicago market, it's not so much the proximity of Illinois alone, but rather the sheer number of alums from all of the Big Ten schools that live there. Several thousand newly-minted Big Ten grads move into Wrigleyville and Lincoln Park every single summer and they take their loyalties with them (as evidenced by how virtually every bar in the city has an allegiance to one school or another). That's a much larger force that DePaul is going up against (which is made all the more difficult during one of their worst periods on-the-court in their program's history) since Big Ten schools like Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan State and Ohio State also draw big TV ratings (in college basketball terms) in the Chicago market on top of Illinois.

This. Just how the Big East was synonymous with New York City, the Big Ten is with Chicago. Thats their city no if ands or buts about it. The best we can hope for like all Big East teams who share markets with them is to be able to cut ourselves a slice of that pie, but make no mistake it's their pie. It's small private vs big state. We just don't have the numbers to compete head to head. Some cities like New York and Philly can be owned by us BBall season, but most of the mid-west cities will be dominated by the Big Ten.

[DudeAnon]

Also, I never enjoy the game with Xavier win or lose. The only reason why we should keep scheduling it is because Xavier will almost always be a top 50 RPI team and we'll need the game now that we are in this mediocre league.

I don't know many UC fans so maybe my perspective is skewed, but it seems crazy to me that you don't enjoy the game. Its one of the best rivalries in the country. Admittedly it has been more important to Xavier in the past, but I can't even imagine the game not being played, its a fixture of Cincinnati sports.

[stever20]

It doesn't matter what they pick. Minny/Nebraska isn't going to push Nova/Gtown off FS1. Fox gets the final say guys, they are the ones who write the checks (if they win the B1G rights).

Really going out on a limb there.....comparing two of the lower Big Ten brand names to the top two Big East Brands. Let's hope Villanova and Georgetown can hold the viewers over a Nebraska/ Minnesota game. But try Wisconsin / Indiana up against a Butler / Marquette game. You know what happens there.

We both agree. Fox writes the checks and Fox will put the product on the main channel in the good time slots that will bring them to most revenue. IU of 10X bigger than Butler, they have 10X the alumni, they have 10X the viewers. What do you think Fox will do? Will they pick my Bulldogs over the Hoosiers simply because, well simply because they are in the Big East.

The marquette v butler game will be aired because the network has a fan base of big east teams who tune in, and the Wisconsin v Indiana will also be aired. It's not an either or thing.

And this will build up fox sports 2 as well.

The big east didn't always have their best games as espn show pieces. They put plenty of solid games on espn 2 or even espn 3 when they were pumping that concept while "lesser" games were aired in espn.

If fox gets the bug ten, it will be an addition to the big east, not as a replacement. They want both brands to remain strong. They would want viewers of both conferences tuning in to fs1 and fs2.

The thing is- Fox may want to put games on FS2, but the Big Ten in their contract isn't going to allow that. Fox can want it all they want. That's just not reality though.

[billyjack]

When DePaul owned Chicago, there were tons of Big Ten alums in the city just like today, right? So that disadvantage to DePaul, or advantage to the Big Ten is no different than it was back from 1977-84 or whatever. What is required to start off is for DePaul to contend for NCAA bids each year.

I think back in the late 70s thru mid 80s there was a threesome of DePaul, Marquette and Notre Dame that dominated Chicago hoops interest.

Wisconsin was awful til around only 20 years ago. They hired former Friars assistant, later Knicks head coach, and current Big East executive Stu Jackson. That as followed soon after by Virginia Tony Bennett's father, then Bo Ryan. Keep in mind that Bo Ryan will turn 68 this year, so what happens to Wisconsin when he leaves?

Illinois, looking at past records, made the NCAA's a bunch of times in the 80's under Lou Henson, but weren't considered a national power, and didnt break through past the Sweet 16 til their 89 Final Four. Weird fact is that as a conference, between Indiana's titles in 81 and 87, the Big Ten sent zero teams beyond the Sweet 16. I think the Pac-10 had a similar drought.

Anyway, for old guys like me, we've seen the pendulum swing back and forth so many times with many teams in all sports that a DePaul-dominated Chicago sounds completely reasonable and very likely.