Musketeer Madness

The BE has been great for us no doubt, but TV ratings continue to be poor.

I know BE teams have smaller fan bases due to the size of the schools, so I'm curious if anything can be done to improve the numbers.

Conference Tournament Finals TV Rating
ESPN... ACC....... Sat 9pm..... 3.6m viewers..... 2.03 Rating
CBS.....Big 10.... Sun 3pm.... 3.6m viewers...... 2.29
ESPN....SEC........ Sun 1pm.... 2.7m viewers...... 1.64
ESPN.... Big 12.... Sat 6pm.... 3.3m viewers....... 1.35
ESPN.... PAC........Sat 11pm.. 2.1m viewers....... 1.24
CBS......A10........ Sun 12:30p 1.6m viewers....... 1.09
CBS......MW........ Sat 6pm..... 1.3m viewers...... 0.85
ESPN.... AAC........Sun 3pm..... 1.2m viewers...... 0.79
Fox......Big East... Sat 5:30p... 1.1m viewers...... 0.70

http://thebiglead.com/2017/03/28/gonzag ... -20-years/

I was also surprised by this....

Is this for basketball only or for football and basketball for most of these school/leagues?

Fox announced the other day that their BE TV rating had increased significantly this year.

Ha, yea it went from really bad to bad.

1. with about 330 million people in the USA...those numbers mean about 1% of the nation is watching BE basketball. Not good. 2. I have read that 25% of the country follows sports..but they are really only following maybe 1 or 2 sports primarily and not following most sports. 3. Hockey is at the bottom with soccer...and baseball is also near the bottom(what use to be America's game), and 4. the NFL (suppose to be the best USA sport being followed) had a major drop in viewership last year. 5. My guess is that sports is just losing its 25% base ...remember 75% of people could care less about sports. 6. Think the world's number one sport is Soccer or as they call it Football. 7. TV viewership is falling...remember again most people call television THE WASTELAND. 8. Football within the USA is major. 9. If sports were important ESPN would not be laying off thousands of employees this year

How many homes have FS1 compared to ESPN? I know the BE finals were on network tv but most games are on cable. The money from Fox is obviously great .How long does the deal last ?

bluegrass wrote:How many homes have FS1 compared to ESPN? I know the BE finals were on network tv but most games are on cable. The money from Fox is obviously great .How long does the deal last ?

Add to this the fact that many cable systems do not carry FS1 in its basic package. I have Spectrum (formerly Time Warner Cable) in South Carolina and FS1 requires a oremium sports package. ESPN is on every basic cable package in the country.

olsingledigit wrote:

bluegrass wrote:How many homes have FS1 compared to ESPN? I know the BE finals were on network tv but most games are on cable. The money from Fox is obviously great .How long does the deal last ?

Add to this the fact that many cable systems do not carry FS1 in its basic package. I have Spectrum (formerly Time Warner Cable) in South Carolina and FS1 requires a oremium sports package. ESPN is on every basic cable package in the country.

Bingo. When people turn on the TV and want to watch sports, they dont go sniffing around for FS1. They go ESPN and then local channels. Fox needs to get it together.

bluegrass wrote:How many homes have FS1 compared to ESPN? I know the BE finals were on network tv but most games are on cable. The money from Fox is obviously great .How long does the deal last ?

It was a 12 year deal between BE and Fox so 8 years left.
ESPN has had a 30+ year head start on FS1.
I know my viewing habits are still ESPN for general sports news.
It will still come down to the BE making deeper runs in the tournament.
But it will never be like it was in the 80's when BE games were "must see TV".

ESPN has been losing some viewership. FS1 isn't ESPN now but will close the gap over time. Given that many people watch stuff on devices rather than traditional TV, I think the fear of lack of exposure is overblown.