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Pac-12 football TV ratings: Ranking teams by viewership amid conference realignment rumors

jeremy cluff, arizona republic
·2 min read
19
Mascots of the Southern California Trojans, California Golden Bears, Washington Huskies, Colorado Buffaloes, Oregon Ducks, Arizona Wildcats, Arizona State Sun Devils, Washington State Cougars and UCLA Bruins pose during the Pac-12 Conference football championship game at Levi's Stadium.
Mascots of the Southern California Trojans, California Golden Bears, Washington Huskies, Colorado Buffaloes, Oregon Ducks, Arizona Wildcats, Arizona State Sun Devils, Washington State Cougars and UCLA Bruins pose during the Pac-12 Conference football championship game at Levi's Stadium.

As college conference realignment and expansion speculation continues to swirl, TV ratings for college football conferences and teams continue to be a focal point in chatter surrounding the sport.

Which Pac-12 schools are the biggest draws in college football?

Which are the smallest?

Could ratings impact where each school ends up?

A recent Pac-12 TV Performance Rankings tweet by West Coast College Football caught our eye because of the huge disparity in TV ratings among Pac-12 teams.

The tweet took data from Sports Media Watch to rank each Pac-12 team by TV performance from 2016-2021.

More: Arizona State AD Ray Anderson: Pac-12 schools 'completely shocked' by USC, UCLA departure

USC, according to the ranking, was the cream of the crop in the conference in terms of TV viewership.

The Trojans had 45 games with more than one million viewers during the measured time span.

The next biggest draws in the conference?

Washington was No. 2, and Oregon was No. 3.

Washington State and Stanford rounded out the Top 5.

UCLA snuck into the top half of the conference in TV ratings at No. 6.

The bottom half of the conference in television ratings were Utah (No. 7), Arizona State (No. 8), Colorado (No. 9), California (No. 10), Arizona (No. 11) and Oregon State (No. 12).

The Beavers had just four games with over one million viewers between 2016-2021, according to the data.

More: Are Pac-12 schools ASU, Arizona a package deal in college conference realignment?

USC and UCLA are in the process of moving to the Big Ten, a move that shocked the conference and most of college football.

Speculation has linked some Pac-12 teams, like Colorado, Utah, ASU and Arizona, to the Big 12, while there has also been chatter surrounding the conference and the ACC.

TV ratings are always important for conferences. How could those ratings impact realignment?

We could see their impact as realignment continues among the conferences, because USC and UCLA's upcoming move to the Big Ten and Texas and Oklahoma's upcoming move to the SEC show that it's not a matter of if conferences continue to change and realign, it's a matter of when.

How soon will the next dominoes fall?

More: Pac-12 conference realignment: ASU's Michael Crow, Arizona's Robert C. Robbins could be key

Reach Jeremy Cluff at jeremy.cluff@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him on Twitter @Jeremy_Cluff.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Pac-12 football TV ratings rankings amid conference realignment rumors