The benefit of college football realignment: more big games
You might not like college football realignment, but there's no doubt it's going to make for better TV.
College football, like most industries in America, is ruled by money.
This is not news to anyone.
Neither is all of this: The money mostly comes from television contracts, and the broadcast networks that dole out said contracts seek as many viewers as possible for their games. The best way to attract those viewers is by having as many highly ranked, big-name teams play each other.
Hardcore fans may still care about regionality, traditional rivals and quaint peculiarities such as the venom of, say, Iowa State-Iowa, the prideful resolve of Mississippi State churning out nine-win seasons or falling asleep watching a late-night game played on blue turf in Idaho.
TV executives figure those fans are hooked. The base isn’t going anywhere. The challenge is finding new fans who will tune into an easily hyped matchup and push viewership above the five million and then 10 million marks.
It isn’t easy. It's why conference realignment never seems to end.
The nation’s 133 FBS teams staged nearly 800 regular-season games in 2022 and, per sportsmediawatch.com, only five of them delivered audiences of 10 million or more — Michigan-Ohio State (17.1 million), Tennessee-Georgia (13.1), Alabama-Tennessee (11.6), Alabama-Texas (10.6) and Notre Dame-Ohio State (10.5).
Just 17 additional regular-season games had more than five million viewers, almost all of them featuring traditional powers. Alabama, for example, had seven of its 12 regular-season games reach five million or more.
As such, television executives are trying to force these teams to play each other more often — all while saving money by grouping them in a couple of conferences, aka bundles. It’s led to plenty of understandable angst.
It will, however, deliver seasons in the future with more can’t-miss games and, truth be told, college football could use more can't-miss games.
Consider the first two weekends of the season — Week 0 and Week 1. There is just a single game between two teams ranked in the USA Today Top 25 (LSU-Florida State). Most weeks have just two or three such matchups, and top-10 matchups are rare.
Rankings and fortunes will change, but dedicated college football fans know that it isn’t uncommon for there to be one big game, or even none, in a week. They also know the seemingly sleepy Saturday is when all hell tends to break out, but while that’s great for the hardcore viewer, it doesn’t do much for ratings-chasing execs.
The 2022 season produced four Saturdays — Weeks 2, 4, 5 and 6 — with just a single game that drew at least five million viewers. There were two more — Weeks 3 and 8 — that delivered none.
There are too many networks and too many broadcast windows and too many millions for that to continue.
The means used to change this have been clumsy, poorly communicated and cutthroat.
Massive expansion of some conferences, and the destruction of others, could have been avoided if forward-thinking commissioners had simply set up scheduling alliances, pushed powerhouse schools to play more appealing non-conference opponents and expanded the playoff sooner.
Leadership in this sport is rare, though. For the most part, everyone is focused on insular and immediate concerns. They are trying to hang on long enough for their bloated salaries to pay off the lake house and then grab a cushy consulting gig with either a television network or the bowl industry, who conveniently benefitted from inaction through the years.
Regardless, whatever got the sport here, it is here.
While Fox, ESPN and CBS have worked to consolidate power and pick off name brands at a discount, the future they have set up should improve the number of quality games. TV doesn’t care about Washington State … and now it doesn’t have to care about Washington State. The Pac-12 programs it does care about — USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington — are headed for the Big Ten.
Go ahead and hate it. Go ahead and complain about it. The truth is, Oregon-Ohio State or Penn State-USC is going to produce audiences in the many millions. That’s all this is.
College football is changing. In terms of its oddball, everyone-in-the-pool ethos, it isn’t for the better. As a commercial product though, 2024 is when the sport gets a dose of rocket fuel.
More big games for big audiences. An expanded playoff that will keep more teams in the chase deep into November and then deliver 11 postseason games that will produce massive audiences.
This was television’s grand plan. It’s still in progress, but 2024 is when, like it or not, it finally begins to mature. Like it or not, TV is counting on you, and many others, to tune in.
