re: College Football's Biggest TV Draws

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5 Million for one game isn't impressive here. Championship games also aren't Regular Season and of course they draw more. Honestly I am surprised you guys have fallen down so far in interest considering how high you were riding in the '00s. Does prove my bandwagon point though. Hell I can get Texas tickets to most games for little more than I can go and see HS games without much effort. That home schedule sucks arse for you and I understand why you had to come begging to follow Big Bro.

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It’s quite simple actually.. the bandwagon component consists of two groups..

1) We want to watch Team X win
2) We want to watch Team X lose

Both of these groups play a big part in TV viewership. See Colorado vs Texas A&M. The whole world jumped in because Top 5 A&M looked horrible and probably should have lost that game.

If A&M had lost to Kent State in Week 1, or if they hadn’t been ranked, then the numbers would have been substantially less..

Going back to the Texas vs Oklahoma game.. Texas has had at least 2 losses entering that game every year from 2013-2017. You lose a portion of both groups for this one simple reason.

As soon as Texas only had 1 loss in the 2018 game, the game jumped over 5 million. The next year in 2019 when Texas only had 1 loss, and had beaten Oklahoma the year before, the number jumped to 7.5 million.

Which adds two more groups to the score...

3) We want to watch Team Y win..
4) We want to watch Team Y lose..

Texas vs Oklahoma draws big numbers when you have all 4 groups invested in the game.

Alabama brings all 4 groups to every game against a good team.

Texas vs Notre Dame 2016 - First game of the year.. two historically great programs.. and a shitload of people who want to watch one or both teams lose.. And it was the only game on that night.. Imagine if both teams were any good..

Texas draws big when Texas doesn’t suck and they are playing an opponent that (1) can beat them and (2) has a group of fans that want the other team to lose.

If Texas has a good year this year.. maybe 8-4 or 9-3 and shows some improvement.. and assuming they don’t lose in Week 1 next year..

That Texas vs Alabama game will be a huge draw as you will have a lot of viewers from all 4 groups.

The A&M game this week will probably be over 5 million. Arkansas has a pulse and can win the game.. it is on CBS which will be in all households.. and there is a big group that wants to see A&M lose. I don’t think it will approach 10 million because Arkansas doesn’t have that 2nd group right now.. they always lose (in their heads)..