Ratings Down For BCS Championship Game As Well

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

The BCS took a hammering this year and they have no one to blame but themselves after the matchups they choose this Bowl Season (choosing Illinois to play in the Rose Bowl when they didn't have to). Only one BCS game out of five turned out to have more viewers than last year, and for the second straight year the Championship game has lost millions of viewers. Via Sports Business Daily....

Last night’s BCS National Championship game, which saw LSU defeat Ohio State 38-24, earned a 14.4/22 final Nielsen rating, down 17.2% from a 17.4/27 for last year’s game, which featured Florida-Ohio State. The game was also down 33.6% from a 21.7/35 in ’06 for ABC’s telecast of the Texas-USC National Championship Game in the Rose Bowl.
We're talking drops of about 7 million from 2006 to 2007 and approximately about another million from 2007 to 2008. Here's the rest of the breakdown for the entire set BCS games sans Rose Bowl (+/- based on games played on same date last year, actual Bowl Games may differ)....
National Championship:

2008- LSU-OSU, 14.4/22
2007- Florida-OSU, 17.4/27 -17.2%

Rose:

2008- USC-Illinois, 12.0
2007- USC-Michigan, 13.9/23 -13.7%

Sugar/Fiesta:

2008- UGA-Hawaii, 7.0/12
2007 (Fiesta)- Boise St.-Oklahoma, 8.4/15 -16.7%

Fiesta/Orange:

2008- WVU-Oklahoma, 7.7/13
2007- Louisville-Wake Forest (Orange), 7.0/11 +10.0%
Orange/Sugar:

2008- Kansas-VT, 7.4/12
2007- LSU-Notre Dame (Sugar), 9.3/16 -20.4%
I still to this day can't figure out how Basketball can pull of a Tournament and make a ton of money but Football can't/couldn't. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like they're leaving money on the table under the current format.

Posted by Awful Announcing- at 4:04 PM

12 Comments:

There's a better chance of politicians agreeing on a flat tax than university presidents signing off on a playoff, like the one the Univ. of Georgia President proposed today.

Anonymous said...
Jan 8, 2008, 4:56:00 PM  

I'm more a fan of a 'plus-one' system, but look at this story and notice who's not in negotiations to change to a plus one after the 2010 BCS:

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3186232

"On Monday, Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner John Swofford and SEC Commissioner Mike Slive said the ACC, SEC, Big East and Big 12 are open to a "plus-one" Final Four format in which the top four teams would be selected and seeded."

Anonymous said...
Jan 8, 2008, 5:02:00 PM  

FOX is killing themselves right now.

Brett said...
Jan 8, 2008, 5:17:00 PM  

It's not FOXes fault about the games they get.

The BCS games conference tie-ins are the problem.

ROSE- Big-Pac 10
SUGAR- SEC
FIESTA- Big 12
ORANGE- ACC
The Big East Champ gets thrown into any game. Why can't every BCS game have the same choice?

Think about that. Alot easier to get games EVERYONE wants to see based on the BCS when the only rule to picking a game is what will make the most money for us?

karasz411 said...
Jan 8, 2008, 5:36:00 PM  

College football could have a playoff system, and they'd make more money overall (without question) that way. But it comes down to power in this case, and the big conference presidents are going to fight long and hard to maintain the status quo, less the NCAA actually be allowed to run Division I-A (or whatever the hell it's called now) like it does with every other division of football.

Of all the ideas I've heard for a playoff system, this one from Yahoo! Sports' Dan Wetzel is the one I like the most.

Anonymous said...
Jan 8, 2008, 5:36:00 PM  

I think the main problem with Fox isn't the games themselves--okay having blowouts don't help. But my biggest gripe with them is the way they broadcast it. First, they hire awful announcers (Donahue, Alvarez, and Brennaman etc.)who drag down the quality of the broadcast. Add that in with their ADD style of producing a game--and you have an unwatchable product. I think it was actually worse this year because they chose to increase the band shots, and whichever idiot chose to mike up the OU band so we would be subjected to that damn song 5 million times.
Anyway, keep up the good work on the site as I get a good laugh daily like Jemarcus Russell's sweater--I skipped halftime and somehow missed it.

Anonymous said...
Jan 8, 2008, 6:34:00 PM  

It's not that they can't implement a playoff, it's that they won't. There is no reason why they can't have a 16 team playoff, include the bowls, make a ton of money, and make everyone happy.

Anonymous said...
Jan 8, 2008, 7:16:00 PM  

Keyser Soze 100% correct. More money to be gained by having 32 bowls and essentially guaranteeing half the teams get a payoff for themselves and their conferences each year. Toss in those idiots at the Rose Bowl who still think tradition exists in the world, and a playoff ain't EVER gonna happen.

Sportsattitude said...
Jan 8, 2008, 8:08:00 PM  

The Cotton Bowl moves into the new 100,000 seat Dallas Cowboys stadium by 2010 and wants their place as a top tier bowl back. The Big 10 & Pac-10's agreement with the Rose Bowl is through 2013. There's a greater likelihood of going back to the old bowl system before a true 'playoff' ever occurs.

Anonymous said...
Jan 8, 2008, 8:11:00 PM  

Sort of off-topic, but best comment ever on the mind-and-ear-numbing band shots FOX fellated itself with during bowl season, courtesy of firejoemorgan.com:

"I wanted to punch it in the concept.
# posted by Ken Tremendous : 1/08/2008 2:05 AM"

Totally. Fucking. Spot. On.

Anonymous said...
Jan 8, 2008, 11:29:00 PM  

Now there's news that the preliminary numbers would indicate that the Capital One Bowl between Michigan and Florida will out-rate every other bowl other than the BCS Title Game & the Rose Bowl.

Anonymous said...
Jan 9, 2008, 11:15:00 AM  

Why have the BCS championship on a Monday? Play it the Saturday after New Year's, instead of a random week night several days after every other game, and the ratings will jump. Instead on Saturday we get the International Bowl. Ratings gold, that

Anonymous said...
Jan 9, 2008, 3:47:00 PM  

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