(04-20-2013 09:48 PM)ODU2003 Wrote: My take on everything is simple; brands rule college sports with markets being a distant second. In football you have names that carry weight; Notre Dame, Texas, USC, PSU, Alabama, FSU, OSU, etc. In basketball (yes, a distant second in terms of revenue) you also have brand names that stand out; Duke, UNC, Kansas, Kentucky, UCLA, etc.
Someone mentioned the land grant schools and they do typically bring the state. Said differently, the primary state schools have a regional brand. So while VT football might not carry the same weight as Texas in terms of national brand, they have a regional relevance that has lots of value. (BTW, VT has awesome fans - they are almost cult like in their support of VT).
Now in the absence of a brand on the regional or national level, that is where markets become important. And since revenue drives realignment, schools with a brand or a market have a huge leg up on schools with neither.
Brands are far and away the ball game (see Nebraska to Big 10).
The market theory is built on a "default viewer" strategy. It assumes that there are people who are going to watch any game. Nationally there is some number of people who are going to watch a game no matter what. But there are others who live within a market who don't buy tickets or seriously follow a team within the market who will tune in out of local interest if their primary team isn't playing or a game that impacts that team. Market theory almost certainly failed the day Tulane hosted Memphis on CBSS with LSU hosting Auburn on CBS at the same time.
It works to a degree. If Arkansas State draws 33% of the Jonesboro "market" UNT needs only draw 1% of the Dallas market to match. Even with Little Rock, if Arkansas State draws 10% of the two markets, UNT needs only 2.5% of the Dallas market to match. Those default viewers matter and they are what drives the market theory.
Another benefit in large markets is alumni base. While Arkansas State alums represent a dramatic percentage of the Jonesboro market vs. North Texas alums in the Dallas market, Arkansas State alums are more dispersed. A North Texas graduate has a very high probability of finding a job and staying within the Dallas market. Arkansas State alums are far more likely to land outside the market going to Little Rock, Memphis, Fayetteville/Bentonville, or even Dallas to get a good job because the Jonesboro region simply cannot absorb all the graduates. That means a high probability of more raw number dedicated viewers within the Dallas market for UNT than Arkansas State can have in Jonesboro.
There are some holes in the market theory.
1. Nielsen does some strange things with markets. The DFW market is more than 260 miles across at the longest. The Jonesboro market at it's biggest is 120 miles across. There is no point that can receive an over-the-air signal with a normal outdoor antenna set-up that can receive a Dallas station signal that isn't within the market and includes many who cannot pull in any Dallas station without a tall antenna with an amplifier if at all. There are places that can receive a Jonesboro signal with a basic indoor antenna that are in the Memphis and Little Rock markets even though those places cannot receive a Memphis or Little Rock signal with a conventional outdoor antenna. There is literally a part of the Little Rock market where you can see a Jonesboro TV tower.
Small market schools often garner coverage outside their market. All four Little Rock stations with regular newscasts routinely cover Arkansas State (once you get past covering the Razorbacks, you still have time to fill in the newscast) and will be at all home games and all did live remotes from the two bowl trips. The largest paper in the state, based in Little Rock has a beat writer assigned to ASU, the #1 sports radio show is hosted by a former ASU play-by-play man. Another show is co-hosted by an ASU alum and former ASU beat writer who then covered them for the AP. There is greater brand awareness of Arkansas State in Little Rock than UNT in Dallas where TV and radio have a lot more to cover before getting to UNT. ASU coaches will be on Memphis sports radio several times a year as well.
Small markets like Jonesboro, Arkansas and Bowling Green, Kentucky are artificially reduced in size from the true reach of the signal and the true reach of viewers and people who work and shop in those markets while larger markets are favored by Nielsen and artificially inflated in size.
2. The number of potential conflicts rises in many large markets. In Arkansas if Arkansas State is head-to-head vs. an Arkansas game, you don't get default viewers and there will be some SEC games of significance that will bleed off an ASU audience. In Dallas obviously games involving Texas and Texas A&M are going to dominate but games involving Baylor, Texas Tech, TCU, Houston, SMU are going to bleed off audience as well and it is likely that even Rice and UTEP would have a negative impact were they to be shown head-to-head based on the brand value of those more established names. Being in the same league now that isn't really a risk. Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Arkansas typically pull a decent audience in Dallas and all three schools have fairly large booster groups there. In the front end of the season a Rangers game will take audience if there is a conflict and late in the season the Mavericks and Stars are a risk to do the same.
Market theory absolutely has merit IF games don't encounter a local interest conflict. San Jose is a big market but San Jose State going head-to-head against Cal, Stanford, Giants, A's, Sharks, Warriors and probably USC or UCLA isn't going to draw viewers.
The risk of market theory is improvement in audience measurement in coming years will provide data that will be helpful to some large market schools and harmful to others and some small market will be found to be more valuable than assumed while in other cases, the assumptions will prove correct.