Utah @ 
Baylor 50% of Total CFB viewership from only 18 brands from 2016-23
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- This topic has 40 replies, 16 voices, and was last updated 9 months, 3 weeks ago by
krindor.
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MDUteParticipantUtah is very close to this top end of brands at #22
Highly Concentrated Viewership -
MDUteParticipant
And Utah came in at #25 (just ahead of Oklahoma) in total viewership in 2023.
The Utah brand has grown significantly since joining the PAC. This is a big reason why many believe Utah will be included in the CFB Super League. Need to continue staying relevant. Fortunately, 2024 should be another big year for the Utah brand. Go Utes!!-
2008 National ChampParticipantor they benefitted from playing two media darlings, a playoff contender and deion’s team
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stbone
ParticipantThat doesn’t explain why Utah’s viewership was higher that other Pac12 teams.
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2008 National ChampParticipant
getting to play on network/espn/fox gets you higher viewership than the P12 network. Because there were 6 or 7 teams with national relevance in ’23, Utah got to play them on channels with higher viewership instead of being relegated to the conference network.
but sure, Utah found some secret sauce last year to increase their viewership independent of their opponents. that’s a much more plausible explanation and completely fits the narrative of the increasing profile of the UTAH brand everyone loves to tout.
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MDUteParticipant
Huh??? You’re saying Utah’s brand hasn’t actually grown considerably? That Utah has only benefited in ratings from getting to play big name schools on network TV…really??
When you win your P5 conference in back-to-back years and also you play in the CCG 4 out of 5 years, you’ve earned the respect and interest to be scheduled into the better TV time slots. Utah hasn’t been a 1 hit wonder but has been an up and coming program since 2016. That’s consistent relevance that national media have locked in on and hyped up, which translates to a growing brand that more people recognize across the country.
I can understand how Zoobs explain all of this away, being unwilling to ever give any credit to Utah whatsoever. But how does a Utah fan believe we’re still the same Utah program from the WAC days??!!-
2008 National ChampParticipant
get your apples out of my oranges
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krindor
ParticipantThe Colorado game wasn’t actually Nielsen rated, so there was zero benefit from that.
There are some issues with this ranking of teams though. The big question is what to do with games that aren’t Nielsen rated.
Some (like this one) use just the average of Nielsen-rated games. Which is terrible because then you end up with a school like Vanderbilt averaging 2.64M … based off their 1 Nielsen rated game against Georgia. Or Colorado St averaging 4.9M viewers/game…based of 9.3M against Colorado and 500k against Boise St. Having fewer games and only the best games rated makes it easier to have a higher average.
So others (like Zach Miller of Medium) just tend to assign a zero for every game that isn’t Nielsen-rated. Which is the opposite issue, especially as some conferences have more games on unrated networks, but with non-zero viewership.
I’ve developed a system (called Viewership Score) that does a better job of assessing the value of those non-rated games based on the rated/non-rated split and how many viewers for rated games. By that measure, Utah doesn’t end up quite as high, but still pretty high. Let me update once I get to a computer instead of a phone
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AlohaUteParticipantI’ve never seen a fan hate the program they cheer for as much as you. You are the eyore of Utah fans.
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2008 National ChampParticipant
If this site is going to further devolve into a place where things can only be viewed as the best possible outcome instead of the most realistic, I will wear the name Eeyore proudly
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AlohaUteParticipant
Not everything is rainbows and unicorns and it shouldn’t be, but you are always negative. They could go 12-0 and you would complain that the Pac-12 isn’t good enough, so it’s really not that great of an accomplishment. Therefore we should move on from Whit because he wouldn’t be able to do the same thing in the SEC.
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2008 National ChampParticipant
It must be exhausting trying to come up with things I’ve never said so that you can tout yourself as a better fan
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RedRocksParticipantNah. I like @cptmrgn05 ‘s more realistic takes (even when I don’t agree). Can they be a bit pessimistic at times? Sure.
However, this board (like many fan boards) can become like an echo chamber at times and needs a dose of reality here and there.
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2008 National ChampParticipant
hat tip
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UteNamedOgParticipantI’ll still take it. In the past ~decade your average college fan has gone from not being able to find Utah on a map to reading/hearing about the program in mock drafts, preseason rankings, pig farming, etc.
(the fact that half the country is moving here also might have something to do with it)
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alUmnUsParticipantOr, the Utah product IS actually augmenting the ratings.
🙄
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Participant
Over the last 5 years (2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023), theres a few different ways to rank teams, here’s where Utah finishes in each (among P5 and selected high-profile G5 teams who have been tangentially mentioned in expansion talks)
All Games (including CCG, bowls etc)
- Counting unrated games as zero viewership: Utah is #20 with 1.871M (surrounded by Mich St, USC, TCU, Okla St, Nebraska, and Florida St) – non B1G/SEC teams ahead of Utah are Notre Dame, Clemson and TCU
- Ignoring unrated games: Utah is #25 with 2.673M (nearest teams are Kentucky, Colorado, Nebraska, South Carolina, USC, Indiana) – non B1G/SEC teams ahead of Utah are Notre Dame, Clemson, Army, Florida St and Colorado
- Assigning some value to unrated games (Viewership Score): Utah is #22 with 1.94M (surrounded by USC, Nebraska, Ole Miss, Arkansas, Iowa, TCU) – non B1G/SEC teams ahead of Utah are Notre Dame, Clemson, and Florida St
Now, Utah has been in a lot of high-profile bowls and CCGs the past few years and those skew the numbers so a better comparison is probably regular season only – where Utah is still very good, but maybe not quite as high
Regular Season Games Only
- Counting unrated games as zero viewership: Utah is #31 with 1.145M (surrounded by Minnesota, UCLA, Indiana, Miami, Iowa St, West Virginia) – non B1G/SEC teams ahead of Utah are Notre Dame, Clemson, Florida St, TCU, Oklahoma St, Colorado
- Ignoring unrated games: Utah is #43 with 1.734M (surrounded by Oklahoma St, Boston College, Northwestern, Pitt, Duke, Washington St) – non B1G/SEC teams ahead of Utah are Army, Clemson, Notre Dame, Florida St, Colorado, Miami, Navy, Georgia Tech, Louisville, North Carolina, TCU, Oklahoma St, and Boston College)
- Assigning some value to unrated games (Viewership Score): Utah is #32 (surrounded by Oklahoma St, Minnesota, South Carolina, UCLA, Kentucky, and North Carolina) – non B1G/SEC teams ahead of Utah are Notre Dame, Clemson, Florida St, Colorado, TCU and Oklahoma St
I think this last metric is probably the most accurate assessment of the value others would assess Utah as having (though I will note that my Viewership Scores metric did have Utah #22 for 2023 – ahead of every non B1G/SEC besides Colorado, Florida St, and Notre Dame – so that’s certainly a good trend).
If there is further expansion to the Big 2 conferences or creation of a Super League, I think Notre Dame, Clemson, and Florida St are the obvious choices. Utah falls into the next tier of borderline options (along with TCU, Oklahoma St, Colorado, Miami, and maybe North Carolina).
Among that group, both TCU and Colorado have benefitted greatly from an outlier season (2022 for TCU, 2023 for Colorado), while Miami and Oklahoma St have competition in those markets that are already B1G/SEC/Superleague affiliated. North Carolina is always mentioned as a desired target ….but their rankings frankly don’t support it. They’re substantially worse than any of the others mentioned, but have the benefit of bringing new high-population areas that aren’t already accounted for.
Utah certainly wouldn’t be a shoo-in, but the consistency with which they draw solid viewership numbers and also the lack of other B1G/SEC teams in the region gives them a legitimate argument
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AlohaUteParticipant
Why does Utah playing in high profile games skew the numbers any more than the teams around then? Why should we account for those if we aren’t for others?
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chinngiskhaan
ParticipantWhere does it say he only made such adjustments for Utah?
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Participant
So I made adjustments for everyone to keep them on equal footing. Here’s an easy hypothetical example of what I’m talking about.
Imagine in a particular season Utah were to draw 2M against USC, Washington and Oregon, and 1M each in the other 7 games on rated channels (with the FCS game and the game vs Arizona on unrated PAC12 Network). That’s 13M viewers across 10 rated games for an average of 1.3M per game
Arizona by comparison isn’t as strong a draw, so they get 8 games put on the PAC Network. Everything but USC, Washington, Oregon (which each get 1.5M viewers) and Arizona St (which gets 1M) as the rivalry game. That’s 5.5M across 4 games, for an average of 1.38M
In that scenario, which team is the better draw?
Utah had more games chosen for national viewership (10 to 4). Utah had more viewers for every game that both had on national TV (Oregon, USC, Washington, even ASU). But Arizona has the higher average because they have nothing but the most desirable games weighing into it.
That’s why you can’t just average the rated games, because it self-selects out the worst and more for some teams than others. But you can’t just go with zeros for those…which is why I developed something that adequately bridges that gap
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2008 National ChampParticipant
I see Army and Navy on your above list. Their ratings are based on one game per year without any competition.
How are you handling sample size issues?
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Participant
If you go simply by average in rated games, then yes, Army and Navy show up (though Navy is normally based on two games – Army and Notre Dame). Which is why I don’t like those metrics and my comment was about that not being a good method.
I instead use Viewership Score which is the last thing I have listed there and which I’ve developed specifically to account for those issues.
Ignoring unrated games or counting them as zero isn’t the right choice, but just going with average isn’t the right call either because of those small sample sizes
V-Score uses a few methods to adjust for that and to reduce impact of outliers. Start by taking harmonic mean of average rated viewership and median rates viewership (reduces impact of one-off huge game). Then take the harmonic of that and the average of all games (treating unrated games as zero).
That does a good job of giving a decent idea of how well teams actually draw despite differing TV situations.
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2008 National ChampParticipant
Am I remembering correctly and you work in media? Or is there a database that you are drawing from.
I’d say that Utah has/had the 4th or 5th highest profile in the Pac over the time period for the thread and that’s not a bad thing. I also feel like Utah had maximized their potential in that time. Oregon and even a bad SC are going to get the benefit of the doubt and be put in the best time slots. UW and/or UCLA get more attention when they are good.
I haven’t lived in Utah since I left the hill. I have lived and worked in Washington, California and Arizona over the last 20 years. Unless I’m wearing my U lid and someone comments on it, I never hear anyone talking about the Utes unless their team has a game with Utah that weekend.
The point is that from an “outsiders” perspective, the general consensus I get from others is that Utah is the little engine that could. They play hard and win more games than expected, but aren’t someone that really good teams have to worry about. They are a good story but will always find a way to come up short. Also that when Whitt moves on, the team will revert back to MW/WAC quality almost immediately.
So when people claim that the Brand/Profile is growing, I gotta tell you that I’m not seeing it out here in the hinterlands.
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MDUteParticipant
I’ve lived away from Utah for the past 16 years (Chicago, Philly, DC) and I wear my Utah gear most every day. Without question, people recognize Utah and talk to me about the Utes all the time.
I don’t know what you mean about not hearing people talking about Utah unless they are playing Utah. Because I don’t hear people talking about any particular team unless they have a game with them. If you’re expecting crowds of people to just be sitting around talking about the Utes as evidence that the brand has grown, then I don’t know what to tell ya…those are some ridiculous expectations.
People I talk to back East all have a ton of respect for the brand of physical football Utah plays. We’re not just recognized for winning the PAC twice but trouncing the Ducks twice to do so and then beating SC twice in dramatic fashion. Everyone thought we were the better team against the Gators and should’ve won in the Swamp (which is true) and were excited to see us beat them by double digits on the return game without our starting QB.
The many conversations I’ve had about the Utes has never led me to believe anyone sees us as the little engine that could. To the contrary, people see Utah as one of the legitimate powerhouse programs out West, along with Oregon, SC, and Washington. Sounds to me like you’re insecure about being a Utes fan, expecting people to think the worst about Utah. I’ve never been more proud of the program and what Utah has accomplished in such a short period of time. It’s nothing short of a miracle what Utah has accomplished and people have definitely taken notice. We’ve literally passed up programs that have had many decades of a head start over us.
From your comments it sounds like you’re expecting Utah to drop off into irrelevance once Whitt retires. Hate to burst your bubble but Scalley is going to absolutely maintain the standard that Whitt has set for the program. And it wouldn’t surprise me in the least to see Scalley continue the upward trajectory once the baton has been passed to him. But it’s so strange to me to see so many pessimistic Utah fans, especially given the state of the program. You’d think everyone would just be enjoying the ride. And yet people make it seem like if Utah isn’t on the level of Alabama, Ohio St, Michigan, or Georgia then we’re nothing more than some irrelevant program that punches above our weight at times to pull off a few upsets. All I know is there’s 120 other CFB programs that would kill to trade places with where Utah’s at…and we’re still climbing, poised to take another milestone step forward this coming year!
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2008 National ChampParticipant
Are you in Maryland? I always assumed your moniker meant “Dr. Ute”
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MDUteParticipant
Yes, MD = Maryland
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PhiladelphiaUte
ParticipantThose have been my experiences as well. And coincidentally, I’d lived in all those cities as well. Plus several others.
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Participant
I don’t work in media, but I do a fair amount of work in data analytics. I pull the data from sportsmediawatch, and have every game from the last 6 years in a nice spreadsheet to organize it different ways.
As to the Utah brand, I think it’s definitely grown, but if you’re expecting it to just come up in random conversations, it’s certainly not grown to that point. There’s only a few teams that are on that level and Utah absolutely isn’t one of them.
The top 20 teams by V-Score probably are (mostly) those teams – though I feel like Michigan St sneaks in higher than I’d expect
- Alabama
- Ohio St
- Michigan
- Georgia
- LSU
- Penn St
- Notre Dame
- Auburn
- Florida
- Texas
- Oklahoma
- Clemson
- Tennessee
- Texas A&M
- Oregon
- Michigan St
- Wisconsin
- Nebraska
- Florida St
- USC
And so anyone arguing Utah is in that group is just wrong. The difference is now when Utah comes up in conversation for some reason (upcoming matchup or wearing Utah gear or whatever), people tend to have a formed impression of what Utah is and that they’re a pretty good team.
That puts Utah ahead of teams like Georgia Tech or Purdue or Maryland or Washington St or West Virginia or the like, where the response is “huh, I don’t really know much about them”. Which is where Utah used to be.
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MDUteParticipant
Agreed. I don’t think anyone is arguing Utah is in the Top 20 brands. However, the data makes the argument that Utah falls into the next tier of 20 brands.
And even though Utah doesn’t have the brand power of those Top 20 schools, Utah’s program is currently in stronger shape than a bunch of those Top 20 brands such as Nebraska, Michigan St, Wisconsin, Florida, Auburn, Texas A&M, and USC who are all coming off of down years that include coaching turnover in some cases. -
CityCreekUte
ParticipantReally cool to be able to do that kind of data analysis.
Every team on your top 20 I can see why is ahead of Utah (Nebraska would be my biggest question not MSU) but what I’d be most curious about is the trend lines. I have a hard time believing that over the course of the last 20 years but especially since joining the PAC12 Utah wasn’t the overall biggest gainer but that it would show up on the 20-50 range. I think we’d have been pretty low 20 years ago compared to the remaining P5 teams and now I’m guessing we’re near the top and I dunno who over a 10 or 20 year span can say that.
Which goes back to the top 20. All of those brands are legacy brands. You can call them blue chips or whatever Stewart Mandel does but all of them are ancient and honestly I doubt there is much movement and that it would be on a generational time scale to move 5 spots. But I have to imagine that Tennessee, Texas A&M, MSU, Wisconsin, Nebraska are all on a downward trend esp. TV wise. As outside of 1-2 good seasons the have been perpetually mediocre or worse.
Got any more magic spreadsheets to share?
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Participant
Unfortunately I don’t have data back further than 6 years. And I could give you the year by year data….but then you get into small sample sizes and things get noisy, depending more on specific matchups. Which is why I like to use a rolling 5 year average.
And as to Nebraska, they get attention and discussion by random non-Nebraska fans. Granted, a lot of it is schadenfreude, but people know Nebraska is struggling. Whereas people have no idea if NC State or West Virginia were a bowl team or not
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YergensenParticipantHarlan or Whit should bring Krindor onto their teams to do analytics.
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utefansince79
ParticipantHelped our ratings last season to have very few late games.
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UteanoogaParticipantWill Utah’s viewership continue at the rate of the past few years when playing B12 teams rather than the more popular P12 teams like Oregon, USC, and Washington? That is the question.
I suspect that yes the viewership will continue at a great rate if Utah can win, make the playoffs periodically, and do some damage in the playoffs. Utah has a lot of potential to be a loved/hated national brand if they are seen being successful in these big moments.
If Utah loses a lot, I expect viewership to flag. No one is going to get very excited to watch us lose to Texas Tech, Kansas, and the B12 teams that are simply not as popular as our former P12 colleagues.
I recognize that there is nothing very insightful here. In this pivotal period it is win and advance or lose and go home.
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MDUteParticipant
Great post. I too wonder/worry about how ratings change for Utah in the B12. On the one hand, we should be playing earlier games that pull in more viewership outside of the West coast which is a positive. But then on the other hand, we will be playing in a conference of teams that most people simply don’t care about.
Utah is being looked at as the flagship program of the new B12 and will be featured in games throughout the season such as the matchup at Okie St. And Utah has already received an optimal schedule for winning the conference and making the CFP. I agree that Utah just needs to go and take care of business on the field to make the case that we are still relevant.
All that said, I am expecting Utah’s ratings to take a hit being in the new B12. How much of a hit remains to be seen. But if we are successful in making the CFP, this should go a long way to solidifying the Utah brand similar to how Gonzaga is looked at as almost a blue blood of MBB even though they’re in a shi**y conference.-
2008 National ChampParticipant
I’m of the opinion that the people who were unhappy with all of the day games in ’23 will be very happy with all the night games in ’24. ESPN will just rename it Big 12 After Dark and feature the four corner schools as much as possible in opposition to Fox putting the BIG west coast teams in those slots.
Again, my opinion only, but I believe that ESPN allowed the clause (can’t remember the name) for new Big 12 teams moving from P5 to get full shares in anticipation of the PAC breaking up. And that it was the main driver in both of the diminished PAC and the Big 12 getting roughly the same offer. ESPN didn’t really care who took the deal. They just wanted to make sure they had late night content.
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alUmnUsParticipant
Unfortunately, I think it will drop no matter what in the Big 12. Week-to-week top matchups in the Big 12 will have heavy regional appeal, but marginal national appeal, except for when it comes to Colorado as that brand is a ratings outlier. For the foreseeable future, Colorado will be a high draw. It will be nice to have a Saturday CCG. The ratings for that game will be much higher than they ever were in the PAC12.
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Participant
We absolutely will take a media hit in the Big 12. We’d been relegated to the PACN for 5 games last year in a 12-team league. Now we’re headed to a 16-team league. So now we’re going to be splitting the “national” games with more teams.
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J Rocksville
ParticipantI get that, and maybe I’m smelling my own farts, but of all the brands in the big 12, and all the potential story lines with the pac schools coming in, who brings more football buzz than Utah?
We may not be a blue blood but I have to believe we bring more eyeballs than Houston or Iowa st. We really should embrace the heal role and get people to pay attention. That’s our only path into the big leagues.
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Central Coast UteParticipantColorado brings more football buzz than Utah.
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Participant
I think the buzz there is about a person, not the football. The actual product isn’t worth watching unless they are playing a team on their level, like Colorado St. We beat them with like are 5th string qb and half our starters out.
But maybe if we truly believe the quality of football is that much lower in the B12 then Colorado might be able to field a competitive team and play entertaining football.
To that point, it might be worth it for Utah to really invest in some offensive firepower because people like to see teams score and you’ll get more eyes on a 54-42 game than a 21-14 one. Seems like our offense can only do that with a very select type of qb that is obviously not easy to find.
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