It also doesn't take into account that last season was one of UT's worst in decades while UH had one of their best. It would be like looking only at 2015-2016 attendance numbers and concluding that the Clippers are a better draw than the Lakers.
Not to mention the multitudes of national championships in the olympic sports. Yeah...just turrible!!!?
It is what it is. Texas still had %20 of the top viewed 20 games in Houston. You reach a point of diminished returns in a single market especially when you already have %35 of a market. They are not going to make up for the 19 million dollars that they would have to pay UH in dues. It doesn't matter UH fans don't want to get in the big 12 anyway.
Big 12 games were mostly on national TV channels. ABC, FOX, NBC. The UH Navy game was a daytime game right on Black Friday which you would most likely have lower ratings but held well in Houston. The outlier is that Baylor TCU game on ESPN. But I think Baylor was going for an undefeated season at that point. Plus it was a good matchup. I think the other numbers came from the Houston Chronicle's Dave Barron who covers sports media. He usually sends out a list of tv ratings in his columns. Pretty trustworthy.
Ah I see Berman's tweet now. Dave Barron corrected him. That last Big12 game should be removed from the list. SEC game should take its place. So Texas had 3 of the Top 20 games. The ND game feels like it should be an outlier though.
Good Catch. Here is the updated graphic Berman tweeted. It still seems to contradict the report that UH had 3 games in the top 20. Freaking SEC. I wonder what the top 20 looked like before A&M joined to SEC. Then again, "SEC" is really just Alabama and A&M with the exception of 1 LSU game.
My main criticism of the Big 12 has always been that no one other than UT pulls regularly good ratings in the Houston market. So, higher UT numbers doesn't exactly help the Big 12 profile in Houston... just the UT profile (which needs no help). There's a ton of caveats to these numbers. UH had a historic season, but was not riding the coattails of one. UH was playing largely irrelevant out-of-market competition. And so on and so forth. Hell, these numbers even conveniently leave out the Peach Bowl, which drew a staggering 10+. The main takeaway from all of this is that the SEC owns Houston, and if the Big 12 wants to elevate its profile there, the best way to do that is with UH. If the Big 12 wants a network, UH is a nonstarter. If it doesn't, it UH should be front and center in the discussion.
3 of the top 4 big 12 games did not feature Texas. Yes, the BCS (or whatever they call it now) bowl did very well. It would be quite sad if it didn't given the circumstances. Actually, Alabama and A&M own Houston (8 of 9 SEC games feature these two teams). The big 12 doesn't need to increase it's already significant presence in Houston because there is no money in it. If ESPN thought there was money then they would push it. It's diminishing returns at some point once you're already well established in a market and people in Houston are already watching Baylor, Tech, UT, OU games so you wouldn't be adding all 3 million views of a UH-Baylor game. You would have a portion of those viewers no matter what since Baylor fans will watch any game on their schedule. I'm not sure what you mean. I don't believe a big 12 Network would be worthwhile no matter what and along the lines of the pac 12 network. 4 out of the 5 big 12 schools are in states in the bottom half of US population and the 4 other teams all share the same state and have a lot of market overlap. No available team brings much of a market share in any of their residing states. The SEC and Big 10 is spread among states that are (for the most part) in the top half of state populations. A network would do the best in texas markets and it doesn't need UH to get on Houston cable networks since 6 of the big 12 schools will already feature Houston high school athletes. No one outside of houston sees UH at the front and center of a Big 12 expansion and that isn't UT's doing. If the networks said that it would add a lot of monetary value then they would be in the discussion but there is no team that will make the conference more money. The big picture issue is that you are severely overvaluing the increased viewership UH could bring to already existing big 12 games and the monetary value in adding those numbers to a market that you already have a lot of saturation in. The fact they would bring in the smallest stadium in the big 12 that they could only fill %75 of last year including leaving 5,000 seats empty in a conference championship game. As a point of comparison, Tech averaged about 57,000 fans against UTEP, Sam Houston St, and Iowa St. OU's Regent specifically called out his concern over Cincy's stadium being too small. I mean I just don't get how this is even an argument.
Just chiming in to say I wish UH was in the Big XII. I'd love to root for them against everyone other than Baylor.
I do believe the B12 is looking at this the wrong way. It's not about what UH brings to them, so much as it is keeping UH away from other players. Think the UH/A&M partnership is for nothing? A&M would love to stick it to the B12 even more than it already has, and getting UH into the SEC would be just as big a kick to the groin as themselves bouncing was. Cougar High is building something that can't be ignored, especially now that Herman has activated the pockets of the several successful Coogs in the city that all of the sudden care for the program. SEC could expand to a 16 team league with UH being their Houston stronghold and SMU being their Dallas stronghold while A&M gives them close enough proximity to Austin (not that Austin is some hotbed for prospects). Problem with B12 folk (Longhorns, some Sooners) is that they like to laugh everyone off because they think no one deserves playing next to them. Cincy, BYU, UConn, UH, UCF, SMU, etc. No one is worthy. At least until another league comes in and laps them up. Then they make it seem like they never wanted them anyway.
Problem with B12 folk (Longhorns, some Sooners) is that they like to laugh everyone off because they think no one deserves playing next to them. Cincy, BYU, UConn, UH, UCF, SMU, etc. No one is worthy. At least until another league comes in and laps them up. Then they make it seem like they never wanted them anyway.[/QUOTE] The SEC has 0 interest in UH or SMU. If they ever take another Texas team it would be TCU. Alabama and A&M already do really well there in Houston and the SEC recruits well in Texas already. There is no gain. The ACC is the conference that makes the most sense but only if they could also take a TCU or some school that's decent between Texas and the coast. TCU would at least bring a lot of interest from the metroplex which is the 5th biggest TV market. (Houston #10) Look at the last additions to the big 5 conferences: Pac 12: Utah, Colorado. SEC: Texas A&M, Missouri. Big 10: Rutgers, Maryland, Nebraska, ACC: Notre Dame, Louisville, Syracuse, Pittsburgh. No one is adding schools to states that they already have a team in. There is not enough to gain out of adding a team from a city that you already do well in relative to the amount of money teams will have to give up to pay the additional members. Plus, UH will not add any interest to the SEC outside of Houston. Still, it's a foot in the door of the ACC and could maybe help them launch their TV network if they can get into the Houston TV packages. The only big 5 conference UH will ever go to is the ACC. The Pac 12 will always save slots for UT,OU. I could also see the big 12 collapsing and Baylor, TCU, Kansas, Kansas St and Iowa St joining the AAC which would elevate the conference quite a bit. None of the 5 big conferences grabbed any of those teams and they were all up for the picking. OU-UT have nothing to do with what the other conferences do. A 14 team league is just a placeholder until they expand to 16 and they are all holding out on spots #15,16 until the current round of contracts are up. Also, no regents for big 12 schools are going to vote for expansion if it means they will receive less money per year. Each school would lose 4 million annually if the conference adds two teams without getting a bump in TV rights and that's unlikely to happen with the candidates. The two new teams would have to generate an extra 46 million dollars a year to prevent schools from losing money from their annual payout which is why the OU regents stepped in.
If UH makes the CFP this season, one of those conference will come calling. No way a Power 5 conference will allow a school that big, in a top 10 media market stay in a Group of 5 conference with the potential to crash the playoff every year.
I agree but I think that conference is the ACC. I can't see any logic in the SEC or Pac 12 adding Houston. Nothing will interfere with the pac 12's plans to court OU and UT in 2025. 7 in the last 11 years including football. 52 All-time.
This is ridiculous. The ability to stay in-state and play in the SEC has been A&Ms biggest and best recruiting selling point. And they have done quite well on that front IMO. But now they want to add a direct competitor and fight for recruits just to stick it to their old conference? In 100% honesty, that sounds like a great plan. But why wait then? Why give the Big 12 or any other conference a chance to sign either school? Goes back to the same question of why no one else has jumped on them then? Any one of these schools could have been picked up by a P5 conference the last go around and yet they are still there 5 years later. In fact, all of them are still up for grabs but for some reason it's just silly old UT that is the only one saying no apparently.
Hmm DonnyMost is right. Where is the Peach Bowl? That game has crazy ratings for an 11am start time on a Friday. Man you have Houston versus Temple as one of the highest rated games in the Houston market. For that game to have as many viewers as OU TX rivalry game you know most all of those viewers are tuning in for UH. I apologize to any Temple fans if there are any on this board.
I remember in the SWC days, even when Houston was ranked top 10, they couldn't give tickets away fast enough. For whatever reason, UH never created the connection with the community. Maybe it was because it was a commuter school that had students that actually worked, but who knows.
