I don't hate TOSU. Never have, probably never will. That was a badass game. Everyone said why risk your entire season by playing such a big non-conference game... That was well worth it. Even if we had lost it, it was a tremendous game. Nobody hardly even noticed or cared when UT rolled over ULL last week. The biggest news in Austin that weekend was that OU lost to TCU. Meaningless non-conference games are a joke, they're a waste of time and energy. I think everyone needs bigger more meaningful games like UT and TOSU.
You don't have to understand football to know that #2 vs #4 would be a bigger game than #3 vs #20. That would seem elementary and has nothing to do with UT or college football. You know as much about sports as my grandmother.
Like Riet said, a #2 and #4 matchup that features 2 storied programs that have never played each other would be the much bigger matchup. Plus, like you said, Notre Dame has been terrible and they definitely loss that extra factor that made them popular. Hopefully, Weis will bring that back.
Read my first sport you moron. I am just trying to learn something about UT. And I could care less about college sports. I am a casual NFL and MLB fan. For me its all about Rockets and thats it.
You ask these asinine questions and Im the moron? If you can do simple math, and know anything about sports at all, you'd realize a #2 vs #4 matchup would be the marquee game across the country and especially in Houston. The fact it's on at 7:00 pm prime time on ABC was not a clue that this was a big game? When was the last time the Rockets were on a major network on a Saturday night?
Erm, when was the last time that they had an NBA game game on a major network on Saturday night. I guess it was during the playoffs, but it's still a poor analogy.
Part of it is the rankings - although Notre Dame is quickly going to be a top 10 team too. However, both UT and OSU are considered contenders for the national title this year, so this had the potential to be an elimination game (or at least, losing makes the uphill climb much more difficult). But another big part of it is the uniqueness - Notre Dame and Michigan play each other every year. UT and OU, both top 10 teams the last several years, also play each other every year. UT and Ohio State, you never get to see, which makes it that much cooler.
It's a poor analogy because they don't show NBA games on Saturday nights on national television (at least not regular season). The marquee NBA games are shown on Sunday afternoons on ABC. In which case the Rockets were featured a couple of times last year.
This is why it's a good analogy. There's a reason for that. No one would watch it. It's called ratings.
Major pretty much hit it on the head. In college football, a single loss is damaging to a national title run. Therefore it's very rare for premier college football teams to schedule tough out-of-conference games (OSU is in the Big 10, UT in the Big 12). It's generally smarter for teams to schedule cupcakes before starting conference play. For example, when Texas has to play tough teams (not so much this year though) like Texas Tech, OU, and A&M -- keeping in mind a single loss kills any chance for us to play in the national title game -- it doesnt make sense to schedule an unnecessary game against a tough out-of-conference opponent like OSU. While I'm sure OSU appreciated the national attention of the game, I bet they wish they had been playing Louisana-Lafeyette because their run at the national title has been seriously crippled. While they still have a remote chance, alot of things have to happen -- like Major said, it was basically an elimination game of two top contenders. Plus the game was played at The Horseshoe (at night), which is the mecca of college football.
Fine. I can't argue with your original point that UT vs OSU is a big game and is on network prime time for a reason. But I still think it's a poor analogy to compare college football with pro basketball because with 2-3 games per week and 82 games per year plus playoffs, it's harder to build up anticipation and interest in a single basketball games versus a single football game. It's not so much that college football is so much superior in interest, but that the format of their schedule makes it a more attractive prime time option.
I can tell you that college football does have superior interest than NBA basketball. NBA ratings are generally very low. If you do the Nielson research, it's pretty evident. Whether it's the regular season or the finals. College football has a lot more history than NBA basketball. In the 1950's they used to play in cages. In the 1970's the league was riddled with drug use and struggling franchises. NBA basketball didn't become popular until the early 1980's with Magic and Larry Bird. When the Rockets played the Lakers in the Western conference playoffs in 1986, half the games were on tape delay. Tape delay. The height of NBA popularity rested with Michael Jordan - 1 person. After he left, the ratings have gone downhill. You can't compare that with the popularity of college football which for big time programs like Texas or Ohio State, can draw between 85-100,000 people for every home game. How many NFL teams (a sport much more popular than the NBA) can get that type of attendance at their home games?
Um a lot of them. Certainly more than the half dozen schools that can do that in college football. You put NFL games in bigger stadiums at college football ticket prices and they still might sell out every game in the league. But back to the NBA vs College Football. All I said was that the NBA isn't THAT far behind college football in interest. I was going to pull up the past 7 BCS game ratings (all the BCS games not just the Championship) and compare them with the past 7 NBA finals ratings. Now if the BCS ratings were far and away better than that Finals ratings, I'd take back what I said. But this info isn't that easy to find on the internet. If you feel like looking it up and proving me wrong, then go ahead.
From a pure championship vs NBA Finals, the last 2 years it's 15 vs. 9 (not counting last year's 6.9 - let's assume an aberration). If you include the 3 major bowls it's 11.1 vs. 9. Still a significant difference when you decipher what each point means in terms of number of people. BCS-FOX Reach Agreement on TV Deal November 22, 2004 FOX SPORTS AND BOWL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES REACH MULTI-MEDIA RIGHTS AGREEMENT ......Over the last two years, the Fiesta, Orange, and Sugar Bowls have averaged an 11.1 household rating, which would rank the three BCS Bowls in a tie for seventh among all prime time shows this broadcast season-to-date. These games also attract audiences that are both upscale and better-educated than average, both compelling features for advertisers. The BCS championship game, which right now is presented as the Fiesta, Orange, Rose or Sugar Bowl on a rotating basis, is one of the most powerful events in television. The last two BCS title games (the 2004 Sugar Bowl and 2003 Fiesta Bowl) averaged a 15.0/26 household rating/share. Only one show in all of prime time is averaging a better rating this season-to-date. The 15.0 for the last two BCS title games is better than the two-year averages of the NBA Finals (9.0/16), NCAA Tournament Final (11.8/19), Monday Night Football (11.5/19), the final round of the Masters (7.8/19), and the Belmont Stakes (10.4/25). An estimated 50 million Americans are expected to watch the 2005 Orange Bowl, this year's BCS championship game. NBA Finals' Ratings Sink on ABC June 14, 2005 By John Consoli Household ratings for Game Two of the NBA Finals on ABC on Sunday night in which the San Antonio Spurs defeated the Detroit Pistons, were down 36 percent from last year's Game Two, reaching only a 6.9. The household ratings' average for the first two games of the finals on ABC are averaging a 7.0, down 32 percent from last year, when the Pistons played the Los Angeles Lakers in the finals. If these ratings hold up at this level, it will be the second lowest rated NBA Finals in history. Through the first two games, ratings in the key 18-49 demo are down 34 percent to a 6.0 from a 9.1 last year
#2 vs. #4 in only the second week, playing for the FIRST time ever. Even if Michigan & Notre Dame were both in the top 5 it wouldn't be as big of a game as UT and the OSU because they had never met before. Michigan and ND had faced 32 times since 1887 before Saturday, so it's not like they haven't told their stories before. It is rather amazing that two storied programs like UT and the OSU hadn't met in 110+ years... you would think that as many bowl games as they've played they would have met up somewhere over the last century, much less a regular season one.
