The Big 12 co-champions finished their seasons in front of smaller television audiences than their power conference rivals.
Last Saturday’s Iowa State/TCU college football game drew a 2.8 final rating and 4.1 million viewers on ABC, down 40% in ratings and 44% in viewership from Oklahoma/Oklahoma State last year (4.7, 7.3M), but the top game of a thin Noon ET window. The toughest competition was Houston/Cincinnati on ESPN (0.9, 1.3M).
Later in the day, Kansas State/Baylor drew a 1.4 and 2.2 million on ESPN — up 56% in ratings and 50% in viewership from last year’s Stanford/Arizona State Pac-12 Championship Game (0.9, 1.5M) and up 17% and 10%, respectively, from the Florida State/Georgia Tech ACC Championship Game two years ago (1.2, 2.0M).
TCU and Baylor won the respective games to remain in contention for the college football playoff. Both telecasts, however, trailed the championship games of the four other power conferences — the Big Ten (3.5, 6.1M), Pac-12 (3.7, 6.0M), ACC (6.2, 10.1M) and SEC (7.8, 12.8M). Those four conference champions ended up in the playoff, while TCU and Baylor were left on the outside looking in.
The last time the Big 12 played a championship game, it should be noted, ABC drew a 5.3 and 9.0 million viewers for an Oklahoma/Nebraska game without title implications. Only once in fifteen seasons did the Big 12 title game dip below a 4.0 rating.
(Wknd. numbers from Sports Business Daily)
