Everyone knows and admits that television dollars are driving the current college football expansion push. As we noted a couple of weeks ago, conference realignment isn’t evil, it’s evolution. And we seem to finally be arriving at the final stage of a move that began way back in 1984.
Below are the top 50 television markets in the US as ranked by Nielsen for 2010-11. Beside each city we’ve listed the conference or conferences that will attempt to claim that market.
For the sake of argument, we’ll assume that Texas A&M joins the SEC… Syracuse, Pittsburgh and UConn join the ACC… and Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State join the Pac-12:
| Market Rank 1-25 | Market | League(s) | Market Rank 26-50 | Market | League(s) | |
| 1 | New York | ACC | 26 | Baltimore | ACC | |
| 2 | Los Angeles | Pac-12 | 27 | Indianapolis | Big Ten | |
| 3 | Chicago | Big Ten | 28 | San Diego | Pac-12 | |
| 4 | Philadephia | Big Ten/ACC | 29 | Nashville | SEC | |
| 5 | Dallas-Ft. Worth | Pac-12/SEC | 30 | Hartford-New Haven | ACC | |
| 6 | San Francisco-Oakland | Pac-12 | 31 | Kansas City | unclaimed | |
| 7 | Boston | ACC | 32 | Salt Lake City | Pac-12 | |
| 8 | Atlanta | SEC/ACC | 33 | Cincinnati | Big Ten | |
| 9 | Washington, DC | ACC | 34 | Columbus | Big Ten | |
| 10 | Houston | Pac-12/SEC | 35 | Milwaukee | Big Ten | |
| 11 | Detroit | Big Ten | 36 | Greenville-Spartanburgh | SEC/ACC | |
| 12 | Phoenix | Pac-12 | 37 | San Antonio | Pac-12/SEC | |
| 13 | Seattle-Tacoma | Pac-12 | 38 | West Palm Beach | ACC/SEC | |
| 14 | Tampa-St. Petersburgh | ACC/SEC | 39 | Harrisburg-Lancaster | Big Ten/ACC | |
| 15 | Minneapolis-St. Paul | Big Ten | 40 | Birmingham | SEC | |
| 16 | Miami-Ft. Lauderdale | ACC/SEC | 41 | Grand Rapids-Kalamazoo | Big Ten | |
| 17 | Denver | Pac-12 | 42 | Las Vegas | Pac-12 | |
| 18 | Cleveland-Akron | Big Ten | 43 | Norfolk-Portsmouth | ACC | |
| 19 | Orlando-Daytona | ACC/SEC | 44 | Austin | Pac-12/SEC | |
| 20 | Sacramento-Stockton | Pac-12 | 45 | Oklahoma City | Pac-12 | |
| 21 | St. Louis | unclaimed | 46 | Albuquerque | Pac-12 | |
| 22 | Portland | Pac-12 | 47 | Greensboro-High Point | ACC | |
| 23 | Charlotte | ACC | 48 | Memphis | SEC | |
| 24 | Pittsburgh | ACC | 49 | Jacksonville | SEC/ACC | |
| 25 | Raleigh-Durham | ACC | 50 | Louisville | SEC |
Again, we’re making some assumptions here:
A&M, Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Pittsburgh, Syracuse and UConn have been assigned landing spots.
Missouri, for example, has not and that’s why Kansas City and St. Louis appear to be “unclaimed” on our list.
We’ve also given some “benefit of the doubt” to a few leagues. For example, Austin is clearly a Texas-first market, but A&M’s huge alumni base certainly has some tentacles in the state capital. So we’ll give the SEC a piece of the Austin market as we believe the SEC will certainly try to make that pitch to network executives.
Here’s how things break down with regard to whole TV markets owned versus TV markets split between conferences:
| Conference | Wholly-Owned Top 50 TV Markets | Partially-Owned Top 50 TV Markets |
| ACC | 10 | 9 |
| Big Ten | 9 | 2 |
| Pac-12 | 12 | 4 |
| SEC | 4 | 11 |
We know that Market X could go this way or that way depending on your point of view, but we’re trying to provide a big picture look here. So shift a market one way or the other if you like. The bottom line is this: When it comes to television markets, the SEC is an underdog. Only four Top 50 markets appear to be SEC-only and a couple of those — Memphis, Louisville — aren’t strongly SEC.
Make no mistake, if the SEC can convince Missouri to come onboard, it would be a very smart business decision. West Virginia would at least allow the SEC to stake a partial claim into the Pittsburgh market as well.
But if the future will be driven by television revenue, the SEC needs to expand outward. It needed to raid the ACC and expand into Virginia or North Carolina. It didn’t. (At least it hasn’t yet.) So now the SEC is forced to play catch-up with those schools left behind by others.
its funny how you guys cut out the big east give you info on NYC state of mind we do not like the ACC. We never watch the ACC. Only football team we might watch in college is Notre Dame. We don't care about Rutgers. St. Johns is our Basketball team. When Coach Jim retires at Syracuse we will stop watching them too. When ACC tried to raid BE last time we came back with a vengeance. We will never die we multiple. So cut this down home Dixie nonsense. Look at were the NYC home is not in the ACC.
The TV market analysis is important, but probably needs a more complex study. Of the thousands of New Yorkers who've moved to Atlanta I've met very few came as college football fans. That could indicate the ranking is very flawed.
Oh, and ACC fans, don't think that new $20m buyout rule keeps you safe from SEC raiding, FL State and Clemson would make that up in short order with the richer SEC TV contracts. FL State folks want to move, and Clemson is a natural.
The acc should go after Penn St. and ND. If they are successful, the ACC would be the best conference top to bottom in ALL sports!
Good luck ACC getting ND. Never gonna happen, but if you're gonna go, might as well go big. Maybe if the ACC can get ND, the ACC may then have a team to challenge the SEC conference every few years in a National Championship. Except ND hasn't challenged for one of those in like, 20 years???
Lastly, I live in North Carolina and only Jesus could get the University of NC or Virginia to leave the ACC (add any NC school or VA school); it really would take a miracle.
Good analysis, I'm an ACC guy and you're right on point,. Some SEC fans doesn't realize how quickly sports/team domination shifts, only have to look at FSU and Miami the last 10 years or Nebraska, Oklahoma and Alabama for periods or time or today's Tenn in CFB. I know it's had for some SEC fans to realize (as I've often purport), the SEC doesn't mean much to people outside of the SEC footprint and then only top tier CFB games like Bama versus LSU. Nobody is clamoring to watch Ark/Vandy or Tenn/Ole Miss, Ky/Miss State. Some of those are decent teams but outside the SEC, it's not that popular.
And I agree, Notre Dame is the prize for the ACC, prestigous academics, football and a lot of commonalities with other programs relative to ACC...soccer, etc. That what FSU is waiting on, the other basketball program got theirs with the addition of Pitt and Syracuse. If the ACC lands Notre Dame, then add UConn. Between the market sizes, CFB and CBB..the TV contract will be practically untenable to match for any other conference.
I don't think I've ever heard SEC fans say that SEC football is big everywhere. In fact, people down here are always claiming our unique love for college football as a point of pride. With that said, if a casual college football fan is watching somewhere else in the country what is he going to watch? Maybe his local school that he doesn't really care about? It depends. Maybe an important conference game between traditional powers? More likely. Maybe the best brand in college football? Even more likely. It may not always be that way, but as of right now it is.
Also, people in ACC country don't even really care about their own teams much less people in other parts of the country. With the exception of FSU and Miami there is no national draw in the ACC regardless of how big their markets are.
As has been noted - this is not just about TV markets now, but also in the future. That actually helps the SEC. All of the SEC states are growth states. The Rust belt and NE are not. So as the US grows, the SEC will gain more top 50/100 markets while the B1G and ACC loses them.
Of course I said all along that the SEC needed to make a run at Pitt before someone got them.
The ACC is locked down. No teams will be leaving for the SEC or B1G. The SEC is going to have to add some scrubs like L'ville or Big East leftovers to get to 16.
You have 4 teams in the ACC that are not scrubs, the rest are pretty aweful in football and probably couldn't be classified even as "scrubs". And if you think 20 million will keep those 4 schools decent schools locked down in your conference, your wrong. What will keep your ACC conference locked down is the other 2 conferences coming after any of the 4 decent schools. Pray hard and fast that the B1G stays at 12 and the SEC will stop at 14. Oh, and another thing, L'ville would probably beat 8 of your ACC schools right now. I am not a L'ville fan but I do know how sad the ACC is in football, so please show a little respect when you name
other Universities outside the ACC in your comments.
Not to dismiss tv footprints. But over all I think what's driven the SEC to where it is now is it's domination in football. If the SEC could manage to keep the quality up I think there will still be good demand for the product. Of course the problem is the SEC can't keep winning the BCS Natl Championship every single year. But these tv footprints might end up playing a bigger role if say the SEC ended up in a downturn in football dominance.
I agree with what Andy is saying. I know as a WVU fan that I would rather watch an SEC matchup any day of the week than any other conference and I don't think I am alone in my preference. I also think it says something that ESPN Game Day, arguably the provider of the biggest college football game of each week, chose a #3 LSU and # 16 WVU over a # 6 Texas A&M and #9 Oklahoma State game. Plus WVU was apart of the highest ranked thursday game ratings against Louisville. Obviously those in charge at ESPN think somebody will watch a game featuring WVU and of course LSU certainly helps.
Then again, ESPiN has its own agend in conference realignment. It's difficult to separate the network's decisions from its politics.
Oh and according to the article above that I linked(which is not gospel) WVU is a better for TV than Pitt or Syracuse, and guess even better than FSU... Crazy I know... I want WVU in the SEC
That is a very interesting article. Thank you for finding it. It certainly sheds some light on why some teams are being courted and and talked about. This makes me very proud of WVU's fan base and shows what we all say "Once a Mountaineer, always a Mountaineer".
This is a great article about actual college sports fans in each area, off the New York Times, kinda debunks this artical a little, look at where AM, Missour, and West Virginia are... Good Read
http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/the-g...
Disgree with A&M being leftover and am strongly against any talks to bring Texas into the SEC. Texas has money, and TV sets yes but they have killed 2 conferences and like to throw their weight around. A&M allows the SEC to expand and won't rock the boat.
I also disagree with the recruiting rankings for FSU in the prior article. Does FSU add tot he SEC's foot pront? No so what is the upside to taking FSU? The ACC teams are locked out of show casing their schools on a yearly basis with the FSU game. How valuable is this? Clemson has not won an ACCC title since they lost their yearly matchup with UGA. Clemson always depended on Ga. talent to win the ACC. All in all FSU going to the SEC would create less competition for Florida, S. GA. and S. Alabama recruits for SEC schools
Pitt is a small, private school with a small alumni base. Penn State is the flagship state university. The Pittsburgh market needs to be in the Big Ten column. Penn State gets much higher ratings in Pittsburgh that Pitt does.
The problem with saying a team "owns" a market means that someone has to watch the games. There was a great article last year in the Wall Street Journal about this for NYC. NYC ranked 55 of 56 major viewing markets for the 2009 BCS championship game --behing only Providence. Tim Pernetti, who used to decide who got which ABC game before he went to become Rutgers AD, talked about how crazy it was to figure out what would sell.
Sure you have tons of cable viewers. However you can't force them to subscribe to a tier-three network like BTEN or The Longhorn Network if they don't like college football.
Andy...
We tried to make it clear that we're looking "big picture" here. Who owns and doesn't own a market is debatable. But the fact that conference presidents and commissioners are stating that TV drives the bus should get us to at least consider which leagues would have the most markets and biggest markets should the current rumored moves come to fruition.
John
Probably a big hassle, how easy is it to cross reference the actual interest of the viewing public in those markets. In many cases, there may be lots of population, but the majority of that interest is devoted to the NFL team in that area. Does Boston care about Boston College, or could they sleep through Saturday and pay attention on Sunday for the Patriots game? Can you quantify how much of New York cares about Syracuse or Rutgers football, especially when baseball is still going on?
Hogdini...
We said it's debatable, but you can bet the networks aren't going to sit in a room and breakdown the viewing habits in each market. They're going to look at how many eyeballs a league should be able to deliver. More markets and bigger markets equal more eyeballs.
That's why the Pac-12 has passed the SEC in terms of network revenue. What impact will have in on-field product down the road?
John
John,
The reason why the PAC 12 has a bigger deal is that they negotiated in 2011, not 2009. All things being equal, contracts have been going up each year by incredible amounts. That is why the Big East made its now ill-fated decision not to lock down a tv deal once the current contract expires.
I disagree that the networks don't factor in viewing because advertisers certainly do. Market matters little to them if no one is watching.
BTW Love the site. Keep up the great job.
Is the PAC-12/14/16 really more valuable, or does it just seem that way because they were the last conference to renegotiate its TV deal? I just don't see how the SEC would not demand a larger TV deal on a per-team basis if each conference renegotiated today.
MIZ_SEC...
If the SEC adds Texas A&M and another school while the Pac-12 adds Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, the Pac-12 will make more money per school. Remember, in addition to a richer overall network package, the Pac-12 is also launching a chain of regional networks.
John
John,
I really think you are stretching here. The SEC only has 4 of the top markets, yet in 2010 they had 6 of the top 10 viewed games in the country. CBS, who broadcasts the SEC games, was also tops in the country with a 4.2 rating. The broadcast 15 games and still drew more total viewers that ABC at 30 games. I don't think it makes that much difference as long as the SEC is winning, and I don't see any league that is going to change that in the near future. All of the kids want to play in the south. The best talent is in the south. The best coaches are in the south. It just is what it is.
ben...
Those big numbers came with the SEC on CBS and ESPN and the most dominant league in football. Ten or 15 years from now -- if the SEC isn't as big and rich as its competitors -- will that still be the case?
These moves aren't being made for today... they're being made for 2025, 2050 and 2100. And that's why we think having few television markets could hurt the league in the future. Currently the markets are divided among 6 major leagues. But if that number becomes four or five and power is consolidated, the SEC's TV draw could be impacted.
John
The numbers I posted above are only the CBS games. As I sadi they pulled in more viewers in less than half the games. I think the difference is the amount of people in the Southeast region that are tuned into each and every game. My argument is that it hasn't hurt them now. In fact they are in every one of those markets now with the ESPN and CBS contracts. Now maybe they won't have those contracts in the future, but based on what they have done the last 3 years in TV ratings, I find that hard to believe.
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