During a 6-6 season in which NBC broadcast seven home games and the first of a new annual series of off-site, prime-time games, the network averaged 3.7 million viewers…
Notre Dame’s eight games were, on average, seen by more viewers than the number who watched ESPN’s schedule of several gazillion games (2.87 million), but fewer than ABC’s (6.1 million) or CBS’s (7.0 million).
As long as the Irish are a better draw than most of the conferences in the country, they’ll get catered to. We may not like it, but that’s the reality. And everyone who thinks it’ll be easy to shunt Notre Dame (“make ’em join a conference!”, right?) aside for a playoff or a revised BCS formula had better realize that the school would fight like hell to prevent that.
Get The Picture 
Bidness it is…
There is too much money being made at/on Notre Dame for anything to change in the near future. Unless Notre Dame is excluded from the BCS (or any potential playoff system) the money will remain greater for ND as an independent than as a conference member when it comes to football.
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How many of those 3.7 mil where watching the other team? The draw might not be as much ND as the visitors, although I understand the mighty ND would get all the credit. I was guilty of watching a bits and pieces of ND games just to watch them lose and see if Wies would explode on the sidelines.
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+1 I’m with you I watch them to see the bas**ds lose. Overrated = ND forever.
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Kind of reminds me of the clip from the Howard Stern movie where the ratings guy says the people who love him “tune in to see what he’s gonna say next.” Meanwhile, the people who hate him “tune in to see what he’s gonna say next.”
Where’s Dog in Fla with the clip when you need him!
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The advertizers and TV execs couldn’t care less as to why were being brought to the ND games, only tha tthey keep coming…all they know and care about is that ND, for whatever reason, brings the rating that other teams can’t.
For perspective, the ACC held their championship game and less people were interested. Roughly half the viewership and only 40-something thousand tickets sold. Yes, Texas/Nebraska was on at the same time but…55,000 people managed to buy tickets to see Notre Dame against Washington State (!!!) in San Antonio.
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Comparing ND’s broadcast #s to ESPN’s numbers is a fallacy.
ESPN isn’t a over-the-air broadcast network, but is strictly a cable channel… they only care about having exclusive enough content to justify charging cable companies the highest per-user fee on the block (approx $3.65/subscriber, highest of any channel). Being a cable-only company naturally limits the number of viewers out there, by design.
NBC wants the large viewing numbers to drive their ad rates higher, which is the only way they make money. Based on the ABC and CBS numbers, they are seriously lagging in that department.
I’m not sure what NBC pays Notre Dame for the ‘exclusive privledge’ to broadcast their games, but what they pay vs what CBS or ABC pay for their college football broadcasting rights, per user, is the best comparison. This drives the resulting ad rate those networks can charge.
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You realize the BCS is getting ready to move en masse to the WWL, right?
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Sure ND would fight to not join a conference or give up the sweet BCS invite deal, I would too if I were them b/c it would mean a decrease in revenue. However, that just strengthens my personal dislike for them even more and makes it easier to root against them. I just feel there are unwarranted advantages granted ND, especially since they have been mediocre for the better part of the last 15 years. Being on national TV is one thing, but the BCS thing cannot be defended regardless of the rationale.
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Like it or not, as a buddy said “Notre Dame is the well-spring of college football.”
Like it or not, there would probably be no Bama’s, Oklahomas or USC’s if Notre Dame had not gotten all the attention did back in the leather helmet days.
The Irish, like it or not, were, for most of the country, the national football team.
Their continued huge fan base, win or not, bad coaches or not, is a true testament to “doing what your daddy told you.”
Am I envious of them because of all that, hell no, Georgia is, I believe, undefeated against the Irish.
If you look at the sheer number of media outlets in the midwest, you can quickly have some understanding of Notre Dame’s draw.
The Irish will always be in the national picture, and the whole landscape of college football today is more clear with Notre Dame as somebody to beat, not somebody to laugh at.
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Oh….no inside information was used in the formulation of the previous post.
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As an alumnus of a SEC school I am quite familiar with the hatred/resentment of ND in the South. To me, it is a lot like the hatred/resentment that gets directed at the New York Yankees…the Dallas Cowboys…the Boston Celtics. And aside from being money makers for their sports do you know what they all share in the recent past? Long championship droughts.
Remember the Yankees in the 80’s? The Cowboys over the last ten years? The Celtics between Bird and Garnett? Southern Cal has also been recently horrible…check the 80′ and 90’s for them. And, while they have an 8 game win streak against ND going, that streak was immediately preceeded by ND going 15-3-1 over the previous 19 games…and that included an 11-0 streak for Notre Dame. Perhaps SC should have been dropped from ND’s schedule because the rivalry was so one-sided (at the point SC started their streak the rivalry record stood at 42-26-5 in favor of ND)
If people want to bury them because they have been mediocre recently then how many other teams may we jump the gun on? To use the MNC game contestants…Texas was bad between Akers and Brown (86-98) and we are all quite familiar with Alabama’s decade in the wilderness.
Hate/resent them if you want, but don’t argue for a bad business decision on emotional reasons.
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This just confirms what I’ve suspected for quite some time . . . there are a lot of stupid people in the US.
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Well put.
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