Westward expansion is seemingly paying dividends for the Big Ten.
According to a new report by Mollie Cahillane in Sports Business Journal, Big Ten Network is seeing record viewership on the backs of its four new West Coast teams. BTN is up 9% in viewership year-over-year, the largest increase for any college football rightsholder this year, aside from ABC/ESPN which added its SEC package this season.
In addition, BTN is seeing large increases in younger demos. Viewership in men ages 18-49 is up 22%, and women in the same age range have sprung up 17%.
Two of the five biggest audiences on BTN thus far have featured Washington, one of the conference’s premier West Coast additions. Both the Huskies’ Week 2 matchup against Eastern Michigan (as part of a regionalized window) and their Week 9 game against Indiana broke the one million viewer mark on BTN. The network had its best primetime college football audience ever in Week 9 for Michigan State-Michigan, which clocked in at 1.73 million viewers.
Aside from the quality of games on BTN increasing with the addition of its West Coast schools, the network is also adding substantial volume to its inventory. Per Cahillane, BTN is set to increase its number of live events in the month of November from 66 last year to 92 this year, up 40%. That is largely thanks to additional basketball windows, with BTN able to broadcast tripleheaders on nights with a late West Coast game.
Of course, the financial windfall from increases in advertising rates for higher viewership is nice, but likely pale in comparison to what BTN is really benefiting from — the additional regions paying in-market rates for the network as a result of its expansion.
With media companies continuing to shift live sports inventory from cable to over-the-air broadcast and streaming, a conference-specific network like BTN seeing year-over-year increases in the year 2024 is notable.
While the geography of conference realignment hasn’t made any sense, at least it’s looking like the economics are working out so far.
