By Ben Koo on

Oregon vs. Indiana. It was the clear game of the week.

Even ESPN’s College Gameday couldn’t deny it. They took their 12 equipment trucks all the way to Eugene, Oregon, to promote a game that would air on another network for a conference with which it no longer has a business relationship.

Two undefeated teams. Two Heisman contenders. And the game lived up to the hype, with constant action and a competitive score to the very end. CBS and the Big Ten got just about everything you could ask for with this matchup. When the smoke cleared, Indiana emerged as a new national powerhouse, a positive development for the conference and its television partners. The game was featured on SportsCenter and various sports talk shows (in some instances, it was shown behind Penn State’s loss to Northwestern). Indiana-Oregon succeeded in living up to its mantle as the biggest college football game and story of the weekend in all aspects.

Except from a ratings perspective.

When the TV ratings came out, it wasn’t CBS bragging about that prized matchup winning the week. In fact, Indiana vs. Oregon didn’t even make the medal stand and was close to being the fifth-most-watched game of the week. Here’s how the weekend numbers shook out:

  1. Oklahoma vs. Texas at 3:30 p.m. ET on ABC (8.7 million viewers)
  2. Alabama vs. Missouri at noon ET on ABC (7 million viewers)
  3. Georgia vs. Auburn at 7:30 p.m. ET on ABC (6.7 million viewers)
  4. Indiana vs. Oregon at 3:30 p.m. ET on CBS (5.6 million viewers)
  5. Ohio State vs. Illinois at noon ET on Fox (5.3 million viewers)
  6. Michigan vs. USC at 7:30 p.m. ET on NBC (4.3 million viewers)

Indiana-Oregon had three million fewer viewers than Oklahoma-Texas, which played at the same time and didn’t see the Sooners score for the final two hours of the game. If Ohio State-Illinois were any closer, it would likely have surpassed Indiana-Oregon in viewership as well.

So, why is there such a disconnect between the perceived importance and interest in a game and its viewership? This past week’s slate of games was the perfect explainer of how college football’s nuances impact what we watch.

School fanbase size is the most crucial factor

With so many options on a college football Saturday, networks largely count on the built-in interest from a school’s fanbase to move the needle. It doesn’t matter the stakes or the opponent; it’s most often about the brands.

Let’s say SMU, Cincinnati, Boise State, or Arizona State make a run in the College Football Playoff. As good as that Cinderella story seems, they are not bringing the millions of dependably addicted and locked-in fans with them that an Ohio State, Alabama, or Georgia will. It’s no different from elections, where specific demographics consistently vote in every election more than others.

Week to week, regardless of the quality of the opponent, the channel/streaming service, or the timeslot, certain fanbases consistently draw a larger audience than most. We’re talking about Texas, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Georgia, and others like them. These are schools with supporters all over the country that have had decades of success, allowing their fandom to be passed down generation to generation.

That’s why Ohio State is so dependably placed at noon on Fox, even when it plays Marshall. And it’s why the Red River Rivalry had three million more viewers than Indiana vs. Oregon, despite having less national relevance and being a less compelling game to watch. There are more Oklahoma and Texas fans than Indiana and Oregon fans, and they showed up, despite the Longhorns having two losses.

Ultimately, despite having a top-tier program, Oregon does not have the same supporter base nor the same level of fanaticism built into their following as other national powerhouses (which is okay and doesn’t devalue what they’ve accomplished!). Indiana, on the other hand, is far down the list of programs television executives and advertisers are excited to see on the lineup. Sure, the program is on the upswing now, but on the football front, the Hoosiers are unlikely to attract as many viewers as other programs, even with the success of the last two years.

Saturday’s rating only reinforces that these programs are not in the same class as other programs that can consistently attract a large audience, and that will be used to inform future scheduling decisions.

Lead-in audience matters

Sports Media Watch’s Ben Huddleston does a good job visualizing the ratings momentum ABC generates every Saturday.

Despite some quality games on CBS (3:30 p.m. ET window) and NBC (7:30 p.m. ET window, which featured Oregon vs. Penn State a few weeks ago), you see that neither network has won its time slot yet this year.

In fact, you can see two times in which ABC won every Saturday time slot, and another where ESPN won the morning slot (where College GameDay is the lead-in), followed by two slots for ABC.

Indiana vs. Oregon had a pregame show as their lead-in. In most weeks, NWSL is on before that. No matter what’s on, there are generally fewer than half a million people watching CBS before their game starts. NBC sometimes benefits from having a Notre Dame lead-in before its Big Ten game, but it doesn’t often have a large audience to build on for its night game.

ABC is different. You saw it this week as three SEC games led the ratings. Many viewers watched the first game and kept it rolling, which is particularly easy to do if you’re a fan of the SEC or at a bar, restaurant, or gym, where you can enjoy nine to ten hours of good football without needing to change the channel.

This is the strength of ESPN/ABC’s college football rights. They have strong games, and they lead into other good games that share overlapping interests with whatever was on before and after.

This past weekend, the Big Ten had three equally exciting games. The viewer friction of having to switch from Fox to CBS to NBC can lose some people. If you’re going to change the channel to find a game, a good chunk of viewers might land on ABC and watch an SEC game instead of following the Big Ten to the next game on a different channel. Fans don’t have to change the channel to keep watching the SEC. The next game simply appears, much like the next episode on a streaming service.  The SEC seems to have even secured a sponsorship for “SEC All Day.”

The Big Ten was smart to secure three broadcast windows in its TV deal, but they are on three different networks. The SEC’s setup of often having three Saturday broadcast windows on the same network allows for setups that boost ratings, as the lead-in audience brings more people to the game. Hence, you get Saturdays like last weekend, where gold, silver, and bronze went to ABC and the SEC, despite an equally strong Big Ten lineup.

College football hate-watching is real

Last year, I wrote about how the Big 12 doesn’t have a team that annoys teams to the point where college football fans will go out of their way to watch them lose if they are in danger late.

Pro sports don’t have “upset alert” notifications during regular season games. Most college football fans’ Saturdays consist of watching their team and watching one or two big games not involving their team. However, it also includes flipping around to see if any of the Goliaths of college football are flirting with an unexpected loss.

And on most Saturdays, we get one or two of these satisfying upsets.

If Ohio State were in any danger against Illinois, it would have seen a pop in ratings. Many college football fans would have loved to see the Buckeyes eat shit. Alabama’s rating would have increased slightly more if Missouri had been leading late. Auburn imploded against Georgia, but had they hung in, the ratings would have been even better because a large contingent of fans would have loved to see the Bulldogs lose.

We change the channel because the hate in college football is so much more real. The average college football fan legitimately hates more than a handful of programs. College football thrives on schadenfreude, defined as “pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune.”

However, Oregon is not one of those schools. Their fans have not annoyed the shit out of everyone online and in person. They are more mainstream and less “lunatic fringe” than their Midwest and Southern counterparts. They have also struggled in some big games against top-tier programs (especially in the postseason) and have yet to win a national championship. Hence, revenge fantasies are not as present for them as for other power programs (like, say, when many college football fans took pleasure in watching them defeat Penn State a few weeks back).

The idea of rooting against Indiana in football is so new that I don’t think anyone other than Purdue fans (and perhaps Paul Finebaum) has reached that point.

That’s a long way of saying that, as Oregon found itself heading towards defeat, people didn’t care enough to flip over and hate-watch them lose. Perhaps that’s part of how the CFP alters our viewing habits (win or lose, Oregon seems likely to make the playoff, so there’s no need to view this as anything other than a speed bump).

Ultimately, people don’t hate Oregon or Indiana enough to move the needle, and a lot of the audience for upsets is driven by hate-watching.

People watch programs, not players

Logic would tell you that college football fans would be interested in watching the two leading Heisman contenders face off, especially when their teams are undefeated.

That’s partially the case, but not when a dozen other games are happening involving programs that might draw more interest.  If Dante Moore were playing Fernando Mendoza and it were a LSU-Texas matchup, with both programs undefeated, you’d probably get ten million viewers. Same for Ohio State-Penn State.

But when it comes to Oregon vs. Indiana, it shows just how snobbish and tribal college football fans are about the teams they want to watch. Certain schools just don’t register as “worthy,” and regardless of the players in question, many viewers thumb their noses at certain games in favor of something more familiar.  This is, in part, why I haven’t watched a non-60 Minutes TV show in two decades.

Ultimately, Oregon vs. Indiana had everything you could really ask for. Anyone who watches college football knows it was a great matchup, with great players, with significant implications, and it lived up to the hype on the field.

But this is college football, and sometimes, none of that matters. The game’s ratings reinforced the nuances of college football viewership. College football fans are going to watch what they watch, and it’s incredibly hard to break those habits.

About Ben Koo

Owner and editor of @AwfulAnnouncing. Recovering Silicon Valley startup guy. Fan of Buckeyes, A's, dogs, naps, tacos. and the old AOL dialup sounds

View all posts by Ben Koo