Week One Media Musings

Image courtesy of the Pac-12

Some thoughts on the Pac-12’s CW deal and other Week One College Football happenings.

• I’m giving the Pac-12 two enthusiastic thumbs up for the CW deal. I was skeptical at first, I’ll admit. I didn’t watch a single ACC game on the network last year, and I don’t watch LIV Golf either, so I had no idea what to expect. After the first week, I don’t see a downside to this at all. Almost anyone across the country can watch. I know that some streaming services (Sling for one) don’t offer local channels, but in most areas an antenna will take care of that if you plan ahead, and there’s a few CW affiliates across the country that have existing media deals with local teams that pre-empted the Beaver game (New York I heard is one of these as they show Mets games), but most of Beaver Nation could easily watch our game, without switching TV providers or upgrading to a higher tier cable package. That’s a win.

• Several people mentioned on X this week that Thom Brenneman referred to us as “the Ducks” a couple times. It’s annoying I know. But look, I call my dog by my kid’s name at least once a week. It happens. I also heard that the jerseys “looked red” to some people. This is not a new complaint, as I’ve heard it several times before on several other networks in years past. Again, it happens. It’ll probably get cleaned up. ESPN’s 4K channel washed out the Clemson-Georgia picture for most of their game. Don’t get caught up in the minor details. The big picture is that we were on TV, and it was easily accessible. 

• Speaking of easily accessible, did anyone catch the Ducks or the Huskies last week? Not if you had Comcast and live on the west coast you didn’t! After Washington bolted to the Big Ten, their president said this (via ABC News): 

"When you have a deal that people are saying that one of the best aspects are that you can get out of it in two years, that tells you a lot," Cauce said in a conference call with news media. "This was about national visibility for our players, being on linear TV so they can be seen, so they could have the national exposure. It was about stability. It was about having a future that we could count on and built towards."

That their first game of the season was blacked out up and down the west coast warms the meanest parts of my soul. Their second game? Also subject to the Comcast blackout. Their third game? Streaming only on Peacock. They’re going to be a quarter of the way into their season before most people in Washington will be able to easily access their game without breaking a Comcast contract, signing up for a different service, or subscribing to a streaming service.

Oregon is largely in the same boat. Game One on BTN (blacked out Xfinity on the west coast). Game Two on Peacock. Game 3….on FOX, but only because THE MOTHERFUCKING BEAVERS HAVE THE TV RIGHTS TO THAT GAME. Because of us, their fans will have their first easily accessible game of the season. After that, they have a bye and then play their first B1G conference game….against UCLA. 

• Let’s talk TV viewership numbers real quick. OSU reportedly had 381K viewers for their first game on the CW. Some folks will tell you that’s “Not a P4 number.” Here’s a list of P4 teams that drew less this weekend:.

1. Iowa State (315K - FS1)

2. Indiana/Northwestern (307K - BTN) These games aired simultaneously on the same channel in different areas, so I have no idea how that works, but regardless they both drew less than OSU

3. Washington (306K - BTN) (“BTN?” More like “LOL”)

4. Rutgers (269K - BTN)

5. Arizona St. (253K - FS1)

6. Houston (172K - FS1)

7. Maryland (133K - FS1)

8. Arkansas (129K - ESPNU)

9. Illinois (112K - BTN)

10. Pittsburgh (82K - ESPNU)

• People can mock the CW deal all they want. Here’s what I know: Oregon State vs. Idaho State in a previous year ABSOLUTELY would’ve been on the Pac-12 Network. If BTN games are drawing between 425K (Oregon) and 112K (Illinois) and that channel is available in 50M homes, what kind of number do you think OSU-ISU would’ve drawn on a channel available in only 15M?? I’m going to guess at least 300% more people watched us play an FCS team than ever have before. Pac-12 Network viewer numbers were never reported, but SOMEBODY at the conference has to have that data right? Why are we not pumping that information out? Saying three times as many people watched a conferenceless OSU play Idaho State than a comparable game last season, when we were ranked and in a power conference? That shit matters. Let ‘em know.

• I know the number of viewers is important, but I’m urging Beaver Nation to not get obsessed with it. It’s almost impossible to compare team-to-team without some sort of large scale analytics tool. Teams don’t play at the same time on the same channel against the same opponent with the same number of games going simultaneously. Focus on this: more people CAN watch Oregon State games if they want to now. It’s on the Pac-12 and OSU to make people WANT to watch them. It’s not going to happen overnight. When most people turn on the TV to watch sports (when their own team isn’t playing), they’ve probably got a rotation of channels. They know the channel numbers by heart that they go through that looks something like: ABC, Fox, NBC, CBS, ESPN, ESPN2, FS1, then maybe the conference channels. The CW isn’t there….yet. It’s still thought of the teen drama channel and not a live sports destination. Give it time. Think the Braves on TBS in the 1980s. Eventually people watched enough of their games that they knew the players, and now you’ve got Braves fans all over the country.

• This leads me to another point: The Braves biggest advantage is that they were the only team on. We can’t consistently go against the big dogs of the SEC and B1G and expect to see big numbers of viewers. It’s my opinion that the Pac-12/CW screwed up by not having either OSU or WSU play in that 7pm slot every week. I don’t know what the regular ratings are for CW on Saturday nights, but I’ll bet a hell of a lot more people would watch a live football game than a replay of One Tree Hill or whatever they show. Being on when nobody else is gives people a chance to find us. You’re not getting a rando college football fan to watch OSU-Idaho State over an Alabama game. So don’t try. Get some traction, gain some new fans, then see where you’re at. If we end up in a reconstituted Pac-12, I hope that we have a deal with the CW and Apple and that it includes a 7pm slot on one of the two. Make it our home and let people know they can always find us there.

• For those people that are hung up on the number - Let’s see what it looks like for the Purdue game. That’s the first matchup on the CW against a P4 team. The game is kicking off at 5:30, with a TCU-SMU lead-in game. The only ranked teams that (as of now) kick off within 3 hours of us are Texas (streaming) and Ole Miss (SEC Network). Several teams still don’t have a kickoff time (LOL you teams and your silly big tv contracts that have to wait until two weeks before kickoff to find out your game times), but as the majority of them are east coast teams, we might just be the best game on at the time. If I’m OSU and the Pac-12, I’m marketing the shit out of that game. Make sure EVERYONE knows what time that game is at and where to find it. Winning the Civil War the week before would be massive of course, but I think as long as we play well in that game we’ll probably get a little carryover into the Purdue game the next weekend.