question for JiMiGA

[dawgfan]

Do you (or does anyone else) have data on how the TV ratings compare for SEC football in SEC territory as compared to the NFL?

I know in general the NFL is king, but I'm curious if in places like Alabama and Mississippi in particular SEC telecasts draw similar ratings.

[JonInMiddleGA]

VERY generally, the bigger games (think Bama-LSU with something on the line, UT vs UofF back when neither sucked, etc etc) can get up into similar territory. And it depends upon whether there's a "home" NFL team nearby too.

from Birmingham tops TV ratings for ESPN college football for 14th straight year | AL.com (http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2014/12/birmingham_is_top_tv_market_fo.html)
Behind Birmingham (#1 for college football for the 14th straight year) the top seven TV markets for ESPN college football were all in the Deep South, with Knoxville, Tenn., Greenville, S.C., Memphis, Atlanta and Jacksonville, Fla., also drawing big numbers. Oklahoma City was eighth and Tulsa ninth, with Nashville and Columbus, Ohio, tying for 10th.

For a high water mark, the 2014 Iron Bowl drew a 51.8 HH rating in B'ham, the market averaged 9.2 across more than 70 college football games on ESPN last year.

By comparison, the average "home market" NFL rating was a 21.8
http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2015/01/09/Media/NFL-local.aspx

Regional games nationally do somewhere between 8-9 rating typically, single national games do about a 12, Sunday nights do an 11-12

So to answer your question, yes, there would be markets -- some, not all -- where college football does a TV rating similar to the NFL overall for games of local interest/especially notable national games. It's hard to fairly average every single college football game though because there are a lot of duds (think Wake vs Va Tech or La Tech vs UAB) that air every week in pretty much every market.

[JonInMiddleGA]

What I've found from looking at detailed numbers over the years is that college football in SEC markets in particular do much better than the NFL with female viewers -- my wife probably watches my college football on TV each year than I do for example, and she's not really even that hardcore -- and that's how the numbers end up being so strong.

[dawgfan]

Thanks. I figured if there was any part of the country where the NFL might not be the clear-cut king, it would be SEC territory.