If the Big Ten calls, Nebraska will listen

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Inigo: I get what you are saying and I agree that religion has historically been part of their national following. But you are VASTLY overestimating the numbers included in that national following. BTN is currently getting $1.10 per subscriber for all cable subscribers in the 8 Big Ten states. BTN is also on the basic cable package in this footprint. Notre Dame alums/fans would have to have a huge presence in a market in order for a cable company to put BTN on their basic package. If BTN isn’t on a basic package then the number of subscriber fees it collects drops significantly. The amount that the network can charge for ads also drops significantly.

The BTN already has access to the number 3, 4, 11, 15, 18, 23, 25, 33, 34, 35, 39, 41, 54, 65, 68, 70, 72, 73, 84, 85, 88, 91, 99, 101, 102, 107, 110, 115, 116, 117, 127, 134, 135, 139, 146, 152, 180, 182, and 191 TV markets in the US. For those keeping track that’s 39 of the 210 national TV markets equaling almost 26 million households (which is approx 22.5% of all TV households in the US) [Data via latest Nielson numbers]. As of first quarter 2009, they also had basic access in over 18 million DirecTV households which brings their total up to approximately 38% of all TV households in the US (44 million total). I'm not including Dish Network numbers as I can't find notes on how many of their approx 13 million subscribers are on the higher level packages that include BTN. But I would note that this also further decreases the number of TV households without BTN and increases the % of homes that BTN already reaches.

This next part is estimations by me using the numbers from above. But if the 4 Big XII schools and ND needed to increase revenue by 46% to maintain the current $22 million per school level, it looks like they’d need to guarantee that approximately 20 million new TV households would get BTN on their basic package. That would be over ¼ of the remaining TV households in the US.

The Catholic Church has approximately 67 million members in the US. Even if you stipulate that the 20 million new households the B10 needs only have 1 person in them, you’d still need 1/3 of all Catholics in the US to demand to see the BTN. Since you already have large numbers of these Catholic viewers living in the Big Ten footprint or watching DirecTV, the percentage of Catholics from the remaining parts of the country required would actually be higher.

The numbers just don’t support your assertion.
 

I'd say sports is about 99% of Notre Dame's following. There are so many Catholic universities out there, the only thing that makes Notre Dame stand out from the rest is sports. Shouldn't the Catholic University of America have the biggest following of all?
 

Inigo Montoya said:
Reputation maybe, reality no. Fact is Notre Dame is the New York Yankees of college football. People will watch to see them fail. It was my source of schadenfreude after watching the Gophers last fall.

R-squared, your wrote that Notre Dame support has little to do with being a Catholic university. Really? Out of all the people that are wearing a BYU clothing right now, how many are non-Mormons? I would fathom to guess that Notre Dame has very little in the way of non-Catholic fans. Religious affililiation has a lot to do with who supports what team. A fine example is soccer in Ireland or Scotland.
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No studies, just speaking for myself. My dad loved Notre Dame football. I'm an Irish fan. My sons follow ND. We're Norwegian / Lutheran / LDS. The closest my family has come to being Roman Catholic was that I sang in a chorale group based out of St. Catherine's and Dad voted for JFK. Go figure. I think it's the football tradition, sure can't be religion (I'm still trying to find a Lutheran - Mormon football program to support). Now, we don't travel to games, which means we don't spend significant money to be Irish fans. We save that for the Gophers. That's different.
 

There are an awful lot of non-Catholic Notre Dame fans. There are plenty of non-Catholic students at Notre Dame. The relationship of Notre Dame to Catholicism is not the same as the relationship of BYU to Mormonism. There are only a very small handful of Mormon colleges, and among them, BYU is by far the dominant and most central to Mormonism. There are close to 200 Catholic universities out there, many of them are on par with Notre Dame in everything except sports.
 

Kudos, GoAUpher

GoAUpher said:
Inigo: I get what you are saying and I agree that religion has historically been part of their national following. But you are VASTLY overestimating the numbers included in that national following. BTN is currently getting $1.10 per subscriber for all cable subscribers in the 8 Big Ten states. BTN is also on the basic cable package in this footprint. Notre Dame alums/fans would have to have a huge presence in a market in order for a cable company to put BTN on their basic package. If BTN isn’t on a basic package then the number of subscriber fees it collects drops significantly. The amount that the network can charge for ads also drops significantly.

The BTN already has access to the number 3, 4, 11, 15, 18, 23, 25, 33, 34, 35, 39, 41, 54, 65, 68, 70, 72, 73, 84, 85, 88, 91, 99, 101, 102, 107, 110, 115, 116, 117, 127, 134, 135, 139, 146, 152, 180, 182, and 191 TV markets in the US. For those keeping track that’s 39 of the 210 national TV markets equaling almost 26 million households (which is approx 22.5% of all TV households in the US) [Data via latest Nielson numbers]. As of first quarter 2009, they also had basic access in over 18 million DirecTV households which brings their total up to approximately 38% of all TV households in the US (44 million total). I'm not including Dish Network numbers as I can't find notes on how many of their approx 13 million subscribers are on the higher level packages that include BTN. But I would note that this also further decreases the number of TV households without BTN and increases the % of homes that BTN already reaches.

This next part is estimations by me using the numbers from above. But if the 4 Big XII schools and ND needed to increase revenue by 46% to maintain the current $22 million per school level, it looks like they’d need to guarantee that approximately 20 million new TV households would get BTN on their basic package. That would be over ¼ of the remaining TV households in the US.

The Catholic Church has approximately 67 million members in the US. Even if you stipulate that the 20 million new households the B10 needs only have 1 person in them, you’d still need 1/3 of all Catholics in the US to demand to see the BTN. Since you already have large numbers of these Catholic viewers living in the Big Ten footprint or watching DirecTV, the percentage of Catholics from the remaining parts of the country required would actually be higher.

The numbers just don’t support your assertion.
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and my apologies to your employer if you are doing this on company time. Very well written and logical with use of supportive references. Based on those facts alone the only BCS teams that could be added to the Big 10 conference to keep revenue on par with what we have now in addition to Notre Dame would be Florida, Texas, USC and North Carolina. The Big 10 Network is bankrolled by Rupert Murdoch and the the New Corporation who plays second fiddle only to the Mickey Mouse network in terms of sheer size. Don't think they won't pay a premium to take Notre Dame football away from NBC.

I still contend, and GoAUpher's fact may oppose it, that Notre Dame would still be the needed link to catapult the Big 10 and allow them to cannabalize a conference such as the Big 12. I'd be willing to bet that News Corp. would pony up the GDP of Sierra Leone to get Notre Dame onto their payrolls. But that is just one person's with time on his hands opinion. Now I know how Wren feels sitting here writting the dissenting opinion. I promise I'll stop my tirade to pillage to the Big 12 North.
 


Inigo Montoya said:
and my apologies to your employer if you are doing this on company time.
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Yea, I definitely hit a wall this afternoon and looking that stuff up was an interesting diversion. This sort of thing piques my interest for some reason, even if we're only debating hypotheticals or unlikely scenarios. My prize for that Master's thesis? A chance to stay later tonight to finish up my to-do's. :)
 

Nothing like bringing teams like Texas or Nebraska into the Big Ten as far as our chances of ever again winning a Big Ten title.
 

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