SEC Network host says Big Ten football is running a ‘Ponzi scheme’

[BleedGopher]

Per Matt:

The Big Ten has won the past two college football national championships. However, that doesn’t mean that everyone in the sport is impressed with the league.

SEC Network host Peter Burns took to Twitter recently to blast the Big Ten.

The original Tweet from ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg stated that “no league dominates the media discussion like the SEC.”

Rittenberg added that the move by the SEC to talk so much is smart, “especially coming off of a season where the league was objectively a bit down.”

Needless to say, Peter Burns didn’t agree with that take.

"The Big 10 is quiet because they understand over half of their league is hot garbage and only prop up the small amount of true quality contenders they have,“ Burns said.

He didn’t stop there.

”They run a highly successful CFB Ponzi scheme."

MSN

Go Gophers!!

 

[upnorthkid]

pretty comical calling half the league hot garbage (not to mention his use of Ponzi scheme).

He did watch bama lose to Michigan, South Carolina to Illinois, Tenn to OSU, Texas to OSU, and a&m to usc right? And he realizes those team outside of OSU were considered middle of the road in the B10 right? But hey I guess mizzou did beat Iowa so that balances it out.

Shocking the network responsible for generating all this press on the sec would hold this view. Shocking!

 

[Slim Tubby]

Hang in there, Pete...it's just a matter of time before the SEC claims their Conference Title has greater value than a National Championship. Until then...

 

[Married@SiebertField]

Pound sand. To the degree that it matters I went to a site listing the 50 top American universities in terms of Nobel prize laureates. The Big Ten leads the SEC 141-8. (I counted “classic Big Ten: excluded the former PAC Ten schools and Maryland & Rutgers. For the SEC, I excluded Texas & Texas A & M.). Interestingly, Minnesota & Illinois lead the Big Ten with 30–Ski U Mah! Only Vanderbilt has produced Nobel laureates from the SEC. Tell “Mr. Ponzi Scheme” to look globally at the relative contributions to humanity of the respective conferences.

 

[Holy Man]

Pound sand. To the degree that it matters I went to a site listing the 50 top American universities in terms of Nobel prize laureates. The Big Ten leads the SEC 141-8. (I counted “classic Big Ten: excluded the former PAC Ten schools and Maryland & Rutgers. For the SEC, I excluded Texas & Texas A & M.). Interestingly, Minnesota & Illinois lead the Big Ten with 30–Ski U Mah! Only Vanderbilt has produced Nobel laureates from the SEC. Tell “Mr. Ponzi Scheme” to look globally at the relative contributions to humanity of the respective conferences.

I'm pretty sure the SEC culture cares a little more about football than humanity. The argument won;t move many.

 

[MNVCGUY]

pretty comical calling half the league hot garbage (not to mention his use of Ponzi scheme).

He did watch bama lose to Michigan, South Carolina to Illinois, Tenn to OSU, Texas to OSU, and a&m to usc right? And he realizes those team outside of OSU were considered middle of the road in the B10 right? But hey I guess mizzou did beat Iowa so that balances it out.

Shocking the network responsible for generating all this press on the sec would hold this view. Shocking!

Yeah but.....it just means more.....I mean sure a bunch of hot garbage Big Ten teams beat SEC teams in bowl season but that doesn't prove anything.....SEC SEC SEC SEC.

 

[MNVCGUY]

I'm pretty sure the SEC culture cares a little more about football than humanity. The argument won;t move many.

I don't think that will move many in the Big Ten either....prior to right now I had never once given a single thought to the number of (checks post) nobel prize laureates....I mean it is a cool stat but yeah don't think it is going to move the needle with most sports fans in terms of which conference is better.

 

[STPGopher]

Pound sand. To the degree that it matters I went to a site listing the 50 top American universities in terms of Nobel prize laureates. The Big Ten leads the SEC 141-8. (I counted “classic Big Ten: excluded the former PAC Ten schools and Maryland & Rutgers. For the SEC, I excluded Texas & Texas A & M.). Interestingly, Minnesota & Illinois lead the Big Ten with 30–Ski U Mah! Only Vanderbilt has produced Nobel laureates from the SEC. Tell “Mr. Ponzi Scheme” to look globally at the relative contributions to humanity of the respective conferences.

Should have included the U of Chicago.

https://www.uchicago.edu/who-we-are/global-impact/accolades/nobel-laureates

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_T...ber,programs through an affiliation agreement.

 

[GophersInIowa]

Put the Gophers roster in Kentucky or Arkansas uniforms and Burns would say they're tough teams. He's about as big of a homer for a conference as it gets.

 

[Dave H]

I don't think that will move many in the Big Ten either....prior to right now I had never once given a single thought to the number of (checks post) nobel prize laureates....I mean it is a cool stat but yeah don't think it is going to move the needle with most sports fans in terms of which conference is better.

They used to hammer this home during orientation...the U loves its Nobel Laureates

 

[GophersInIowa]

The SEC butt kissers are out in full force. As pointed out many times, there SOS is inflated from the get go.

 

[GopherTheJugular]

They used to hammer this home during orientation...the U loves its Nobel Laureates

Really though, only grad students should care. No one in the real world, when looking to hire someone with a 4 year degree, is going to give a rat's whatever on if they took classes from a Nobel prize winning prof or an adjunct professor with just a few years experience.

 

[Bob_Loblaw]

The SEC butt kissers are out in full force. As pointed out many times, there SOS is inflated from the get go.

Your data is skewed because your pre-season rank is bloated and that bloated pre-season rank is somewhat attributed to having another cupcake.

 

[Mr. 131]

Our whole economy is a Ponzi scheme.

 

[Schnauzer]

The narrative has gone from "no comparison between our SEC and the Big 10" to "Well, the Big 10 is top heavy"

Clearly those SEC bobos are having to struggle to greater degrees to keep the BS meter in the red.

 

[GophersInIowa]

Interesting comments from Bielema

 

[99Gopher]

Per Matt:

The Big Ten has won the past two college football national championships. However, that doesn’t mean that everyone in the sport is impressed with the league.

SEC Network host Peter Burns took to Twitter recently to blast the Big Ten.

The original Tweet from ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg stated that “no league dominates the media discussion like the SEC.”

Rittenberg added that the move by the SEC to talk so much is smart, “especially coming off of a season where the league was objectively a bit down.”

Needless to say, Peter Burns didn’t agree with that take.

"The Big 10 is quiet because they understand over half of their league is hot garbage and only prop up the small amount of true quality contenders they have,“ Burns said.

He didn’t stop there.

”They run a highly successful CFB Ponzi scheme."

MSN

Go Gophers!!

Peter Burns and guys like Paul Finebaum have largely become jokes as mouthpieces for the SEC and their contract with ESPN. The reason there is so much talking going on with the SEC is that they are desperately trying to generate clicks and drive volume on their platforms. Right now ESPN/ABC is hemorrhaging cash for Disney, and they are trying to find money wherever they can. There is no greater proof in that they recently sold the Semifinal round to the college football playoff to TNT until the end of the current contract. Those semifinals are ratings gold and cash cows, but that's how bad things are getting as they're getting their as kicked with properties like the NBA and need cash desperately. Can you imagine the meltdown the execs had when they realized the finals were going to be OKC & Indiana where 80% of sports consumers won't even care.

Hard to get worked up by guys like Burns as he jabbers away about nothing, while the SEC refuses to go to a 9-game conference schedule as they realize that would only weaken their product if they tried to do the same thing as the B1G. Like that old fighter who tries to tell everyone he's the greatest and still the champ, "SEC, It Just means More", while ducking as many worthy opponents as possible.

 

[Ope3]

Peter Burns and guys like Paul Finebaum have largely become jokes as mouthpieces for the SEC and their contract with ESPN. The reason there is so much talking going on with the SEC is that they are desperately trying to generate clicks and drive volume on their platforms. Right now ESPN/ABC is hemorrhaging cash for Disney, and they are trying to find money wherever they can. There is no greater proof in that they recently sold the Semifinal round to the college football playoff to TNT until the end of the current contract. Those semifinals are ratings gold and cash cows, but that's how bad things are getting as they're getting their as kicked with properties like the NBA and need cash desperately. Can you imagine the meltdown the execs had when they realized the finals were going to be OKC & Indiana where 80% of sports consumers won't even care.

I'm not sure the CFP is exactly "ratings gold" in the current format, having moved off NYD.

CFP Semifinals Ratings Drop 17% in 12-Team Format’s First Year

This year’s matchups drew an average of 19.2 million viewers across ESPN’s standard multiplatform “MegaCast” approach.

frontofficesports.com

Instead of going head-to-head with NFL Playoffs, they were played this year on a Thursday & Friday.

I didn't watch the Friday game live. Like lots of Americans, I had other stuff to do.

I'm not disputing Disney/ESPN is losing money at a rapid rate, I just don't know that this is a result of that. Plus TNT had money to spend after not landing the NBA, not to mention needs inventory.

As for the Disney execs fuming at the OKC/Indy match up, they wound up getting a 7 gamer. I bet that they are thinking "all good".

 

[99Gopher]

I'm not sure the CFP is exactly "ratings gold" in the current format, having moved off NYD.

CFP Semifinals Ratings Drop 17% in 12-Team Format’s First Year

This year’s matchups drew an average of 19.2 million viewers across ESPN’s standard multiplatform “MegaCast” approach.

frontofficesports.com

Instead of going head-to-head with NFL Playoffs, they were played this year on a Thursday & Friday.

I didn't watch the Friday game live. Like lots of Americans, I had other stuff to do.

I'm not disputing Disney/ESPN is losing money at a rapid rate, I just don't know that this is a result of that. Plus TNT had money to spend after not landing the NBA, not to mention needs inventory.

As for the Disney execs fuming at the OKC/Indy match up, they wound up getting a 7 gamer. I bet that they are thinking "all good".

There may have been a drop-off in the CFP Semifinal ratings, but that was largely driven by a flawed seeding process that was driven by a lot of politics in Year 1. However, in year 2 they will be addressing that seeding issue, resulting in much better match-ups in round 2 and likely fewer blowouts. On top of that, despite the decreased ratings that 19.2M viewers is still TWICE the number of viewers than any of the NBA Finals games this year.

NBA Finals inching up, but still at historic lows

The NBA Finals hit a series-high for a third-straight game, but there was barely any growth from Game 4 to Game 5.

www.sportsmediawatch.com

Details: Monday’s Pacers-Thunder NBA Finals Game 5 averaged a series-high 9.54 million viewers on ABC, down 22% from last year’s Mavericks-Celtics clincher (12.22M) and the least-watched Game 5 of the Finals since Heat-Lakers in the fall 2020 “bubble,” which aired on a Friday night in October (9.19M). Excluding that anomalous circumstance, it was the least-watched Game 5 since Spurs-Nets on a Friday night in 2003 (9.31M).

No other Game 5 in the Nielsen people meter era (1988-present) has fallen short of the ten million mark.

So, despite the Game 7, I'm sure the ESPN Ad Execs are still pretty depressed as they are probably offering their top Ad buyers a discounted rate to make up for the terrible results to date. So, the CFP 2nd round in still kicking the NBA's butt even if you look at the Celtics-Mavericks series (12.22M) the year before for Game 5. Yet, ESPN was still willing to sell that type of viewership to TNT out of need.

 

[Ope3]

There may have been a drop-off in the CFP Semifinal ratings, but that was largely driven by a flawed seeding process that was driven by a lot of politics in Year 1. However, in year 2 they will be addressing that seeding issue, resulting in much better match-ups in round 2 and likely fewer blowouts. On top of that, despite the decreased ratings that 19.2M viewers is still TWICE the number of viewers than any of the NBA Finals games this year.

I don't think the seeding process has anything to do with the lower ratings. The 4 teams involved still has massive fanbases with huge national followings. I don't think it could have worked much better than having Notre Dame, Texas, Penn St & Ohio St involved.

Maybe Georgia could have pulled more eyeballs, but them not making it had more to do with their QB being hurt, not seeding.

NBA Finals inching up, but still at historic lows

The NBA Finals hit a series-high for a third-straight game, but there was barely any growth from Game 4 to Game 5.

www.sportsmediawatch.com

Details: Monday’s Pacers-Thunder NBA Finals Game 5 averaged a series-high 9.54 million viewers on ABC, down 22% from last year’s Mavericks-Celtics clincher (12.22M) and the least-watched Game 5 of the Finals since Heat-Lakers in the fall 2020 “bubble,” which aired on a Friday night in October (9.19M). Excluding that anomalous circumstance, it was the least-watched Game 5 since Spurs-Nets on a Friday night in 2003 (9.31M).

No other Game 5 in the Nielsen people meter era (1988-present) has fallen short of the ten million mark.

So, despite the Game 7, I'm sure the ESPN Ad Execs are still pretty depressed as they are probably offering their top Ad buyers a discounted rate to make up for the terrible results to date. So, the CFP 2nd round in still kicking the NBA's butt even if you look at the Celtics-Mavericks series (12.22M) the year before for Game 5. Yet, ESPN was still willing to sell that type of viewership to TNT out of need.

My point about the 7 games was that I'm quite sure the Disney execs are fine with the match up now having gone the distance. It is much more preferable to a higher rated series that only goes 4 or 5 games. They would have been more depressed if there wasn't even a 7th game of Ad revenue to sell.

 

[99Gopher]

I don't think the seeding process has anything to do with the lower ratings. The 4 teams involved still has massive fanbases with huge national followings. I don't think it could have worked much better than having Notre Dame, Texas, Penn St & Ohio St involved.

Maybe Georgia could have pulled more eyeballs, but them not making it had more to do with their QB being hurt, not seeding.



My point about the 7 games was that I'm quite sure the Disney execs are fine with the match up now having gone the distance. It is much more preferable to a higher rated series that only goes 4 or 5 games. They would have been more depressed if there wasn't even a 7th game of Ad revenue to sell.

Final thought, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree that the seedings had no impact. I think the Year 1 seedings led to the number of large blowouts in the first two rounds. The result is that the way Nielsen measures things is the lack of sustained viewership during games does impact the final ratings.

Nielsen ratings for college football games, like other television programming, are typically based on average viewership over the duration of the telecast, rather than requiring viewers to maintain viewership for a specific length of time.

• Nielsen uses metrics like "average minute ratings" which represent the percentage of television homes tuned to the game in the average minute.
• They also estimate total viewing figures to understand how many people watched at least a certain duration of the program (often six minutes).

Therefore, while prolonged viewership is desirable for higher ratings, there is no set minimum time a viewer must watch to "count" towards the rating calculation. The longer a viewer stays tuned in, the more they contribute to the overall average viewership data used to calculate the rating.

 

[btowngopher]

Does viewership of the playoffs help the SEC or does viewership of regular season SEC games? You’re not going to increase regular season viewership by expanding the playoffs.

 

[Ope3]

Final thought, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree that the seedings had no impact. I think the Year 1 seedings led to the number of large blowouts in the first two rounds. The result is that the way Nielsen measures things is the lack of sustained viewership during games does impact the final ratings.

Nielsen ratings for college football games, like other television programming, are typically based on average viewership over the duration of the telecast, rather than requiring viewers to maintain viewership for a specific length of time.

• Nielsen uses metrics like "average minute ratings" which represent the percentage of television homes tuned to the game in the average minute.
• They also estimate total viewing figures to understand how many people watched at least a certain duration of the program (often six minutes).

Therefore, while prolonged viewership is desirable for higher ratings, there is no set minimum time a viewer must watch to "count" towards the rating calculation. The longer a viewer stays tuned in, the more they contribute to the overall average viewership data used to calculate the rating.

I don't think blowouts in the first 2 rounds impacted viewership for the CFP Semi-Finals at all.

If anything it would have a positive impact. All 4 teams were playing really well.