So Texas has agreed to save the Big 12 conference, thanks in no small part to the promise from conference commissioner Dan Beebe of a big new TV contract (presumably with Fox), worth potentially $17m annually to each school in the conference. Given the discrepancy in population/media markets between Big Ten country and the new Big 12 country, and the fact that the Big Ten’s TV contract yields about $20m per school annually, Beebe’s figure seemed rather high to me. So I wondered just how big the media discrepancy between the New Big Ten and the New Big 12 was.
I used this list of US TV markets, and focused on the largest 100 (of about 200). Of those top 100 media markets, 23 are in Big Ten states, and 13 are in Big 12 states. I did not include Philadelphia or St. Louis with the Big Ten (I suppose I might have, but I was feeling conservative), and I did not include Nebraska or Colorado in with the Big 12 (for obvious reasons). According to the figures on that website, those 23 Big Ten media markets represent a little more than 17% of the TV households in the US, while the 13 Big 12 media markets represent not quite 10%. Also, the Big Ten stands to earn even more money now that they can hold a conference championship game (because they have at least 12 teams), while the Big 12 will not make as much because they will have to eliminate their championship game (due to conference membership falling short of 12). When you factor in that the Big Ten now has at least four football schools with national television appeal (i.e. schools that generate interest outside of the Big Ten states)- Ohio St., Penn St., Michigan, and Nebraska- while the Big 12 really only has two-Texas and Oklahoma- it’s easy to see why someone (me) might be skeptical about the claim that a Big 12 TV contract could be worth almost as much as the Big Ten’s current deal.
