SEC has bigger presence in the state of Texas than the Big 12.....

[CTOkie]

According to cbssports.com.
The ATM-Tenessee looks to be the big game in the state and ESPN has its Gameday show in College Station. For the third straight year, OU and Texas will not be ranked teams when they meet on Saturday and will have a combined 4 losses between them entering the game.
It also says that Houston, the 4th largest city in America, is now SEC country.....and the article poses a very good question: if OU and Texas leave the Big 12, what will the state of Texas look like. Why wouldn't the Big 12 want the Houston Cougars added to regain the Houston market ?
Beyond Texas getting good again, there's no slam dunk solution for the Big 12 to reverse its fortune and if there were just two name brand teams available, the conference would have moved by now.

 

[JConXtsy]

Hasn't Houston always been SEC country? I thought LSU has always done better in Houston than UT.

 

[CTOkie]

ATM's move to the SEC may have changed that, combined with the Big 12 losing Nebraska and Missouri.

 

[humblesooner]

Problem with adding U of Houston: They don't bring the Houston market.
They don't sell out their 40k+ stadium and didn't have more than about 40-45k at the UH / OU game at Reliant as a showpiece kickoff game.
The biggest B12 recruiters in Houston have always been OSU and A&M.
Even Texas doesn't dominate in Houston.
The UT footprint is the Dallas and San Antonio regions.

 

[JConXtsy]

Houston, being a commuter school, is always going to struggle to create die-hard fans.
They only have a 20% on-campus living stat.
Oklahoma is at 30%, but one must also consider OU's Greek system which comprises 25% of the OU population.

People attend UH for convenience - live, work and study in the same place.
People attend flagship schools because they specifically want to go there.

 

[humblesooner]

Houston, being a commuter school, is always going to struggle to create die-hard fans.
They only have a 20% on-campus living stat.
QUOTE]
But the key is, they aren't football fans. Only 20% on campus but probably 80% within an hour of the stadium. And with around 6 Million people in the Houston metro area now, a lot of alumni are in that same 1 hour radius.
But still, they don't consistently sell out a 40k seat stadium.

 

[PtLavacaSooner]

Hasn't Houston always been SEC country? I thought LSU has always done better in Houston than UT.

The city of Houston is usually split between texASS and aTm, but that changes with the weather...

 

[JConXtsy]

The city of Houston is usually split between texASS and aTm, but that changes with the weather...

You're right.

LSU
2016
3/24 from Texas (Killeen, Houston, DeSoto)

2015
4/25 from Texas (Houston, Keller, Marble Falls, Cedar Hill)

2014
7/23 from Texas (Keller, Lewisville, Arlington, Pearland, San Antonio, Flower Mound, Longview)

2013
0/27

Looks like they do as good or better in Dallas.

2 - Austin area
3 - Houston area
1 - San Antonio area
7 - Dallas area
1 - East Texas

 

[Oklabama]

I understand the knock on Houston is they don't bring enough new TV viewers to the Big 12 market. But if UH is competitive in the B12 as it was after it joined the SW Conference that will help all the other conference members. Miami doesn't have a big home game attendance or at least they didn't years ago. I don't feel a school has to have 85k in the stadium for it to be exciting. What is crazy is being like Rice was in the 70's when I lived there. Rice Stadium held around 80k but Rice never filled more than about 15 - 20k. Hell the enrollment was crazy low. Schools should only have a stadium that they can reasonably fill. Empty seats are a distraction not the number of butts in the seats.

 

[PtLavacaSooner]

I understand the knock on Houston is they don't bring enough new TV viewers to the Big 12 market. But if UH is competitive in the B12 as it was after it joined the SW Conference that will help all the other conference members. Miami doesn't have a big home game attendance or at least they didn't years ago. I don't feel a school has to have 85k in the stadium for it to be exciting. What is crazy is being like Rice was in the 70's when I lived there. Rice Stadium held around 80k but Rice never filled more than about 15 - 20k. Hell the enrollment was crazy low. Schools should only have a stadium that they can reasonably fill. Empty seats are a distraction not the number of butts in the seats.

So when Houston only has 22,500 butts in their 40,000 seats...

 

[humblesooner]

I understand the knock on Houston is they don't bring enough new TV viewers to the Big 12 market. But if UH is competitive in the B12 as it was after it joined the SW Conference that will help all the other conference members. Miami doesn't have a big home game attendance or at least they didn't years ago. I don't feel a school has to have 85k in the stadium for it to be exciting. What is crazy is being like Rice was in the 70's when I lived there. Rice Stadium held around 80k but Rice never filled more than about 15 - 20k. Hell the enrollment was crazy low. Schools should only have a stadium that they can reasonably fill. Empty seats are a distraction not the number of butts in the seats.

TV drives CF today. And, while the networks would be obligated to pony-up if the B12 adds teams, they would not be happy with any of the current candidates, as they don't increase their (TV) viewership, which increases the amount they can charge advertisers.
The B12 could force the hand of the networks, since the contract doesn't say anything about who they can and can't add.
But the conference will lose credibility if they expand just for the sake of expansion.
Next contract won't be nearly as consumer friendly.
Agree you don't want to build a bigger stadium than you can fill.
Butts in the seats aren't directly related to TV contracts. They actually take away from viewership a little (very little in Houston's case).
But, what "butts in the seats" reflects is the overall interest in the program.
For U of H, in a city of 6 million, that interest is not very high.

 

[Oklabama]

I'm just a college football fan so I don't give a shit about what TV people want. I just want to see competitive games. I have no interest watching OU beat up on a Kansas type conference team. Early in the season, I'm much more interested regardless the quality of football because I'm at that point wanting to see the new players and how the team looks. But by October I would rather see OU having to play well in order to win. If Houston can challenge OU it wouldn't matter to me how many butts are in the seats. I hate how money has changed the greatest sport in my life time. I'm old so take that into consideration before you chastise me too much.

 

[CTOkie]

I'm just a college football fan so I don't give a shit about what TV people want. I just want to see competitive games. I have no interest watching OU beat up on a Kansas type conference team. Early in the season, I'm much more interested regardless the quality of football because I'm at that point wanting to see the new players and how the team looks. But by October I would rather see OU having to play well in order to win. If Houston can challenge OU it wouldn't matter to me how many butts are in the seats. I hate how money has changed the greatest sport in my life time. I'm old so take that into consideration before you chastise me too much.

Great post, Bama.
And what you stated is not about your age.
At 67, I'm seeing both my favorite sports (college football and major league baseball) becoming less enjoyable and less a part of my life for many reasons. TV scheduling, the lack of sportsmanship and how the networks glamorize it to appeal to the boorishness of the fans and the peripheral circus at stadiums to hold fans' attention are just a few of my turnoffs.
Funny how discussing topics like this.....and sportsmanship....receive "old school" condemnation.

 

[Mister Moses]

I don't know if the post I read on a Texas A&M forum is factual ? They claimed that two SEC conference games both had higher number of tv viewers than the OU vs Texas game. If true that says a lot about the big 12 and the two biggest brands in that conference. A&M vs Tennessee will surely beat the RRR this year being on fs1 for the early game. What would help the big 12 survive?

 

[PtLavacaSooner]

More people would watch if someone could throw an old tire on the dumpster fire that is the little xii...

Lots of black smoke will draw attention to that which garners minimal interest otherwise...

 

[soonerinlOUisiana]

Houston, being a commuter school, is always going to struggle to create die-hard fans.
They only have a 20% on-campus living stat.
Oklahoma is at 30%, but one must also consider OU's Greek system which comprises 25% of the OU population.

People attend UH for convenience - live, work and study in the same place.
People attend flagship schools because they specifically want to go there.

Another thing that reinforces your point. OU's commuter demographic is quite deceptive. In my years at OU, the school was 80% commuter, but that was people "commuting" from off-campus apartments and, as you noted, Greek houses (apologies to anyone offended by cultural misappropriation). Very few of those people commuted from mom & dad's house.

 

[soonerinlOUisiana]

And one other thing. OU needs to bolt for the SEC next chance it gets. Sister school be damned.

 

[Mister Moses]

This is another SEC and Big 12 comparison. I just now saw this one. I think if you can't beat you need to join them. The aggies really research these facts to joke about the big 12. Mostly directed at Texas it's called The Rivalries board.
http://tamu.247sports.com/tu/MTg5MzE3NXRpbnkyNDc=

 

[Mister Moses]

No I was wrong it's the A&M 247 board that the link came from.

 

[Battalion Ex]

I don't know if the post I read on a Texas A&M forum is factual ? They claimed that two SEC conference games both had higher number of tv viewers than the OU vs Texas game. If true that says a lot about the big 12 and the two biggest brands in that conference.

If he was talking about last season, I fear that my brother Aggie is mistaken.

Here a link. And here are the SEC games that had more viewers that OU-t.u. last season (numbers are millions of viewers):

Bama-Florida 12.76 (SEC title game)
LSU-Bama 11.06
Auburn-Bama 9.30
Bama-Ole Miss 7.61
Georgia-Bama 7.30
Tennessee-Bama 6.97
Florida-LSU 6.78
Texas A&M-Bama 5.76
Miss. St.-Bama 5.40
Georgia-Florida 5.02

OU-t.u. 4.99

Now get out there and kick that ugly orange ass!

And after you do that, tell the SEC that you'd like to join. We will welcome you.