Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Once again BC tops TV ratings

Per ESPN's tweet, the Emerald Bowl was the highest rated game of the weekend. USC certainly helped, but one thing that is consistent in all of our bowls, is that BC brings in the eyeballs. Now if we can ever convert that into tickets...

18 comments:

Bravesbill said...

Holy crap I absolutely hate Al. Can this clown draw up a play to beat halfcourt pressure. Has this clown not realized that full court pressure has absolutely killed BC all year? Can this clown get his team to come out of the half with a little fire in their bellies for once? This is ridiculous. No adjustments, no coaching, and once again this clown sits on his hands refusing to call a timeout while his halftime lead goes from 21 to 10 points in less than 5 minutes. What an unbelievably horrible coach Al is. And I use the term "coach" rather loosely.

Anfield10 said...

I think it is too strong to say he is a horrible coach. I agree Al has some pretty severe shortcomings, ones that inexplicably arise again and again. But I do not think he is a horrible coach, as he has consistently turned unheralded recruits and players into teams that consistently challenge for conference titles and who continually have winning and NCAA tourney seasons. I am not trying to make excuses - Al does seem to have flaws that continually prevent the team from pushing on to that "next" level. However, horrible coach is too far for someone who has put together so many winning seasons in major conferences - you don't accidentally stumble into those, especially without blue chip players.

Bravesbill said...

In order to be a coach, you have to make adjustments. In-game adjustments and game to game adjustments. How does he let BC constantly blow huge double digit leads in the second half like today? How does he let his team come out of the half consistently flat? How has he not managed to draw up one play to break the press in all his seasons at BC. BC has been killed by the press every season, and he doesn't seem to care much. He just inbounds the ball and has his PG get trapped on the inline or sideline all the time. Ridiculous. BC was lucky to hang on tonight again.

matthew2 said...

marathon not a sprint...nice w tonight.

4 losses this year. northern iowa 10-1 rhode island 10-1 harvard 8-3.. st joes not so much. RPIs respectively -- 37, 18, 26, 111.

(OURS = 118)

I know it's early, but the sky isn't falling. No terrible losses, really. Time to put the foot on the gas pedal with our new starting lineup and conference play around the corner.


reference http://statsheet.com/mcb/rankings/RPI .. i looked through other as well, most were similar

Andrew said...

Bravesbill-
I have a lot of problems with Skinner too but I think your post is rather extreme. This game highlighted a lot of Skinner's issues but some of your criticisms are unfair.

Although it took a while, Skinner ultimately made a lot of adjustments. The press was a non-factor over the last 8 minutes once we finally started inbounding it to the unguarded big men by half court. Also the lineup that won the game down the stretch was very unorthodox. When have we seen Southern, Elmore, and Roche on the floor for an extended period of time and play effectively? Elmore was particularly effective and Roche made some important plays.

Let's give Skinner some credit for the first half which may have been the best half of basketball this season. And even though it probably took too long, he made some necessary adjustments.

mod34b said...

Let's get back on topic. Here is an update on the Emerald Bowl ratings. Not bad, not bad at'll.

"The Emerald Bowl was broadcast nationally on ESPN in prime time on Saturday night and featured a match up between the University of Southern California Trojans and Boston College Eagles, playing for the first time in more than 20 years. The television rating of 5.34 was not only the highest in Emerald Bowl history, but also the second highest rated ESPN football bowl game ever watched. This rating translates into over 5.2 million households and over 8 million viewers for the game.

The game also attracted a sellout crowd, the third in the last four years of the Emerald Bowl."

matthew2 said...

I think USC deserves most of the credit, let's be honest. When has the Emerald Bowl EVER had a program like USC??

mod34b said...

Yes, Matthew, all the credit to USC and not a crumb to BC. Thank you USC for letting stand next to you.

matthew2 said...

Now that you've gotten in your snide remark, how do you think the bowl would have done if USC played a Northwestern or Missouri or Ole Miss?

Probably not much different.

What if BC had played one of those 3 teams?

Probably noticeably different.

Tell me if you disagree, I'd really like to know. Without fighting, or citing silly things. Just tell me. please.


I'm not saying they were a much better team than us. I'm just saying, they are more of a draw for the casual fan. The casual fan watches the Minnesota Twins play the NY Yankees in the division series because of the Yankees and not the Twins.

Even when the Twins are better. And I happen to think the Twins have a great franchise.

Bravesbill said...

Andrew--I will give Al credit for finally changing up his starting lineup. He normally hates to do it but starting his 5 best players, regardless of size, made all the difference in the world in the first half. BC was much more athletic and the offense flowed much smoother with that lineup on the court. The second half was absolutely brutal though.

Bravesbill said...

Mod--the game got such high ratings because USC played in the game. USC is a national team, BC is merely a regional team. There is no way the game would have had such great ratings if they played AZ or even Stanford instead of USC. And the fact that the Emerald Bowl was the highest rated game of the weekend means nothing. All the other games during the weekend were not interesting and did not have good matchups. Plus, most of the teams were plain terrible. The Emerald Bowl got the best ratings because it was the best game of the weekend. Put the Emerald Bowl against some of the other bowls coming up and it would not come within sniffing distance of beating them.

Dan said...

Ultimately it really doesn't matter who brought the eyeballs. I think it's safe to say 8 million viewers is more than we get on our 360 or Raycom feeds right guys?

Those 8 million people saw a tough overachieving Eagles squad hang with USC til the 4th quarter and the game was called by a BC grad who highlighted the strengths of the program without being an over effusive homer. All in all it was a pretty good advertisement to 8 million people of which 7,700,000 have probably never sat and watched a full BC game. I'll take it.

Dan said...

Disclaimer: The following comment is meant for discussion purposes and is not an endorsment. This comment also stems from the fact that it is 1 am an I've been up since 5am.

There is a 99% chance this will never happen, but if we're gonna chase a fired coach for our open but not really open OC position, why not Charlie Weis?

Yes he is a Domer and usually sits far right on Douche Spectrum, but the thought of a Spaz/McGovern Defense teamed with a Weis offense doesn't seem like a terrible idea.
Also consider:

1) He handled the Herzy situation with class.
2) Sitting in the booth away from the spotlight is where he excels.
3) The strong endorsements he got from Clausen, Tate, Floy etc... even when he was getting fired.
4) ND will be paying him a bazillion dollars for the next thousand years so while unlikely, it'd be fun to get him at a discount on their dime.
5) I think there was a Boston area pro QB he helped develop but his name is escaping me...

chicagofire1871 said...

With respect to the television numbers and who deserves the credit, don't downplay BC's importance to that number. Eagle bowl games have always done very well ('08 Music City Bowl may be the one exception).

At the Emerald Bowl lunch a few days before the game, it was highlighted to us that the Miami-Cal game from '08 was the 8th most watched game in ESPN history, so you tell me....are Miami and Cal bigger than USC and BC? Let's take some deserved credit here folks.

blist said...

Re. Charlie Weis, I like him, but ND was so bad, I fear what he brings to the table for BC. I bet he goes to the Jets - a northeast team with a QB that needs developing. Isn't Charlie a Jersey guy anyway?
Re. ratings - BC always does well,TV-wise. Sure a lot of the Emerald ratings were USC, but a lot of it was the novel matchup, but also b/c people outside of Newton like BC in general and you have NE, NY, NJ for with lots of grads.
And, I don't think I need to say it, BC IS a national school (i.e. students pretty consistently from every state)

America said...

BC consistently draws big rateings in Bowl games and Championship games. We also should get a lot of the credit.

mod34b said...

If you'd like to see actual ratings data for the last 4 years of so for college bowls, see this link:

http://www.bcsfootball.org/bcsfb/tvratings

BC has just ok TV ratings for its bowls over the yeears. Nothing that stands out.

The 5.34 rating for this year, however, is better than every non-BCS bowl from last year, except one and just about equal to the Orange Bowl ratings from last year. Regardless of who gets credit -- who cares -- its great exposure for BC, a national team, and not the little "golden eagles" overachievers that BIG Sport Media tries to nail us with time and time again.

However, the BCS bowls blow away the non BCS bowls, and this 5.34 rating is probaly not even in the top 50 bowl ratings, maybe not even top 100.

mod34b said...

Here is the BC bowl data for the past several years:

2009 -- Emerald USC-Boston College 5.34 rating, 40,121 attendance

2008 -- Music City Vanderbilt-Boston College 2.80 rating 54,250 attendance

2007 -- Champs Sports Boston Col.-Michigan St. 3.69 rating 46,554 attend

2006 -- Meineke Car Care Navy-Boston College 3.87 52,303

2005 -- MPC Computers Boston College-Boise State 2.33 30,493

2004 -- Continental Tire Boston College-North Carolina 1.8 70,412

2003 -- San Francisco Boston College-Colorado State 1.23 25,621

2002 -- Motor City Boston College-Toledo 1.9 ratings (no attendance data)