Illini Football 2024

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Dan

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Welcome to the Illinois Football 2024 & College Football news thread :illinois:


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2024 Illini Football (4-1, 1-1)
DateOpponentResult
Thu, Aug 29Eastern IllinoisW 45-0
Sat, Sept 7KansasW 23-17
Sat, Sept 14Central MichiganW 30-9
Fri, Sept 20@NebraskaW 31-24 OT
Sat, Sept 28@Penn StateL 7-21
Sat, Oct 12Purdue2:30pm FS1
Sat, Oct 19Michigan
Sat, Oct 26@Oregon2:30pm/3:00pm/6:30pm
Sat, Nov 2Minnesota
Sat, Nov 16Michigan State
Sat, Nov 23@Rutgers
Sat, Nov 30Northwestern
(Wrigley Field)

All times CT
 
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"In other broadcast network action, NBC drew 3.09 million for Illinois-Penn State in primetime, up from Michigan State-Iowa last year (2.17M)."

To put this in perspective for some folks, these are the ratings so far this year for the following TV slots that the Big Ten has seemingly either promoted heavily or use as a primetime slot of some kind. The colors correspond to the games in those windows:

Friday night game on FOX*
11:00 am on FOX (Big Noon Kickoff)
2:30 pm on CBS**
6:30 pm on NBC

9.19M for Texas at Michigan
6.32M for USC at Michigan
5.67M for Colorado at Nebraska
5.03M for Alabama at Wisconsin
4.21M for Illinois at Nebraska
3.96M for Marshall at Ohio State
3.60M for Minnesota at Michigan

3.09M for Illinois at Penn State
2.99M for Penn State at West Virginia
2.97M for Akron at Ohio State
2.58M for Arizona at Kansas State
2.56M for Fresno State at Michigan
2.28M for Iowa State at Iowa
2.28M for Notre Dame at Purdue

1.93M for Washington at Rutgers
1.89M for Iowa at Minnesota
1.83M for North Carolina at Minnesota
1.29M for Indiana at UCLA


So, for an example back-of-the-napkin analysis of sorts:

1. Indiana/UCLA was a particularly bad NBC primetime rating, as every game in that slot drew close to or over 2 million. Illinois/Nebraska drew almost 1.5 times as many viewers, and Nebraska/Colorado drew almost 3.5 times as many.

2. Illinois/Penn State was a pretty great rating in that time slot, given we were going up against the absolute behemoth of Georgia/Alabama - whose nearly 12 million viewers is far and away the best rating of the season, easily passing Texas/Michigan.

3. Illinois/Nebraska remains an incredibly impressive rating for that Friday night spot. It drew over 120% more than this week's Washington/Rutgers game, and it outdrew multiple Big Noon Kickoff ratings featuring Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State.

* I included North Carolina/Minnesota for Week One in the Friday Night Fox category, as it was on a Thursday but pretty much marketed as the same type of slot.
** For some reason, Wisconsin/USC on CBS has not released a rating from last week.
 
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Big, big win for the SEC over the Big Ten in Week Five.

Washington-Rutgers getting beaten that badly by Miami-VT and the anemic late night number for Oregon-UCLA really show how much slop no one really wants got added to the Big Ten inventory in order to secure the USC-Michigan type gems.

(Not sure what's up with USC-Wisconsin being listed as "not disclosed" there. It's network television, surely a rating has been released?)

EDIT: Who knows how reliable this is, but found it on Twitter

USC-Wisconsin in the 2:30 CBS slot losing to Oklahoma-Auburn AND Colorado-UCF will have Tony Pettiti reaching for the Pepto Bismol. Yikes.

Also I guarantee you there are conversations happening in the Big Ten and SEC league offices about getting one of their teams to hire Coach Prime.
 
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I'll be the first to say to take this worth a grain of salt, and the list below is just for fun! Not only does your rating depend mostly on where the networks place you, but there are also multiple games (e.g., on Peacock or ACC Network) where a rating is unavailable and thus does not factor into a team's average.

With that said ... average viewers per game for each Big Ten team through Week Five (in thousands).

USC: 4,606
Michigan: 4,530
Nebraska: 3,114
Ohio State: 2,884
ILLINOIS: 2,064
Minnesota: 1,987
Penn State: 1,871
UCLA: 1,665
Oregon: 1,582
Purdue: 1,309
Iowa: 1,303
Rutgers: 1,055
Washington: 931
Michigan State: 829
Maryland: 526
Northwestern: 526
Indiana: 520

One example of how these can be misleading below, using Minnesota:

1,825 vs. North Carolina (Thursday night on FOX)
N/A vs. Rhode Island (Peacock)
632 vs. Nevada (BTN, but "shared" rating with Michigan State vs. Prairie View A&M)
1,892 vs. Iowa (NBC)
3,600 vs. Michigan (FOX)

For one, it is very difficult to tell what value Minnesota inherently is bringing, as its biggest draws are with two teams that draw well by themselves - Iowa and especially Michigan. Secondly, its most "representative" rating is the 632k on BTN, but it was on at the same time as the MSU game ... so which team is more "responsible" for that rating? Third, I am willing to bet Minnesota/Rhode Island on Peacock had VERY few viewers, haha ... and it is currently not dragging down Minnesota's average one bit, as it's not publicly available.

So ... you can't really tell one thing about Minnesota's "brand" from this stat. :ROFLMAO: And that's why I think everyone should be very skeptical when they see lists like this.
 
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I'll be the first to say to take this worth a grain of salt, and the list below is just for fun! Not only does your rating depend mostly on where the networks place you, but there are also multiple games (e.g., on Peacock or ACC Network) where a rating is unavailable and thus does not factor into a team's average.

With that said ... average viewers per game for each Big Ten team through Week Five (in thousands).

USC: 4,606
Michigan: 4,530
Nebraska: 3,114
Ohio State: 2,884
ILLINOIS: 2,064
Minnesota: 1,987
Penn State: 1,871
UCLA: 1,665
Oregon: 1,582
Purdue: 1,309
Iowa: 1,303
Rutgers: 1,055
Washington: 931
Michigan State: 829
Maryland: 526
Northwestern: 526
Indiana: 520

One example of how these can be misleading below, using Minnesota:

1,825 vs. North Carolina (Thursday night on FOX)
N/A vs. Rhode Island (Peacock)
632 vs. Nevada (BTN, but "shared" rating with Michigan State vs. Prairie View A&M)
1,892 vs. Iowa (NBC)
3,600 vs. Michigan (FOX)

For one, it is very difficult to tell what value Minnesota inherently is bringing, as its biggest draws are with two teams that draw well by themselves - Iowa and especially Michigan. Secondly, its most "representative" rating is the 632k on BTN, but it was on at the same time as the MSU game ... so which team is more "responsible" for that rating? Third, I am willing to bet Minnesota/Rhode Island on Peacock had VERY few viewers, haha ... and it is currently not dragging down Minnesota's average one bit, as it's not publicly available.

So ... you can't really tell one thing about Minnesota's "brand" from this stat. :ROFLMAO: And that's why I think everyone should be very skeptical when they see lists like this.
Methodologically the way to do this will be to just compare the network games. The new B1G TV deal makes that a pretty easy and high-sample size way to make that an apples-to-apples comparison, especially as we start to get multi-year datasets.

Quibbling around the edges of cupcake games on cable and streaming is kinda missing the forest for the trees.
 
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This makes a little more sense, but still, I would shocked if there aren't a good chunk of programs that are fully funding 105 roster spots.

One thing I'm wondering is.....will these scholarships and NIL get caught up in Title IX again (could be why they limit it less than 105). Has that been fleshed out? I can't tell you how much impact it will have but I have to think there's a possibility this goes back to the courts via Title IX. Illinois will be quite conservative regarding pushing the limit.

Having a max at 105 player limit is a big deal as well. They talked of allowing players 5 seasons over 5 years to play vs. the play 4 in 5 now. I have to think that will come sooner than later.
 
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