Looking at the viewership numbers for VT it doesn't look good (Used numbers from Zach Miller)
This is 2020-2024 data
The following table is a combined number of TV viewers for those 5 seasons and it's not good for VT.
| ACC Rank | University | Viewers | Avg National Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Notre Dame | 13.21 M | 5 |
| 2 | Florida State | 10.75 M | 17 |
| 3 | Clemson | 10.40 M | 17 |
| 4 | Miami FL | 6.88 M | 33 |
| 5 | Louisville | 4.43 M | 45 |
| 6 | Georgia Tech | 4.57 M | 48 |
| 7 | Stanford | 4.08 M | 49 |
| 8 | North Carolina | 3.92 M | 50 |
| 9 | NC State | 3.33 M | 53 |
| 10 | Pittsburgh | 3.17 M | 54 |
| 11 | Virginia Tech | 2.97 M | 59 |
| 12 | Syracuse | 2.91 M | 59 |
| 13 | California | 2.79 M | 59 |
| 14 | Virginia | 2.35 M | 66 |
| 15 | Wake Forest | 2.20 M | 67 |
| 16 | Boston College | 2.08 M | 68 |
| 17 | Duke | 2.27 M | 72 |
| 18 | SMU | 1.25 M | 77 |
Total ACC data over 5 years, rank is national rank.
| 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | University | Viewers | Rank | University | Viewers | Rank | University | Viewers | Rank | University | Viewers | Rank | University | Viewers |
| 4 | Notre Dame | 3.61M | 9 | Notre Dame | 2.84M | 6 | Notre Dame | 3.30M | 7 | Florida State | 3.58M | 12 | Notre Dame* | 2.51M |
| 9 | Clemson | 2.67M | 19 | Clemson | 1.74M | 10 | Clemson | 2.59M | 8 | Notre Dame | 3.46M | 18 | Miami FL | 2.401M |
| 14 | Florida State | 2.23M | 25 | Florida State | 1.27M | 15 | Florida State | 2.03M | 22 | Clemson | 1.70M | 21 | Georgia Tech | 1.89M |
| 23 | Miami | 1.503M | 35 | Miami | 1.038M | 43 | NC State | 881K | 31 | Louisville | 1.36M | 24 | Clemson | 1.70M |
| 25 | Stanford | 1.43M | 36 | North Carolina | 1.032M | 45 | California | 857K | 32 | Miami FL | 1.33M | 25 | Florida State | 1.64M |
| 31 | Virginia Tech | 1.26M | 46 | Stanford | 778K | 46 | North Carolina | 849K | 33 | 1.32M | 48 | Louisville | 734K | |
| 33 | Louisville | 1.22M | 51 | Louisville | 616K | 47 | Stanford | 846K | 46 | North Carolina | 966K | 54 | Virginia Tech | 605.8K |
| 44 | Pittsburgh | 781K | 52 | Virginia | 611K | 48 | Syracuse | 841K | 53 | Georgia Tech | 766K | 55 | Boston College | 582K |
| 45 | North Carolina | 749K | 54 | Pittsburgh | 550K | 49 | Georgia Tech | 837K | 54 | Syracuse | 703K | 57 | NC State | 557K |
| 47 | California | 730K | 56 | Wake Forest | 526K | 56 | Pittsburgh | 650K | 56 | Pittsburgh | 690K | 58 | California | 526K |
| 49 | NC State | 703K | 57 | NC State | 525K | 59 | Miami FL | 608K | 58 | Virginia | 663K | 59 | Pittsburgh | 497K |
| 51 | Syracuse | 694K | 61 | Georgia Tech | 459K | 60 | Wake Forest | 523K | 59 | NC State | 661K | 62 | Stanford | 478K |
| 56 | Georgia Tech | 615K | 62 | Virginia Tech | 447K | 63 | Louisville | 496K | 61 | Boston College | 617K | 63 | Syracuse | 452K |
| 59 | Virginia | 592K | 76 | California | 222K | 70 | Boston College | 322K | 64 | Stanford | 549K | 73 | 359K | |
| 67 | 410K | 77 | Syracuse | 219K | 72 | SMU | 312K | 67 | Wake Forest | 464.8K | 74 | SMU | 341K | |
| 69 | Boston College | 403K | 81 | SMU | 164K | 76 | Virginia Tech | 264K | 71 | California | 450K | 75 | North Carolina | 328K |
| 71 | Wake Forest | 398K | 84 | Boston College | 156K | 79 | Virginia | 237K | 73 | Virginia Tech | 398K | 80 | Wake Forest | 292K |
| 77 | SMU | 232K | 97 | 64K | 91 | 115.7K | 83 | SMU | 201K | 82 | Virginia | 248K | ||
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Comments
Well, if we could get games on a channel we could watch.....
We could if we were good football. That's the point - be better at football and you get better TV slots
Will it though? Im worried it wont be as drastic an increase as we are assuming. They will always throw FSU Clemson and Miami on the cable even when they are straight up trash that year. I could see us slotting in where Louisville is if we win like we should. The drop off from from the top 3 is pretty drastic.
Why is notre dame even in this. Of course they'll be number one every single one of their games in on TV. Do they still have that tv contract with NBC? The ACC should be investigated for fraud and negligence for not forcing Noter Dame football as a full ACC member. Join or go kick rocks.
Yes, Clemson/FSU/Miami will always have an advantage HOWEVER that advantage appears more stark because Clemson and FSU have both had playoff runs in the last five years. Clemson's viewership has been dropping since 2022. In 2024, they were passed by GT. FSU viewership was cut in half from 2023 (playoff run) to 2024 (2-10 LOL)
Notre Damn viewership is kinda irrelevant. They only get paid out for games played on the road at ACC teams. So in the past, if there 200 home games played at ACC stadiums, the average revenue for each game would be calculated, and ND would get paid 3 games worth. Now, I imagine (but don't know for fact) that ND will get paid based on how much revenue those games bring in.
Have to ask, was this intentional or is it just a well-placed typo? Either way it is good and I got a good chuckle out of it:
"Notre Damn viewership is kinda irrelevant."
LOL, I had to read it a few times to figure out the typo...
Damn, this will leave a mark
This is what sucking gets you
I still say its bullshit to put a team people will watch on impossible channels to watch and then say oh look nobody watched
Yeah same way people are saying "look at the SEC killing it with viewership" when almost all of the ABC primetime slots have been SEC teams
Not just ABC but also ESPN and ESPN 2.
They have ALL the ABC games tomorrow
I said this when they proposed this "deal". It will not bring depth and parity to the conference. It will allow the rich to get richer (was a terrible knee jerk response to the lawsuit). If you're good and popular you'll get viewership and therefore more money. If you're not, you won't. The way to strengthen the conference is equity pay or to use this model upside down (like the NFL, the worst team gets the highest draft pick). What's the one thing you can do to get better...money.
As they always put Miami, FSU, and Clemson on prime channels of course they are going to get better numbers.
Notre Dame should not be part of this chart due to their separate contract, period, full stop.
As others have said, when we get pushed to the CW I am pretty sure we get worse numbers than even the ACC channel.
Until ND is a FULL member of the conference they should absolutely jack shit of a say in anything related to revenue distribution or TV time related to football. Unfortunately we need them WAY more than they need us.
It's a two-way street though; when we (VT) are ass and we play Notre Dame, we don't get put on the CW, we get put on ESPN or at least ACCN Primetime. And that increases our viewership numbers.
And it has been since 21 since we last played them. So much for once every three years.
Has this been a game we needed to see lately?
Still comes down to "Win your damn games".
I mean, we're celebrating beating Cal like it's 1999.
The Cal game should help our TV numbers. The only other game on was North Texas and they seemed to have won handily.
North Texas was only up 27-20 going into 4th quarter. Charlotte was winning until mid 3rd quarter.
4th quarter North Texas scored 27 points.
As bad as we have been this season, any and all wins should be celebrated bigly
A bit of a rebound for us in 2024. Trend could continue w the staff dynamics going on.