Stewart Mandel's CFB Kings, Barons, Knights, Peasants ($, Athletic)
Long story short - he ranks all power 5 programs based on admittedly subjective things like how much people watch them/how many randoms could recognize their helmet and some objective things like have they ever made the CFP and how often do they finish in the top 25. He's done this every 5 years since 2007. Since it's paywalled I don't want to summarize too much of it, but Michigan (and Ohio) are both "kings," no other big ten teams are, but the top ranks of the list are dominated by the Big Ten and SEC. Also, Alabama has newly been anointed Emperors, which checks out.
This is always an interesting read every five years. I can't really argue with any of the rankings.
On a related note, I was listening to the Mandel / Feldman podcast today where they were talking about this and they got on a tangent about bloggers and Mandel said something to the effect of, "Mgoblog? Oh, that guy hates me." Made me chuckle.
Hard to disagree with his rankings.
Only thing that stuck out to me was his comment about Alabama having the best TV ratings. I honestly thought UM was #1 in that category. I'll have to do some checking to see. I know UM/OSU is almost always the highest-rated regular season game, and UM/MSU is usually up there as well.
Edit: I did not intend to reply to your comment Kilgore. Rookie mistake.
That was my understanding as well - wasn't Michigan involved in something like 3 of the top 5 rating football games last year?
Yeah, but Bama tends to be in the SEC title game which gets major eyeballs. And they have 2-3 games a year where people think someone is gona rise up, and they beat them 44-3.
Plus, they play in the playoff constantly... so just by default of 1. playing more games, 2. playing mroe big games and 3. being in the playoff on the national stage... i think its fair.
UM-OSU is usually up there in the most watched, but looking back until I can find data for most watched games each season (2011), it’s only the most watched regular season game in 2016, 2018, and 2021 (ie the years where it was a defacto B1G East title game & playoff elimination game). In the other years it’s usually a big Bama regular season game and they usually have a handful of other regular season games in the top 10.
In our best year this century, we were the 2nd most watched program after OSU (with a decent gap between us) and Bama a close 3rd. Looking at an average of 2015-19 (so Harbaugh’s tenure excluding both his worst season in 2020 and his best season in 2021), we were the 3rd most watched program, with a big gap between us Bama and OSU. So in an average season, Bama and OSU are probably the most watched college football teams with us in 3rd.
There's no way Bama draws the most eyeballs. It's just not statistically possible. I watch as much CFB as anyone and I coulda given a fuck less about Bama/UGA #2.
Notre Shame, Michigan, Texas are the elite class for viewership
PSU, Ohio, Bama, USC, OU are one short step down the ladder
LSU, UF, Miami, FSU, Nebrasker, UGA are another rung down
Then there's everyone else.
The numbers don’t lie. You can’t just use feelingsball to rank viewership lol. There’s a lot of casual fans who are only watching the top 10 teams and matchups. And with Bama & OSU’s juggernaut level of success over the last decade combined with their historical level of success & relevance, they probably have gained a large number of recent fans in addition the existing huge fan bases they’ve always had. The numbers make sense. Notre Dame, Michigan, and Texas probably get the highest number of views regardless what their onfield success looks like.
So you basically typed about 100 words to say - "I agree".
"There's no way Bama draws the most eyeballs. It's just not statistically possible. I watch as much CFB as anyone and I coulda given a fuck less about Bama/UGA #2."
I, a Michigan fan probably not from the South, watch more Big Ten than SEC and that must apply to the rest of the country as well.
#Engagement
In defense of one of our Big Ten brethren, I thought relegating Purdue to the Peasant category was a little harsh. Based on their huge upsets of just the last few years, I would have Knighted them.
The one that I've got to question is Nebraska as a baron. This is a program that hasn't reached a bowl in a few years. I don't know they're on par with say, PSU.
But they were soooooo good in the 90s - not like Alabama now, but like the U in the '80s. I think Nebraska there is fair. Random people in Montana are DEFINITELY Nebraska fans, just like they're Bulls fans or Cowboys fans or Yankees fans.
On the flip side, i feel like Oregon is a King now. I get that they've never won a natty - but their last 20 years has absolutely made them a part of "the conversation" in CFB. They're one of the few programs to have won a playoff game - the other 5 all did win the natty. They changed the game on the field, and their relationship with Nike led to uniformzz being the norm everywhere - even at our dear tradition bound alma mater. Even in their down years, they're contending for the Pac12 - a weak league, sure, but they've had 5 wins over top 10 teams the past 5 seasons, 3 of those were top 5. They had a stretch of bad when Harbaugh first came and Washington won the Pac12, but otherwise, that Nike money has absolutely made them one of the kings of the sport
Re: Oregon. Zero national championships ever --- that's an automatic disqualifier for King status, IMO.
I know they've been close. But zero is still zero - zero years ever where they were the King of the sport.
They talk about this in the podcast, specifically in regards to Nebraska. Bruce questions some teams not being on the list, but as Stew says repeatedly, and I think reasonably, it's not really about on-field performance. It's about the cachet and eyeballs. Nebraska against a good program still gets a lot more viewers than what other programs with their recent hitory will fetch.
Where do great sketch artists rank???
They dropped from Kings to Barons, on account of only 4 top 25 finishes in the last dozen years - despite 3 of those being 11 win seasons. That is a crazy stat to me
Once OU and Texas leave, none of the BIG XII teams (assuming none of the conference's additions are at this level, which I think is a fair assumption, UC, UCF, Houston & BYU all seem like Knights or Peasants) are at the Baron level.
That includes Oklahoma State. Still a Knight. The interesting thing on Okie State - they have the 3rd longest streak among Power 5 conference teams in terms of most consecutive winning seasons (16). Only Oklahoma & Wisconsin have more. You could win some bar bets with that fact.
That stat alone, IMO, makes a case for Baron status. It will be interesting to see if they do rise to that level with the Big XII reconstitution.
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(FWIW, the 2006 season Independence Bowl featured 6-6 Alabama vs 6-6 Oklahoma State. Oklahoma State won. So that means Oklahoma State's streak is at 16, and Alabama's is "only" at 15).
I guess Nebraska won't leave because of money, but it would be interesting to see them back in the Big 12. Pretty sure Texas was the main reason they left, although they did have a rivalry with Oklahoma that still would be off the table.