Well Washington State and Sam Houston are not P4 anymore and I'd conceed to you that Houston and Cinci have more to earn than Oregon and Auburn have to lose. However, the original point someone made was that if you're not in the top 12 or 14 I think we mapped out, you're basically still just the B12 or ACC, just in a different blazer. And, media wise, that does tend to play out. We could argue attendance and stadiums and sure, there are clear differences regionally on who cares about their sport. It's obvious that some programs fill their stadiums and some don't. And its obvious that some fill them to 50-60 and some fill them to 70-80. That isn't really where I was getting at with this though, which is, after the giant brands that always bring big numbers, what's left?
What's left tends to be defined by fan passion, record, and who you play. The knock against the Big 12 was they only drew big when they played Texas and Oklahoma, but, at the same time, their flagship slots were always filled by Texas and Oklahoma, so where was the data supposed to come from? The same argument holds true with any conference though. Auburn draws like shit, unless it plays someone big. Does the stadium rock. Fuck ya. But if Auburn was bigger than B12/ACC caliber, that Arkansas game would have hit much higher than 2m. Florida, who can't win a fight against a box full of kittens, drew 2.6m against Mississippi State on ESPN.
Looking at the top 25 games of last year, Auburn appeared once. The Iron Bowl. Oregon appeared twice, their top game was against Colorado in the regular season (so who pulled that interest, Nike or Prime?) and the second game was the Pac12 champ game against Washington, which is kind of free money. Colorado appeared five times for fuck all knows why reasons, against Oregon, Colorado State, Nebraska, TCU, and USC, so it could be argued Colorado was the top media dog in the Duck's match up that elevated the numbers.
Last year representation in top 25 games, (this includes post season - all games over 7m):
Six: Alabama
Five: Michigan, Colorado
Four: Ohio State, Texas
Demarcation line
Three: Penn State (Ohio State, Michigan and the Peach Bowl against Ole Miss), Washington (all were in the post season)
Two: Oregon (Colorado and the Pac12 Champ game), FSU (both were against SEC foes), LSU, Georgia (Both of Georgia and LSU's big games were against FSU and Alabama)
One: Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, TCU, Missouri, Nebraska, USC, Colorado State, Iowa, Auburn, Tennessee, Notre Dame, Ole Miss (all of these games were against someone above them in this list)