I get that BYU has more market share in the SLC market. But that's irrelevant. You're making too much of BYU's fan base and how it translates to money. Media like Fox, ESPN and the Pac-12 sell to advertisers or media buyers who look at target markets and household reach. They don't analyze each individual market the way you do, they don't bother discerning market share within a market or how many particular fans will be viewing individual games over a geographical region.

It's bought in bulk. Broad assumptions.

This has never changed. This is why the Pac-12 cared only about markets delivered. And why they hit such a huge homerun with their current deal. Which is ironic b/c CBers, equipped with the same biased information you provide, predicted that Pac expansion would be a flop.

BYU doesn't really have that large of a fan base. Granted, it is bigger than Utah's. Significantly. But it pales in comparison to the large, traditional schools in the BCS. So the BYU advantage you describe is overstated, and really insignificant for a billion dollar tv deal.

What BYU does have however is the LDS population. Which gives BYU a surprisingly elastic fan base. One that can potentially compare to some of the larger schools. BUT these are not football fans, they tune b/c it's BYU as a rep of the church on national tv in national news. This came out big with Jimmer.

This is the group that shows up to watch BYU-OU or even BYU-Miami (back in the day). But once BYU loses a game or drops out of the national picture, these guys disappear. They don't show up to watch BYU play UNM or even OSU or UTEP in the bowl game.

Which is why your bowl ratings aren't that special. However, ESPN is wisely tapping this market but setting up high profile games against big names. It's brilliant. This is where BYU is great as an independent and probably better off.

I think you erroneously mistake this group as the group that tunes into every single game as die-hard supporters and thus, over-state their value.

Here's a link to some interesting data on BYU vs. UU road game attendance.

http://www.utefans.net/message.php?id=1197243

There isn't this huge contrast that you're alluding to. Also, note that Utah's recent road attendance vs. BCS teams has been phenomenal. @michigan, @ND, @Oregon

You can't tell me that Utah has zero national appeal.

At the end of the day, Utah gave the Pac no reason to look at anyone else. That has nothing to do with BYU. Which is so strange why BYU fans narcissistically claim it was blatant discrimination. BYU's