http://www.sportsmediawatch.com/college-football-tv-ratings/

My source is the link.

I'm sure somebody with more time and maybe a statistics program could run the regression analysis and tell us the correlations between channel, time, and team for those numbers. But it looks pretty clear to me that viewership is driven largely by time and place, at least for most games.

For instance, BYU's LEAST viewed game was vs. Texas on FS1. I have no doubt BYU vs. Texas generally had more interest than BYU's other games. Even if only because Texas has more fans than any of BYU's other opponents. But more people watched Utah State Vs. BYU on ESPN than BYU vs. Texas on FS1. Just interesting.

I also find it interesting how many "Big" programs will put up really small numbers when the game is on the wrong channel, the wrong time, or the wrong opponent.

OK St vs. Kansas drew less than 300K viewers on FS1 on a Saturday afternoon, for example. If a BYU game drew less than 300K viewers, somebody here would be screaming about how independence was doomed to fail because nobody cares about BYU.

My conclusion is that the BYU/ESPN relationship works well for ESPN because BYU is a "good enough" draw to pull at least average numbers for a given time slot and channel, and BYU has the flexibility to play those time slots and channels. BYU has a lot of potential to garner more viewers if it is playing very well. A pessimist will say that means BYU is merely "Filler" for ESPN. An optimist will see that both institutions are benefitting, which is great business for everyone.