It's not a knock on BYU to say they're not Texas, Oklahoma, Notre Dame in terms of following/viewers. Very very few teams are. But when you try to argue they are seen as basically equivalent, it just undermines your credibility on every other point you make.

Over the last 4 seasons BYU has had 38.4M total (non-unique) viewers. Oklahoma has had 232 million in the same span. Notre Dame had 213M, including over 70 million viewers tune in last year alone.

Notre Dame gets 2.5M viewers in an early season match against Ball State. BYU has exactly 2 games that have reached that kind of viewership - USC and Wisconsin. It's only the 37th biggest Notre Dame game.

Oklahoma drew 5.144M against Houston. BYU got 1.14M against Houston. If ESPN thinks BYU is similar to Oklahoma, they're flat out dumb.