Arkansas Bigger Fish Than Razorback Fans Think

It will probably shock Hogs faithful to see exactly how prominent program is when it comes to television ratings

Author:
Kent Smith
Publish date:
Aug 8, 2023 2:32 AM EDT

In this story:

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – When it comes to its place in the college football world, the Arkansas fan base can be a bit self-deprecating, and that's putting it lightly. Perhaps it's because of years of being beat over the head with seemingly every type of quality of life poll imaginable only to find themselves at or near the bottom. As a result, a major trait of a Hog football fan is the ability to hyperfocus on the negative while literally forgetting about the good times or misremembering it as something worse than it was.

That's why when trying to imagine their standing when it comes to contributing to the massive television contract the SEC boasts, Arkansas fans picture themselves again at the bottom of the list somewhere around wherever Mississippi State must be because the bottom of a list isn't complete without Arkansas and Mississippi holding down the fort, right? On a national level, they perceive themselves somewhere along the lines of Oregon State, Washington State, Iowa State and Wake Forest.

If the Hogs were stuck on the market now and it were up to television networks to encourage conferences which brands to pick up, Arkansas fans would probably put themselves just behind Stanford and Cal, but slightly ahead of the Beavers and Cougars as far as perceived value while being grateful to not have to compete with schools like Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Miami and North Carolina.

That's why it's a good thing television networks put together contracts based on actual numbers rather than how fans feel about themselves and their teams. Not a single team named ranks higher than the Razorbacks when it comes to average television viewership. Arkansas ranks No. 21 in all of college football for TV ratings, hot on the heels of Auburn and Texas A&M, a mere 73,000 viewers per game from surpassing both. Immediately behind Arkansas is Ole Miss, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, UCLA and Wisconsin. That's a pretty tall heap to be standing upon.

Arkansas is No. 8 in a conference loaded with college football's heavy hitters with 1.8 million viewers per game. As for Oregon St., Washington St., Iowa St. and Wake Forest, they come in with 625,000, 907,000, 882,000 and 523,000 per game. Add any combination other than Washington St. and Iowa St. and the ratings won't be close to what the Hogs draw alone. Only the Cougars can carry half the weight of Razorback football. As for North Carolina, one of the hot properties the SEC is so thirsty for lately, they pack in 849,000 viewers per week. Even Florida State, the team pounding its chest as the national brand that is carrying the ACC, barely surpasses Arkansas at 2 million.

To further clarify the picture, Arkansas vs. Alabama had nearly a million more viewers than TCU-Texas, USC-UCLA, and NC State-Clemson, the most viewed games in their conferences respectively.

So what about Stanford and Cal, the two teams originally thought of as being slightly or much bigger brands than Arkansas earlier in this discussion? Well, Cal comes in at No. 45 while Stanford checks in at No. 47 with 850,000 viewers each. Even with each fielding games against USC, a Stanford game against Notre Dame and a rivalry between the two that pits a pair of teams 44 miles apart while sitting across San Francisco Bay from one another, they can't deliver half what Arkansas can. Imagine the rating the Razorbacks would draw if LSU were situated in Alma instead of Baton Rouge for the past 100 years with the Hogs and Tigers playing since Grover Cleveland knocked off Benjamin Harrison in the 1892 presidential election. It would be even more than the 3.6 million the Arkansas-LSU drew last season.

Arkansas - Kansas: 3.91 million
Arkansas-Missouri: 3.27 million
LSU-Arkansas: 3.57 Million
Arkansas-Texas A&M: 3.5 million
Alabama-Arkansas: 5.83

Take any combination of three Arkansas games vs. Kansas, Missouri, LSU, Texas A&M or Alabama and the Hogs have more viewers than the 10.2 million total achieved through an entire regular season by either Stanford or Cal. Add total viewers for the Alabama, LSU, Kansas and Texas A&M games and Arkansas is only 3.8 million views away from passing both schools combined. Factor in the Missouri game that drew 3.27 million, and the Razorbacks have essentially tied both schools, meaning what took Cal and Stanford 24 regular season games to accrue was covered by Arkansas in five. That's 19 fewer games for those keeping score at home.

And that's not all high profile teams pumping up the Hogs' numbers. Missouri only averages 793,000 per game and Kansas only brings 732,000. The Tigers struggle so bad for numbers that they drew 122,00 games against Louisiana Tech and 490,000 against eventual Big 12 champion Kansas St. Arkansas had to drag both over the 3 million mark, almost managing to get Kansas over 4 million, a game that had it factored into the final ratings draw would have put the Razorbacks at 1.96 million instead of 1.8 million. It should also be noted that when the Hogs beat Kansas State in the Liberty Bowl in 2016, the 7 million viewers topped the previous record set by Arkansas for the 2010 Liberty Bowl against East Carolina.

When it comes to television ratings, Arkansas coach Sam Pittman is right. The Hog is strong. But contracts aren't built on football alone. College basketball carries weight also, and Arkansas had the No. 14 rated game between the second week of April 2022 to the same week in 2023. That might not seem that impressive until you realize that for all of basketball, with Arkansas-Kansas finishing just behind the Eastern Conference Finals between the Boston Celtics and Miami Heat with 9.5 million viewers. It was more than a million more than the 8.15 million who watched Arkansas-Gonzaga the previous season.

In 2022, Arkansas and Kentucky drew 3 million for a run of the mill SEC regular season game. When Eric Musselman's team tangled with Auburn on a random Tuesday night in early February of that year, they put up the largest rating ESPN 2 had posted in four years when 2 million people watched the Razorbacks knock off the Tigers. Not exactly prime time for sports television viewership. To put Arkansas basketball's ratings impact in perspective, "Bachelor in Paradise," a network show with a loyal following, drew the same rating on a Tuesday night on ABC in the middle of fall sweeps.

But Arkansas is one of the rare schools to not only bring big ratings for football and basketball, it's also one of the few to bring large numbers for college baseball. When Arkansas and Oregon State played in a 3-game series, they averaged 2 million viewers, including an hour high of over 3 million. In 2022, the Razorbacks averaged 1.9 million viewers per game over five College World Series games while leading the nation in college baseball attendance.

There's not a metric that covers it, but when accounting for all three major sports, there might not be a more valuable athletic program in the entire NCAA. The only team that might rival for sheer numbers for an entire calendar year might be Michigan, although Alabama is making a push also of late. Still, that's saying an awful lot.

So, hold your head high Arkansas fans. A lot of you keep having to hear from the old-timers and some of the noisy SEC neighbors about how the Razorbacks don't belong in the SEC. Perhaps the Big 12 would have been more their speed. But the numbers easily back up the Hogs' place in one of the most profitable conferences to ever exist.
And in a world where worth is measured more in TV numbers more than championships, even though Arkansas has plenty of the latter, their value to the SEC is more than established when it comes time for each team to collect another massive check,