2013: A LOOK BACK IN SPORTS - PART 6 - NCAA FOOTBALL

 Continuing last week's coverage, I take a look this week at Nielsen's data on sports fans in 2013 focusing on the latest findings on NCAA football.  You can read the full-summarized report here: http://bit.ly/1fT9KVa.  I've read through it and here are some of the most interesting facts from the past year:

Source: http://bit.ly/1ppC8j4

The changing leaves, the crisp air, the endless pumpkin baked goods, for many these images call to mind autumn and with those thoughts also come dreams of a college football championship season.  A record thirty-one NCAA football games aired nationally in 2013, not even counting the bowl games, compared to only twenty-two games in 2012.  This was in large part due to a dominate SEC division, Florida State’s catapult to fame run in the ACC, and strong showings by Michigan State and Ohio State in the Big 10.  The games drew over 5 million viewers on average, while the 2014 BCS National Championship had over 25 million viewers dialed in to watch the battle between Auburn and Florida State.  Fans took to Twitter as well, with 4.4 million tweets by 1.2 million unique authors flooding the Twitter airwaves during that time, a 400 thousands tweet rise from 2012. 

Source: http://bit.ly/1iRBGdp

• Florida State may have broken the SEC’s seven consecutive BCS championships, but the conference enjoyed another banner year having the most viewed college football games of the 2013 season with 9.7 million on average tuning in for the top 10 nationally televised regular season games involving a team from the SEC.
• The Big-10 brings in the second largest audience with an average of 7 million watching their teams compete.
• Top NCAA football advertiser: AT&T Wireless 
• NCAA football fans are 18% more likely than the average U.S. adult to have life insurance and 24% more like to belong to a health club.
• The average NCAA Bowl Game viewer is most likely to be a white male aged 55+ who makes $20,000 -$40,000 annually.
• The top storylines in the 2013 NCAA football regular season included Alabama holding the top spot in the polls until the final week of the season, Auburn and Missouri’s resurgence, and “Johnny Football” lighting up the scoreboard for the Aggies. 



Source: http://bit.ly/1eC8DsE

• The top two local fan bases with most-devoted fan bases saw the percentages of their population having watched, attended, or listened to the team in the past 12 months clock in at over 60%.  The top two spots were so close in fact, only one percentage point separated first from second place.
•  The Alabama Crimson Tide’s local fan base in Birmingham took second place with 65% of the population faithful and dedicated to the organization. The top honors however, landed with fans in Columbus, where 66% of the population stands behind the Ohio State Buckeyes.