College football on television includes the broad- and cablecasting of college football games, as well as pre- and post-game reports, analysis, and human-interest stories. Within the United States, the college version of American football annually garners high television ratings.
College football games have been broadcast since 1939, beginning with the 1939 Waynesburg vs. Fordham football game on September 30 in New York City. College football telecasts were historically very restricted due to there being only three major television networks and also because the NCAA controlled all television rights and limited the number of games that aired to protect attendance. A 1984 ruling declaring the NCAA's television restrictions illegal, along with the introduction of sports-specific television networks has increased the amount of air-time available for coverage. Today, dozens of games are available for viewing each week of the football season. Other coverage includes local broadcasts of weekly coach's programs. These programs have become an important sources of revenue for the universities and their athletics programs.
Coverage is dependent on negotiations between the broadcaster and the college football conference or team. The televised games may change from year-to-year depending on which teams are having a strong season, although some traditional rivalry games are broadcast each year. Some games are traditionally associated with a specific event or holiday, and viewing the game itself can become a holiday tradition for fans. Post-season bowl games, including the College Football Playoff, are presently all televised, most of them by the ESPN networks.
Universities found to have seriously violated NCAA rules have occasionally been penalized with a "television ban"; the effect can equal that of the "death penalty". The sanction is rarely applied except for the most egregious of circumstances, such as the Southern Methodist University football scandal.
History Prior to television
College football games have been broadcast on radio since 1921, beginning with the 1921 West Virginia vs. Pittsburgh football game on October 8 in Pittsburgh.
Prior to that, various other means of communication were used. For example, in 1911, more than 1,000 people gathered in downtown Lawrence, Kansas, to watch a mechanical reproduction of the 1911 Kansas vs. Missouri football game while it was being played. A Western Union telegraph wire was set up direct from Columbia, Missouri, to relay the action.
Early televised broadcasts The first televised college football game occurred during the "experimental" era of television's broadcasting history, when a game between Fordham University and Waynesburg College was broadcast on September 30, 1939. One month later, Kansas State's homecoming contest against the University of Nebraska was the second broadcast and first homecoming game to be broadcast on October 23, 1939. The following season, on October 5, 1940, what is described as the "first commercially televised game" between the University of Maryland and the University of Pennsylvania was broadcast by Philco. Fairly sporadic broadcasts continued throughout World War II.
By 1950, a small number of football schools, including Penn (ABC) and the University of Notre Dame (DuMont Television Network), had entered into individual contracts with networks to broadcast their games regionally. In fact, all of Penn's home games were broadcast on ABC during the 1950 season under a contract that paid Penn $150,000. However, prior to the 1951 season, the NCAA – alarmed by reports that indicated television decreased attendance at games – asserted control and prohibited live broadcasts of games. Although the NCAA successfully forced Penn and Notre Dame to break their contracts, the NCAA suffered withering attacks for its 1951 policy, faced threats of antitrust hearings, and eventually caved in and lifted blackouts of certain sold-out games. Nonetheless, the first national broadcast of a live college football game, which was also the first coast-to-coast live broadcast of any sports contest, was Duke at the University of Pittsburgh on September 29, 1951, on NBC. Bowl games were always outside the control of the NCAA, and the 1952 Rose Bowl at the end of that season was the first national telecast of a college bowl game, on NBC.
For the 1952 season, the NCAA relented somewhat, but limited telecasts to one nationally broadcast game each week. The NCAA sold the exclusive rights to broadcast the weekly game to NBC for $1,144,000. The first game shown under this contract was Texas Christian University against the University of Kansas, on September 20, 1952. In 1953, the NCAA allowed NBC to add what it called "panorama" coverage of multiple regional broadcasts for certain weeks – shifting national viewers to the most interesting game during its telecast. NBC lost the college football contract beginning in 1954, prompting it to carry Canadian football instead. There were some attempts at workarounds during this time frame; ABC Sports ran some Notre Dame Fighting Irish football games, condensed to remove time between plays and featuring Harry Wismer at the microphone, in fall 1953. The Notre Dame games were filmed and broadcast the night after they were played; the service would not continue beyond that year.
The NCAA believed that broadcasting one game a week would prevent further controversy while limiting any decrease in attendance. However, the Big Ten Conference was unhappy with the arrangement, and it pressured the NCAA to allow regional telecasts as well. Finally, in 1955 the NCAA revised its plan, keeping eight national games while permitting true regional telecasts during five specified weeks of the season. This was essentially the television plan that stayed in place until the University of Oklahoma and the University of Georgia filed suit against the NCAA in 1981, alleging antitrust violations.
Bowl games were always exempt from the NCAA's television regulations, and the games' organizers were free to sign rights deals with any network. Mizlou Television Network, for instance, carried many of the bowl games (mostly lower-end bowls) despite not holding any regular season rights.
Decentralization On June 27, 1984, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma that the NCAA's television plan violated the Sherman Antitrust Act. As a result, individual schools and athletic conferences were freed to negotiate contracts on their own behalf. The year after the Supreme Court decision, nearly 200 games were televised, compared to the previous year's 89. College football's television ratings slumped due to market saturation, and the price of a 30-second advertisement plunged from $57,000 in 1983 to $15,000 in 1984, while the combined take from network television fell more than 60 percent. Despite the monetary suffering of the universities, the additional coverage had a positive impact for fans of college football. "Everyone talks about money, but no one seems to care about the football fan. He is the one who benefited from deregulation. And he isn't complaining", said Chuck Neinas, the former commissioner of the Big Eight Conference. Together with the growth of cable television, this ruling resulted in the explosion of broadcast options currently available.
However, in the immediate wake of the ruling, most schools still decided to jointly negotiate their television contracts through the now-defunct College Football Association. The Big Ten Conference and Pacific-10 Conference were not members of the CFA, opting to negotiate their own TV deals.
Effects of television exposure Television exposure has been used as a selling point in recruiting high school athletes. "We’re recruiting all over the country, and it's nice to be able to go in someone's home and say, ‘You can turn on the TV and watch the Buckeyes six to eight times a year", said former Ohio State head coach John Cooper.
Television money and generous donors have allowed universities to provide modern facilities and luxurious amenities to college football teams. The Darrell K Royal–Texas Memorial Stadium at the University of Texas offers fans the opportunity to lease suites for $88,000 a year. The suites include theater-style seats, televisions, kitchenettes, and bars. The athletes ride to practice in chartered buses and dress beneath a three-dimensional 20-foot lighted longhorn in a locker room that includes a nutrition center, players’ lounge, and "state-of-the-art" ventilation system.
Nationally televised games also brought new notoriety, revenue, and growth for leagues that had rarely appeared on television. As the cable networks grew and expanded, they sought more games to fill time. Former Mid-American Conference (MAC) Commissioner Rick Chryst attributes his league's expansion to a deal that put several MAC games per year on ESPN.
In the 1950s, conventional wisdom suggested that television allowed football fans to watch their favorite teams for free from the comfort of their own homes, and this was to blame for falling attendance. A 1948 study conducted by the Crossley Corporation at the NCAA's request found that fans thought watching televised games was equal or superior to watching from the stands. In 1950, a study by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago said that attendance at college football games would have been 40 percent higher if no games had been televised. In the long term, the publicity provided by college football telecasts helped to give the sport exposure to potential ticket buyers, increasing ticket sales. The popularity of televised college football has been accompanied by a growth in game attendance. In 1949, when the U.S. population was around 150 million, 17.5 million spectators attended a college football game. By 2012, after the population had doubled, attendance had grown proportionally higher, at nearly 50 million people.
The modern era When Notre Dame left the CFA to sign an exclusive deal with NBC in 1991, it shocked the college football world and marked the true beginning of the modern era. Then, in 1996, CBS, which had been shut out of the CFA broadcasts in the mid-1990s when ABC held the contract (and coincidentally was in desperate need of live sports after losing its major professional sports rights in 1994), successfully convinced the Southeastern Conference to break from the CFA, signing its own conference deal. The CFA disbanded in 1997.
One of the most significant side-effects of the changes in television policy since 1991 has been the sharp decrease in independent schools and realignment of athletic conferences, as schools sought to pool and increase their bargaining power; few schools had the clout or national following that could garner an exclusive contract the way Notre Dame did. Prominent independents Pitt and Penn State joined the old Big East in 1991 and the Big Ten in 1993, respectively. Television has also driven the trend of universities (generally mid-majors) playing football on weekdays rather than the traditional Saturdays, in order to have their games broadcast.
The pursuit of television money has provided financial independence to many big-time university athletic programs, since they can independently auction their "product" to the highest bidder. Some universities have limited authority over the athletic directors and coaches. In 2009, Florida President J. Bernard Machen said that due to the presence of ESPN money, the university no longer had control of its athletics department.Clotfelter, p. 33 Studies have also shown that success of big-time sports programs alters students’ academic behavior, reducing the amount of activity at the library and lowering men's grade point averages with each victory.