STILLWATER – You’ve probably heard ad nauseam this week about how all of this college conference realignment talk and movement is about one thing and one thing only. It is and that one thing is football attraction and how attractive your football program is to network television. It is about how much value a school will bring to a conference in their negotiations with networks over their television rights.
We wrote the story the other day about how Oklahoma State, in the 2020 season, was easily the third best school in the Big 12 when it came to television viewers. Oklahoma State’s games averaged 2,113,000 viewers. That is the average. If you take out the Cowboys games with Oklahoma and Texas that number goes to 1,553,857 viewers. That is still some 320,000 more viewers than the next school in West Virginia. Check at the bottom of this story and see that ESPN and writer Bill Connelly found that Oklahoma State football is one of the most stable in all of college football.
Patrick Crakes is a veteran sports television executive that has worked for FOX. He knows the Big 12 situation well from his experience and even on a more personal level as his daughter is a senior at the University of Kansas. Crakes now his own consulting firm, Crakes Media Consulting in Dublin, Ohio.
His thought on Oklahoma State in this latest round of college conference realignment is “cautiously optimistic.” He thinks Oklahoma State has value. He’s seen the numbers, and while those are good, he also recognizes that Oklahoma State has some other geographic and time zone advantages to offer. You have to start with football and the eyeballs that the Cowboys can attract.
“I think those eyeballs are a function of the quality of the football program, right,” Crakes said when asked about Oklahoma State’s numbers. “Oklahoma State is yearly a top 20 team and every few years they are a top 10 team, and lots of people ask the question, when are they going to break through and get into the College Football Playoff? When you bring the rankings, and you bring the competitiveness then you can become a national draw.”
Located in Stillwater, Okla., Oklahoma State is not in a highly populated area. That’s okay because this becoming less and less about your local audience which may apply more to ticket sales and more about your brand regionally and nationally.
Cowboy Football is a big brand.
“They are not a geographical powerhouse, but a lot of schools in college football aren’t. So, they round out and become an attractive part of the puzzle,” Crakes explained. “What the other conferences or the eight schools if they remained together and tried to add someone else (have to answer) the question is how do you add to that mosaic that we talked about. Oklahoma State is a strong part of the puzzle. They are not the centerpiece, but they can actually make you stronger in the right circumstances, so in some places they are a great fit and in other places they are not. Sorting that out is going to be a fascinating process because they could end up in a conference that doesn’t make any sense geographically, right, but it makes a bunch of sense with the quality of match-ups.”
Our sources indicate to us already that Oklahoma State has no plans in continuing the Bedlam game in football and other major sports like men’s and women’s basketball. However, that may need to be thought about some more. Crakes pointed out that Bedlam football, even non-conference is a valuable property. Oklahoma and the SEC would have it one year, but Oklahoma State and their new conference home would have every other year. It is a valuable piece to a TV package.
Crakes says Bedlam is a valuable property that might increase Oklahoma State’s TV value.
“There is the quality of Oklahoma State and that allows them to have relevant games in the month of November, and that look, the television networks are looking for relevant games in the month of November,” Crakes cited. “One of the interesting questions to me will be whether Oklahoma State and Oklahoma find a way to play. We know when Texas A&M left the conference, they said good-bye to Texas and a lot of people would say they were right to do that given the creation of the Longhorn Network. Bedlam is a very, very important piece to the programming mix. I know it was when I was at FOX, we were always excited to have that match-up. They are part of the solution to the puzzle. They have a strong hand to play, but at the same time where do they go? There are only limited options. It is going to be interesting. We don’t even know if they Big Ten wants to expand and they have a strong hand just the way they are.”
Crakes and I were discussing the Big Ten first in the interview he did with us on Triple Play Sports Radio. Crakes was really excited about the proposition of Oklahoma State in the Pac-12 Conference.
“The Pac-12, in my opinion, has the biggest issue in that they can’t schedule under any kind of rationale 12 noon home games, right,” Crakes hit on the time zone challenge for the Pac-12. “A lot of people have talked about that. Playing a home game at that time at USC, nine a.m. is pretty tough. If they had some conference members in the central time zone, then you fix this problem. Oklahoma State would be a nice fit there. That would be a good fit for the Pac-12 as it would give them games with USC, Oregon, Washington, and Stanford. Those are good match-ups. You’ll need other schools from the eight remaining to come as well. Those schools bring something to the table as well.”
When thinking about several of those Big 12 schools being in the Pac-12 and in an eastern division with former Big 12 member Colorado, Utah, and the Arizona schools then it makes even more sense. Circling back to the Big Ten, Crakes felt Oklahoma State is equipped to help them with a problem on their schedule late in the season.
“The point about November night games in the Big Ten, that is addressed in the contract with FOX and ESPN,” Crakes added. “They don’t play November night games and for good reason and unless the networks ask, and the schools give permission. Michigan is very hesitant to play a night game in November and the Ohio State-Michigan game calls for a noon kick-off in the contract. You would think that would make sense primetime, but it doesn’t because of the weather. You would think that if you had several teams like an Oklahoma State that were in a better location that you could have November night games.”
Oklahoma State is good in football, they are attractive to fans on television. They play in the central time zone allowing for the flexibility to play in anything but the very late time slot, a slot the Pac-12 has no problems with. Attraction and versatility are two reasons for that assessment of cautious optimism. Meanwhile, Pokes Report has learned that Oklahoma State officials will meet with a television consultant on Thursday. ESPN’s Marty Smith is in town for the Cade Cunningham Draft Party at Eskimo Joes, but he will get an interview with football head coach Mike Gundy in the morning and a tour of the West End Zone facility.
ESPN’s story and ranking on football program stability authored and created by college football writer Bill Connelly evaluated all 130 FBS college football programs on coaching stability, roster stability, and performance stability. The maximum score possible was a 50. Oklahoma State did get a perfect score of 20 on coaching stability. No surprise there with Gundy and his ability to keep his staff together.
They were also really high in roster stability having lost few players in the transfer portal.
Here is the top 10 schools and all of the Big 12 schools including Oklahoma and Texas.
| Ranking and School | Coach Stability | Roster Stability | Performance | Total Score |
| 1. Wyoming | 15.5 | 19.2 | 6.0 | 40.6 |
| 2. Clemson | 20.0 | 10.6 | 9.7 | 40.3 |
| 3. Oklahoma State | 20.0 | 11.7 | 8.5 | 40.2 |
| 4. Wisconsin | 17.0 | 15.3 | 7.8 | 40.1 |
| 5. Army | 18.0 | 15.1 | 6.4 | 39.6 |
| 6. Iowa State | 16.0 | 16.7 | 6.7 | 39.5 |
| 7. Middle Tennessee | 20.0 | 14.4 | 5.0 | 39.4 |
| 8. Miami Of Ohio | 18.0 | 15.9 | 4.6 | 38.6 |
| 9. Eastern Michigan | 18.0 | 15.2 | 5.3 | 38.6 |
| 10. Toledo | 16.0 | 19.1 | 5.4 | 38.5 |
| 40. TCU | 17.5 | 5.7 | 7.4 | 30.6 |
| 52. Oklahoma | 13.0 | 6.1 | 9.5 | 28.6 |
| 71. Kansas State | 11.0 | 8.3 | 6.8 | 26.2 |
| 77. Baylor | 7.5 | 12.8 | 5.1 | 25.4 |
| 92. Texas Tech | 8.5 | 7.1 | 7.4 | 22.9 |
| 113. West Virginia | 9.8 | 3.0 | 5.4 | 18.1 |
| 121. Texas | 4.0 | 2.9 | 8..6 | 15.5 |
| 128. Kansas | 2.0 | 2.3 | 5.1 | 9.4 |
