The Big 12 has one glaring problem

As we settle into the new normal of a twelve-team playoff and a shaken-up conference membership structure, a notable but not unexpected flaw of the Big 12 has emerged.

The Texas- and Oklahoma-less conference doesn’t have a historical powerhouse that fans will go out of their way to hate-watch when it seems like they’re going to lose.

If you asked fans of some of the biggest college football fanbases (Texas, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Alabama, Michigan, Georgia, Florida State, etc.), “Which teams do you go out of your way to watch lose?” you’d probably get back a list that includes all of those aforementioned teams.

It’s not just the major fanbases that root against college football’s upper crust. We ALL do. That’s a major part of being a college football fan.

Pro sports don’t have “upset alert” notifications during regular season games. Most college football fans’ Saturdays consist of watching their team and watching one or two big games not involving their team. However, it also includes flipping around to see if any of the Goliaths of college football are flirting with an unexpected loss.

And on most Saturdays, we get one or two of these satisfying upsets.

I attended Ohio State’s 35-7 win over Iowa this past weekend. During the game, you could feel the stadium gravitate towards the news that Alabama was on the ropes to Vanderbilt. The cell network within the stadium seemed to crash when that score was shared with the crowd. Stepping into my Uber after the game, Alabama’s perilous situation was the first thing the driver mentioned. He had the game on the radio and I did him one better by getting it on my phone for all to enjoy.

Hours later, highly ranked Tennessee, Michigan, and USC all went down in exciting fashion with Miami barely escaping the same fate. So much delight was taken in these developments because being a hater of teams, coaches, and fanbases is core to a college football fan’s DNA.

That’s where the Big 12’s problem is. Which conference member would you tune in to watch lose a game?

I know the obvious answer is Colorado, but at the end of last year, nobody was watching the Buffaloes lose. There are strong cases to be made that Deion Sanders will not be there within five years, one way or another. Would you still hate-watch Colorado without him coaching there? Would you even care about Colorado?

A trio of Colorado games have registered as the conference’s most-watched games so far, with Week 5’s Colorado-UCF getting 4.17 million viewers, Week 2’s Colorado-Nebraska getting 5.67 million viewers, and Week 1’s Colorado-NDSU getting 4.76 million viewers.

While these are impressive audiences, they are still a good deal off from the 6-10 million range that some of the largest Big Ten and SEC games routinely get. It’s early and conference play is just getting underway, but no game between two Big 12 teams is among the top 20 games this year.

This past weekend, four college football games garnered over 4 million viewers . The Big 12’s most-watched game got just 1.51 million .

When the smoke clears on this season, I’m not sure any of the top 25 regular season games will include a Big 12 team and no Big 12 conference game may crack the top 40. While that might be a strong proclamation, you tell me which one of these games over the next three weeks you’ll be going out of your way to watch.

The Big 12 will get at least one team, if not two, into the College Football Playoff. For most fans, it won’t matter who emerges. Utah? BYU? Kansas State? Oklahoma State? Colorado?  Sure…. whatever. People aren’t going to flip away from Georgia, Clemson, Ohio State, Texas, and Penn State to prioritize watching how these games play out.

The hate and interest aren’t there like it was when Texas and Oklahoma were around. Those schools had enough history and, by extension, grating fanbases that earn that level of hate that interests the college football masses. The most-watched Big 12 games from years past were not only highly watched because Oklahoma and Texas fans tuned in, but other fans tuned in to see which scrappy Big 12 program would knock those Goliaths off.

Now it’s just David vs. David. That’s not enough to stand out.

Look, all of the current Big 12 teams are fine and, if pressed, I could think of notable grievances about many of them. But ultimately, they haven’t had the level of success that triggers hate-watching at scale to drive TV ratings. This is a collection of generally good but not championship-winning teams. They, along with their fans, have not been annoying enough to join the fraternity of successful teams that we all hate together.

Perhaps in a decade, Utah or Iowa State will ascend to powerhouse status and the haters will follow. Until then, the Big 12 offers solid football on mostly second-tier channels and time slot windows, which result in second-tier national discussion and coverage. The Big 12 outmaneuvered the Pac 12 and will live on, but their place in the college football world is pretty clear.

They aren’t relevant enough to hate. While that sounds good, it’s actually bad for business.

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