Sports Media Sunday: College wrestling, basketball helping to carry BTN viewership beyond the fall

It’s not just sports fans in Centre County and central Pennsylvania who enjoy college wrestling — something proven by ratings and viewership for the Jan. 31 Penn State-Iowa match.

The No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup drew 342,955 viewers, according to the Big Ten Conference and Nielsen Media Research, making it the most-watched wrestling match in Big Ten Network history and the highest-rated college sporting event on any network that evening.

The 2018 Ohio State-Penn State match had held the record with 309,265 viewers.

It’s been a good recent run for BTN, with the wrestling match capping three consecutive nights when its college offerings were the highest-rated and most-watched on all TV networks. Before the wrestling match, there was Indiana-Penn State men’s basketball (325,205 viewers) on Jan. 29 and Iowa-Maryland men’s basketball (455,490) on Jan. 30.

Football drives BTN (the popularity of that sport accounts for much of the conference’s overall television revenues, some $54 million every year, to member schools), but this year has been good for the network beyond the fall.

It has long created quality content and programming with series like “The Journey” and “Big Ten Elite.” It is far removed from its first few years of existence, when BTN and its school partners spent a lot of money and time lobbying for the network to be added by cable providers. Plus, it now merits Nielsen measurement, which was not the case for its first few years of existence.

Few besides then-commissioner Jim Delaney probably envisioned what BTN would become when it launched in 2007. Those first few years were hard work bringing his dream to life.

It’s much more than a dream these days.

BTN became the model for other conference and school channels (ACC, SEC, The Longhorn Network). Plus, technology made the timing of the network’s launch even more prescient. With online and streaming options, BTN produces more content — live action as well as documentaries, studio programs and more — than ever these days. It’s so much more than another cable channel these days.

Gone are the days when BTN needed school-produced, non-sports content to round out the schedule. Although Penn State did more of that than almost any other school, the network is better without those concerts and whatever else.

It’s just sports these days, just good sports that attract ratings and viewers — like Penn State’s wrestling match Friday night at Wisconsin and its match Sunday afternoon at Minnesota.

The Nittany Lions’ home match Saturday against Ohio State will air on BTN as well.

Play-by-play prowess

Along with good teams, Penn State sports fans have the benefit of standout play-by-play broadcasters.

There’s proven and steady Steve Jones on men’s basketball, informed and talented Brian Tripp on men’s hockey and award-winning and energetic Jeff Byers on wrestling. All three are unquestionably among the best at what they do in the country for their respective sports.

Plus, as the women’s basketball team improves, Justin Antweil seems likely to merit inclusion in that group.

As a group they’re prepared and generally serve listeners well.

For me, Tripp might be the best, just because hockey moves so fast and he never misses a beat. He’s smart and always seems to have listeners in mind.

It’s easy to nitpick about Jones preaching to listeners (and, this season, teaching with basketball analytics as the team makes a run to the NCAA Tournament), but you can only nitpick. He never misses with context, situations, statistics and whatever else. His tone might be a matter of taste, but that’s probably a me thing more than a him thing.

With Byers, there’s energy, always energy that somehow makes wrestling compelling on radio. His postseason work, balancing overall updates while keeping blue-and-white fans informed during the conference and national tournaments is unrivaled.

As the teams succeed, fans who connect to the action online or on radio through the Penn State Sports Network benefit as well.

Super stuff

According to Fox, 148.5 million viewers watched all or part of Super Bowl LIV last week, and the average audience of 102.1 million viewers (combining broadcast and streaming outlets) made it the fourth most-watched program in the network’s history, the 10th most-watched Super Bowl ever and the 11th most-watched U.S. telecast ever.

The pregame show drew the most viewers for that program since 2016. And, more people watched the halftime show than the game — with many of those people coming away with different opinions about what they saw.

It was generally good news all around.

Two pieces of context, 138.8 million viewers voted in the last presidential election. Plus, viewers are getting older. The median age of Super Bowl viewers was 49.1, up from 47.7 last year.

Commercials? It’s a week later, and those that remain memorable were probably the best. For me, that includes: the Bill Murray Groundhog Day effort for Jeep; Hyundai’s SmartPark effort that featured celebrities from Boston; the Cheetos popcorn ad; and that sentimental Google piece.

If you’re a celebrity who did not appear in a Super Bowl ad, your agent must’ve dropped the ball. There were so many celebrities, some whose efforts worked and some who flopped. It was early, and it was not a commercial, but the pregame player intros by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson certainly put him in his element. Successfully so.

Streaming stuff

As cable cutting continues and over-the-top/plus options multiply, Netflix remains the streaming giant with 167 million subscribers, including 61.04 million in the United States.

Disney+ reported 26 million subscribers last week, with about 7 million for ESPN+, which it owns.

YouTube TV, which sponsored the Super Bowl pregame show, has a little over 2 million viewers, according to Variety. That’s a category that should grow if viewers do their homework.

Many choices exist in the cord-cutting, non-cable world, but YouTube TV might be the best for sports fans based on channel availability and cost.

Tuner tidbits

• Wrestling plays well on TV, especially on BTN and among Penn State fans. Still, there is one small fix that would make the upcoming Ohio State-Penn State match at the Bryce Jordan Center better. OK, it would make all Penn State home matches better. That would be by eliminating the lingering student who wanders around at the end of each period to tell the second official how much time remains in the period. Sure, it’s part of wrestling culture, but it just seems like the arena’s horn (as well as the one in Rec Hall), should be loud enough for the officials to hear. Having a booster club student fill that seemingly extraneous role is a bad, low-budget look for one of the best, high-profile programs in the country.

• Hoping for at least some small bounce on the heels of the Super Bowl, the XFL opens its season this weekend. There were two games Saturday and two more Sunday afternoon for the eight-team league, which has the benefit of solid broadcast partners (ESPN, Fox). Members of the production team for the Super Bowl, including director Rich Russo, a Penn State alumnus, have worked closely with the XFL and conducted some trial broadcasts in late January. Some different rules might seem jarring and look different, but the best thing about the XFL in this iteration might be broadcast changes — including more behind-the-scenes access to players, as well as microphones to catch the action. That first XFL iteration years ago helped standardize things like skycam, as well as some then-wild presentation approaches that have since become commonplace across sports. Former Penn State quarterback Matt McGloin plays for the New York Guardians. They play host to the Tampa Bay Vipers this afternoon (2 p.m., Fox).

• The first Los Angeles Lakers game after Kobe Bryant’s death drew 4.5 million viewers, the most-watched NBA regular season game since 2003. It’ll be interesting to see how interest in the Lakers, and the NBA, continues the rest of the season. Expect the Feb. 16 NBA All-Star Game (8 p.m., TNT), which has been restructured to amp interest, to do well in terms of ratings and viewership.

• The Daytona 500 also airs Feb. 16 (2:30 p.m., Fox), and race fans can get a little stock-car racing fix with the Advance Auto Parts Clash, which airs at 3 this afternoon on Fox Sports 1.

This story was originally published February 9, 2020 at 8:00 AM.