Re: Who is America's Team?
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Originally Posted by Califan007
Ok, here's where logic really comes in handy...try and follow along:
1) Nationally televised games featuring teams from larger markets will have larger viewing audiences, especially if playoffs are on the line. Example A:
1. Dec. 3 -- FOX Sunday National (mostly Cowboys-Giants), 27.6 million
Surely teams from larger markets have played on national TV without the Cowboys being involved. And yet that game was the most-watched regular-season game in seven years (since -- you guessed it -- a Cowboys game in 1999). I suppose the fact that the Cowboys were playing in each of those was a mere coincidence?
Probably as much coincidence as the Cowboys' playoff game being the most-watched wild-card game in NFL history. Must be because of that huge Seattle TV market, right?
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2) Nationally televised games on national holidays help guarantee larger viewing audiences as well, unless the teams are both losing and ****.
Funny, then, how ESPN's nationally televised game on a national holiday -- featuring a hot, winning team from the largest market with the playoffs on the line late in the season -- didn't even crack ESPN's 10 highest-rated games.
And it's funny how Dallas' only appearance on the same network, against another team from the same market, way back in Week 7, became the highest-rated cable television show in history.
Coincidence that Dallas was playing, I'm sure.
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3) Nationally televised games featuring a hot, winning team will go a long way to guaranteeing a large viewing audience. Examples C:
4. Nov. 19 -- CBS Sunday National (mostly Colts-Cowboys), 23.4 million
Funny how a nationally televised game featuring that same hot, winning team against its hot, winning rivals (the winners of three of the past five Super Bowls) -- a game that was played in prime time, no less -- was rated behind six different Cowboys games, including four that were mere Sunday afternoon games (neither in prime time nor on a holiday).
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5) The first nationally televised games of the season usually bring in large audiences. Examples F and G:
6. Sept. 10 -- FOX Sunday National (mostly Cowboys-Jaguars), 22.7 million
7. Sept. 10 -- NBC Sunday Night (Colts-Giants), 22.6 million
Care to explain how a Cowboys-Jaguars afternoon game can outdraw a Colts-Giants prime time game? Only one of those games involved two defending division champions, the NFL's most popular player and a team from the largest market while having NO other games on TV to compete against, and that game drew the smaller audience. Mere coincidence, I'm sure, that the Cowboys were playing in the higher-rated game. Must be that huge Jacksonville market, right?
And it's funny how the very first nationally televised game of the season -- also played in prime time, and involving two teams with bigger combined markets than the Cowboys-Jaguars afternoon game -- didn't make the list.
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This next part isn't logic, but rather knowledge:
The NFC East contains four of the top 10 tv markets in the country. The Cowboys had three of their six "top rated" games against other NFC East teams...so not only were they nationally televised, they were against teams in the "crown jewel" of the NFL, ratings-wise...virtually guaranteeing a large audience.
Peculiar, then, that the nationally televised game between the Giants and Eagles (whose market is larger than Dallas', and whose record was better than Dallas') didn't even make the list, let alone come close to matching the record-setting audience for the Cowboys-Giants game on the SAME network in the SAME time slot just 14 days earlier. What happened to their virtually guaranteed large audience?
And that's not to mention all of the other nationally televised games that met your criteria but failed to match the ratings for the Cowboys' games -- such as the 7-1 Bears against the 6-2 Giants in prime time on NBC; or the Commanders against the hot, winning (undefeated) Colts; the Colts vs. the Patriots in prime time; and the Colts vs. the Eagles in prime time; not to mention the much-hyped Saints-Falcons "return to New Orleans" game.
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Now, if you choose to discount all of that and delude yourself into thinking that the ratings those games received is due merely to it being the Cowboys that were playing, be my guest. But you'd be wrong.
Yes, it must be mere coincidence that the Cowboys played in six of the eight highest-rated network games during the regular season, along with the most-watched show in cable television history, along with the most-watched wild-card game in history, while teams such as Washington and Philadelphia couldn't even sniff the same ratings in their nationally televised games.
