One of the key topics in expansion is market size and market penetration. With that in mind, I want to explore an idea and see where it takes us.
The question I have is does the SEC now own the Houston market? A&M is nearby and there are certainly a lot of LSU fans in the metro area to boot, but does the SEC control the area like it does Atlanta for instance?
Here's an interesting article from the Houston Chronicle on the ratings from last year's game. A little backstory, a list of the top 10 most watched games in Houston was pushed out by UH officials in recent months showing most of the top games were SEC contests and that the Big 12 had fallen way behind. The goal being to show UH's value to the Big 12 in reclaiming the Houston market for its own.
I thought it was interesting that the ratings for the SEC weren't as strong as the original report implied. We are number 1 in the market now, but the Big 12 still gets big ratings. The local product Houston gets pretty good ratings too.
The writer delved pretty deep into the ratings and came up with a list of how many times a school achieved at least a 2.0 rating. From the list, I wasn't surprised to see LSU games doing as well as they were. I was a little surprised that A&M's games weren't that high on the list. I figured they would be #1. Bama had the largest number of highly rated games, but I'm sure that's a function of recent success and regular placement on CBS. Texas, Baylor, Oklahoma, TCU, and Oklahoma State somehow had more highly rated games than A&M. Strangely enough, so did Ole Miss. Texas Tech was tied with A&M at 4 games with at least a 2.0 rating. This isn't counting Notre Dame, the B1G, the PAC, or the ACC and they all had a slice of the pie.
I want to be clear in saying I'm not knocking A&M's contribution. I am absolutely thrilled to have them in the league and their inclusion has certainly paid off. I think we need to be realistic though and understand that the state of TX is a massive, massive market and a diverse one at that.
This underscores an issue I think the SEC needs to address. It's good to have access to Texas, but it would be better if we controlled Texas, especially Houston. From A&M's perspective, I can see why they would want to be the only TX team in the league. With that said, I think the interests of the conference are served by expanding into the state further. Personally, I was advocating for a 2nd TX school back in 2011. I'm glad we took Mizzou, but I just wish we had been willing to delve into TX further while we were at it.
A few points about the Houston market...
-It is the 10th largest metro area in the nation with over 6.3 million people. As far as SEC markets go, DFW outranks it being the 8th largest metro area with just over 7 million. Miami is also slightly larger, being the 9th largest metro area with slightly over 6.3 million people...literally just a few thousand more than Houston. Atlanta is number 11 with just over 6 million. The top 7 largest metro areas are the usual suspects, however, all are located outside the SEC footprint.
-It's not just that TX is massive. It's that it's still growing. This isn't Illinois or New York that we're talking about. Texas is growing stronger economically with every passing decade.
Anyone who has taken note of my posts in recent weeks knows that I'm high on TCU as a means to plant a flag directly in the middle of one of Texas' major metro areas. I still believe that, but I also recognize that if we land OU and OSU that the need for TCU is mitigated. Plus you have plenty of A&M fans in DFW.
Purely from an economic standpoint, adding UT is the best move. We all know that, but there are obviously extenuating reasons why that's probably a bad idea. That and they probably don't want to be in the SEC anyway. With that in mind, it occurs to me that dominating both major metro areas of TX is probably not feasible unless we're doing the SEC/Big 12 merger and the odds of that happening are probably about as good as the odds of me dating Daisy Ridley so...
If we need to expand into TX again and if one of our goals is to lock down either Houston or DFW then what course do we take? Well, considering all the angles here, I think it might actually be a better idea to lock down Houston. How do you do that? By taking the Cougars.
Some of you just spit your drink and that's fine, but hear me out. Based on some of the ratings earlier, I think there's some pretty clear evidence that we don't really own the Houston market as much as the addition of A&M would suggest that we do. The market penetration aspect of this should not be dismissed, I don't think.
Athletically speaking, UH is probably poised to take off in the coming years and probably more so than TCU considering their small enrollment and alumni base. UH by contrast is a major state institution with over 40K students. They also happened to be located in one of the fastest growing metro areas in the country.
You have to ignore the political stuff and scroll down, but there's some interesting data on how popular TX schools are in their own state. I take the poll seriously because it's not based on social media interactions or other more spurious data.
Take a look at the recent poll of college football fans in TX
UT is number 1 obviously with 26% of the state's support. A&M is #2 with 16%, a fairly significant drop from #1 to #2. Who is #3 though? That's right, Houston with 12%. They aren't too far behind A&M and they don't even have the benefit of playing a P5 schedule right now to bolster their exposure and revenue. Tech came in at 9% and there were 6% each for Baylor and TCU.
That's a bit stunning to me. I've thought for a while, like others, that Houston has a lot of potential, but had no idea they were that popular in the state. Of course, some of that is probably a little hype over their recent success. You always have to take things like that into account, but the number shouldn't be higher for them than the other P5s in the state based just on that.
A lot of that support is going to be based in Houston rather than being consistent statewide. Being that it is such a huge market, the numbers do add up however.
So we're not getting UT and we shouldn't want them anyway so the best way to increase our fan base in the state of TX is to ironically double down on a market we already have a reasonable presence in. That's assuming we can land OU and OSU to achieve greater penetration in DFW.
We've batted around the idea on this site before of adding a school like Miami or preferably Florida State in order to bolster our penetration of the state of FL. I don't think this is really any different of a situation.
I understand why A&M fans would probably think this is the nightmare scenario, but consider this: iron sharpens iron. Take the Alabama/Auburn rivalry as an example. The two schools have occupied the same conference throughout their existence. It's very hard to compete against an in-state rival that has no fundamental disadvantage over your own school, but the odd thing is that both are better for it. If the two did not furiously compete against each other for the same recruits and the same prizes then I honestly don't think either would be as accomplished as they are. Competition breeds excellence and that's one of the primary reasons the SEC is as strong as it is. Remember too that the state of AL only has about 4.8 million people. By itself, it's not nearly as large as Houston or Atlanta much less the entire state of TX.
I honestly don't think A&M fans would have anything to fear from an in-state rival joining the SEC. In fact, if that particular in-state rival came from a nearby market as opposed to half way across the state then I don't think that would make a difference. With A&M and Houston in the SEC, the league would have as much support as UT does and more importantly would control a large swath of the state. I don't think that should be underestimated especially considering one or two of the other P5s in the state will probably get relegated. Add to that, if Houston doesn't get into the SEC then they will likely go elsewhere. They are too valuable not to so they will probably get elevated anyway.
Do we want the PAC or the ACC in Houston? I don't. Do we want to control more of the state than any other league? I think we should if we're considering demographics 20 and 50 years into the future whether we're looking at a prime athletic addition in the near future or not.
Thoughts?