The Biggest Loser for Notre Dame, NBC

While Notre Dame and its coach Charlie Weis continue to haggle over their inability to score as well as stop people another party is cringing with each game the Fighting Irish lose. Beyond the faithful Golden Domers who will attend a Notre Dame game in South Bend, IN whether the team is 0-4 or 4-0, there is someone who is losing as much if not more than the team itself.

Notre Dame is the most unique football power in college football. The lone major college program without a conference affiliation and its own Bowl Championship Series relationship, Notre Dame is incomparable to any other program in the land. With their storied history and penchant for championships and national fan base, Notre Dame is a marketer's delight. And several years ago, that delight led NBC to enter into a television arrangement with Notre Dame that looked like one of the partnerships in business history.

Notre Dame, unlike other conference-affiliated schools was a major program without major access to a national television network. Over the years, every Saturday afternoon a game from the Southeastern Conference could be seen on CBS. ESPN would carry an early Big Ten match up. At the same time, ABC would carry a Big Twelve or Pac-10 football game. But without a conference and their network affiliation, Notre Dame was out of the loop.

The one thing Notre Dame had going for it that no other program in the country has is its fan base. While a snippet of people in different markets may watch Michigan or Tennessee, USC or Texas, Notre Dame knew that if it was on the air, people in every state would tune in to the game. This is what made the opportunity of managing their own television contract so appealing. So when NBC called with an unbelievable television broadcast deal, Notre Dame jumped at the chance.

Since 1991, every Notre Dame Football game has been broadcast on NBC. Over those sixteen seasons, Nielsen Research has been able to track the viewing habits of the games and get an idea of how many people watch Notre Dame Football games in proportion to how their season is going. In 1993, the last season Notre Dame had a legitimate shot at winning the national championship, over 6.2 million households tuned in to Notre Dame Football. However, in seasons when the team has struggled that number has dropped to below 3 million households. That is a startling contrast that has cost NBC a great deal of money from their advertisers.

When the Fighting Irish fired Ty Willingham at the end of the 2004 college football season one of the reasons may have been the declining ratings. In his final season with the program, Nielsen Research said Notre Dame Football only received a 2.5 rating. With the arrival of Charlie Weis from the NFL's New England Patriots, an immediate spike of anticipation was experienced as a modern office was put in place and games began to be interesting again. The hiring of Charlie Weis was a boon for NBC as ratings for the game increased to 3.6 in his first season.

However, 2007 has been a monsoon for Coach Weis and Notre Dame. With the first 0-4 season in the school's almost 120 year history, ratings and program enthusiasm are sinking like a parachute jumper. Last week when Notre Dame played Big Ten member Penn State, the game was watched by only 1.3 million households.

With an inept football team comes a lot of head-scratching. In the line along with Charlie Weis, the Notre Dame faithful and Lou Holtz, strap in the executives at NBC. They are paying the price for Notre Dame Football too.