What do you mean by that? Translate please.
I took it as, while the aggregate viewership of the CFP was good (though not as good as projected), much of the aggregate was concentrated in certain geographic areas. There wasn't a World Series or Super Bowl effect, where penetration was broad. Companies advertise in national events for national eyeball penetration. It is very expensive.
To figure out how this clock works, you've got to take it apart a bit. We have TV programming only because of advertisers underwriting it to sell their product. Unless we are talking PBS. Media "bids" on certain programming (Yellowstone, the Pop Tarts Bowl, Daytona 500, and Days of Our Lives) based on what they think they can sell advertising to support and then make a profit on top of that.
Once media makes the buy, they "own" the "inventory" for that series or event. They've got an investment tied up in it, and now the fun begins: They then go to advertisers to convince them that they need to buy a spot to advertise their product. Hopefully, they sell the inventory sufficiently that there is plenty of profit left over for their buy from the event.
But...during the sales pitch to potential advertisers, assurances (sometimes guarantees) are made that a minimum number of eyeballs will be reached. National advertisers obviously want broad exposure, because they are paying a king's ransom for it.
Whether we are talking Big 10, SEC, Big 12, ACC, or even D2 or NAIA, all of those events have some sort of commercial value to advertisers. The Big 10 is receiving more media money, not because the networks are charitable, but because the networks feel they can sell the advertising for Big 10 games for big bucks because of the exposure to eyeballs.
Advertising is ultimately driving the media money train. You can reach a point of diminishing aggregate returns by consolidation. For example, if you had a league of the top 10 media programs - Ohio State, Texas, Notre Dame, USC, etc. - that might be a $2 billion deal for those 10 - $200 million a piece. So those particular programs would greatly benefit, but the national audience for that would be cut substantially. Buick would still want to advertise for it, but at greatly reduced cost, due to the reduced number of eyeballs.
This really boils down to how hard the big money schools want to squeeze the juice. With the Big 10 and SEC now demanding 4 playoff spots "just cause", it would appear they're squeezing pretty hard.
