USC and UCLA, the two most popular teams in Southern California, only had 4.53 million viewers in their Fox primetime slot last Saturday night. That’s only a little more than a quarter of the viewership of last year’s Michigan vs Ohio State game, much less than the viewership expected for our game tomorrow. That was for a USC team playing for a CFP invitation and a UCLA team playing for a spot in the Pac12 championship.
If these two teams together only drew less than 5 million viewers for such an important game, why are they such valued new members of the Big Ten? What are they bringing to the party?