The Brigham Young University Football Program and the Analytics Revolution

Authors

Nelson Chung

Keywords

Mormon studies, football, BYU football

Abstract

The Brigham Young University football program is the most visible component of the LDS Church’s flagship school. In 2010, it contracted to ESPN the broadcast of a majority of its games for a reported $800,000 to $1.2 million per home game through 2018. During the 2015 season, its eight games on the ESPN–ABC family of networks reached 14.8 million televisions, an average of 1.9 million each game. In terms of missionary value, the program rivals the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Along with publicity, the Choir has also invited a fair amount of scholarly attention, most notably a study of how its contract with Columbia Records led to a secularization of part of its repertoire, a chapter in the University of Illinois Press’s Mormonism and Music volume, an entire volume of its history in the same publisher’s Music in America series that linked the Choir to Mormon theology on angelic music, a review of that volume, and accounts of its European and Pacific tours.

Recommended Citation

Chung, Nelson (2016) "The Brigham Young University Football Program and the Analytics Revolution," BYU Studies Quarterly: Vol. 55: Iss. 4, Article 5.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/byusq/vol55/iss4/5