I get what you're saying about the lack of big brands in the Big 12 but how big are Oregon and UW? Looking at the audience for the highest rated games across a few weeks from last season the numbers aren't that different, in fact in most case the Big 12 had an edge. Small sampling, sure, but I tried not to pick and choose and just took the highest-rated games for each conference excluding departing teams except where noted. I also added a comment where applicable.
The point here is there's nothing that indicates a Pac12 game stands out as big time relative to the Big 12 games. The one exception might be UO-UW but there wasn't a good Big 12 comparison for that week since the premier Big12 game involved Texas.
Big 12 Championship (noon ABC) - 9.41 mil (up against MAC title, granted not much of a factor)
Pac12 Championshipt (Fri 8pm FOX) - 5.97 mil (no competition)
Week 13:
Iowa State-TCU (4pm FOX) - 4.34 mil
Oregon-Oregon St (3:30 ABC) - 3.56 mil
Week 12:
TCU-Baylor (noon Fox) - 4.35 mil (up against Illini-Michigan)
Utah-Oregon (10:30 ESPN) - 2.54 mil (cable)
Week 11:
Wash-Oregon (7pm, FOX) - 3.63 Mil
TCU-Texas (7:30pm, ABC) - 5.03 Mil (Texas factor; only Big 12 game on a major network this week)
OU-WV (Noon, FS1) - 956K
Week 10:
Texas Tech- TCU (noon, FOX) - 2.51 mil
Cal-USC (10:30pm, ESPN) - 2.04 mil (USC factor)
Oregon-CU (3:30pm, ESPN) - 962K (Up against Tenn-UGA)
Week 9:
OSU-KSU (3:30 FOX) - 3.38 mil
TCU-WV (noon, ESPN) - 1.51 mil (up against PSU-Ohio-St)
Stanford-UCLA (ESPN, 10:30pm) - 1.26 mil
Oregon-Cal (3:30 FS1) - 738K
College football TV ratings for the 2024 regular season, bowls, College Football Playoff and National Championship.
www.sportsmediawatch.com