USC in the right hands is as powerful a football brand as there is in the entire country. Lincoln Riley’s first season with the program proved as much.

The Trojans were the most-watched team in the Pac-12 in 2022. Viewership numbers included bowl games, though they did not include numbers for games that took place on the Pac-12 Network. That obviously helped some and hurt others.

USC was only on the conference’s network three times. Oregon State, for example, played half its regular-season games on the Pac-12 Network (and a seventh on the CBS Sports Network).

Still, the Trojans easily cleared Oregon to take the top spot in the Pac-12 when it came to TV viewers. More people watched USC games in 2022 than watched Stanford, Oregon State, Arizona State, Colorado, and Arizona combined.

Utah finished third in TV viewership, with a huge gap between it and fourth-place UCLA.

Washington finished fifth, followed by Washington State and Cal.