Great read. I agree wholly on TV ratings being a difficult factor—especially when those ratings are very poor at collecting streaming data and international viewership.

A skew that's oft-forgotten: Notre Dame and the armed forces have a far larger international viewership and bring in more money overseas than Alabama, Michigan, or other states many international viewers may have never even heard of. I'm not sure where things stand today because as you noted, the numbers are hard to track. Piracy aside, with far flung Irish pubs scattered across the world streaming their games over lesser-known paid subscription services—I'd bet on ND still being far and away the biggest brand on a global scale of any college program for visibility and merch sales.