Sports TV ratings, etc. Random sports talk

dpkimmel2001 said:
Rightsizing again. I think a certain something not getting the headline week in and week out may have helped their cause. But, that's for another section of the forum as I don't want to drail a good thread.
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Record-setting scoring and number of close games plus big-market teams doing well are more of a factor IMO. The NFL is having a youth movement of sorts of its own right now.
 
I agree 100% with @FLRacingFan for the reasons the NFL did well this year. Watching Mahomes and Goff plus Barkley, Breeze, Ertz and the kid under center in Baltimore was great fun. The Nick Foles mystique is alive and well again and it was great to see the Chargers do well.

I get as excited about the NHL and NFL as @Revman does about Nascar and that means being fired up!

I think ups and downs are to be expected in sports as long as they balance each other out and are viewed in context.
 
ToyYoda said:
A dud game, a bad halftime show, and pissed Saints fans led to the lowest TV ratings for the Super Bowl in 11 years.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/02/04/sports/super-bowl-ratings.amp.html
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I enjoyed the game as watching one of the best QB’s and the goat of coaches win again was something to be appreciated, IMO. I really liked the Pats commitment to the running game too. Sean Payton got out coached by the master and Jared Goff wasn’t ready for the big stage, IMO.
 
IanMcVittie said:
I enjoyed the game as watching one of the best QB’s and the goat of coaches win again was something to be appreciated, IMO. I really liked the Pats commitment to the running game too. Sean Payton got out coached by the master and Jared Goff wasn’t ready for the big stage, IMO.
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:confused:
 
ToyYoda said:
I shoulda gone fishing too. :D

I watched the whole thing, but the game was kind of a dud for me. Prior to Sunday, Super Bowl XXXV between the Ravens and Giants was the worst Super Bowl I’d seen. I think Sunday topped it.
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Someone asked If I DVR'd it. The answer was HELL NO. :D
 
Only three more games on true national TV available the rest of the year (one next week on TNT, one semifinal on TNT, championship on CBS), but this has to be considered a good start for the AAF. It'll be interesting to see how this holds up at the end of the year after playing mostly on NFL Network and CBS Sports Network the rest of the way.

 
More football in February is not something I find myself wanting. I'm just not that kind of football fan. I kinda like that it goes away for nearly half the year.

I don't begrudge people who do want more though, and it seems clear there is meaningful demand for a credible spring league.
 
NBA ratings at the All-Star break...

TNT (-18%)
NBA TV (-17%)
ABC -(3%)
ESPN flat
RSNs (-10%)

https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2019/02/18/Media/NBA-ratings.aspx

The NBA’s television doldrums so far this season are happening at the local level, too, where regional sports network ratings from 28 U.S.-based teams had dropped 10 percent on average at the All-Star break compared to the same point last year.

Overall, most of the country’s RSNs have posted ratings gains this season; 15 have seen TV ratings increases in the first part of the season, and 13 have seen TV ratings decreases. (Information for Memphis and Toronto was not available at press time.)

But it was the size of the decreases — and the big markets where they occurred — that caused the overall RSN average to drop by double digits through Feb. 12.

The drop-off is most pronounced in some of the league’s biggest markets, like New York (down 41 percent on MSG Network), Chicago (down 36 percent on NBC Sports Chicago) and Boston (down 27 percent on NBC Sports Boston). Ratings for Bulls games in Chicago are at their lowest point in at least 13 years as the team has struggled on the court with one of the NBA’s worst records.

Not surprisingly, the country’s biggest local ratings drop-off is in Cleveland, where Cavs games on FS Ohio are down 56 percent compared to last year when LeBron James played for a team that made the NBA Finals. Conversely, James’ new team, the Los Angeles Lakers, has seen its games on Spectrum SportsNet jump by 42 percent.

The local ratings story mirrors a national trend that has seen sluggish TV numbers for NBA games so far this season. National games are down 18 percent on TNT and 17 percent on NBA TV. ABC is down 3 percent, and ESPN is flat.

One reason network executives use to explain the downturn deals with James. His move to the West Coast has specifically hurt the TV numbers for the early game doubleheader windows, which has had a healthy dose of James throughout his career in East Coast time zones Cleveland and Miami. Plus, James has missed 20 games this season because of injury, which has negatively affected national network games. James has appeared in only four games on TNT, compared to eight at the same time last year. He missed two NBA Saturday prime-time games on ABC and another three games on ESPN.

Locally, Denver has registered the biggest percentage gains, where the revitalized Nuggets have posted an 85 percent jump on Altitude as the team battles the Golden State Warriors for the best record in the Western Conference.

Another good news story is in Dallas, where Mavericks ratings on FS Southwest are up 74 percent, thanks in large part to the exciting play of 19-year-old Slovenian rookie Luka Doncic, who has captivated the Mavs fan base.

The NBA champion Warriors have posted the NBA’s highest local TV rating, with a 7.43 average on NBC Sports Bay Area. But the team also has posted a 16 percent ratings drop so far this season and is on pace to see its ratings drop for a third consecutive season.

Some may blame Warriors fatigue surrounding a team that has made it to the past four NBA Finals and is on course to make a deep run this spring. Warriors ratings also have been hurt by All-Star Stephen Curry missing 11 games during the first half of the season due to injury.

The league’s worst local ratings so far this season are in Orlando, where Magic games on FS Florida have posted a 0.44 rating. That is down 28 percent and on pace to be the team’s lowest rating in the 13 years for which Sports Business Journal has data.

Historically strong market San Antonio has experienced a significant ratings drop. The Spurs this year have seen their ratings fall by 34 percent on Fox Sports Southwest, though the team’s local ratings are still the third highest in the league.

Lawrence Payne, executive vice president of Spurs Sports & Entertainment, said the ratings are affected by increased livestream viewership of Spurs games that has grown by double digits annually as fans migrate to different viewing platforms.

“We were due for a regression,” Payne said. “We were outperforming year in and year out. We have had a big setback. The good news is that ratings have rallied of late and will continue to rise. The thing that remains to be seen is how streaming, as it continues to grow, is factored into the equation.”
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FLRacingFan said:
NBA ratings at the All-Star break...

TNT (-18%)
NBA TV (-17%)
ABC -(3%)
ESPN flat
RSNs (-10%)
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Not just the NBA. Today I read that MLB live attendance last year was at its lowest level since 2003.

However, I've heard the trend of entertainment programming is even weaker. There is still great value in live sports programming, IMO.
 
LewTheShoe said:
Not just the NBA. Today I read that MLB live attendance last year was at its lowest level since 2003.

However, I've heard the trend of entertainment programming is even weaker. There is still great value in live sports programming, IMO.
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Sports is at least usually a mixed bag depending on storylines and who happens to be good at certain times. For instance, while NBA viewership is down from 2017-2018 at the moment it's at least still up from 2016-2017. And many RSNs tend to have the highest-rated programming in the market. Scripted/entertainment programming would love to be in the position of a lot of these sports/sports networks.
 
Getting ready to watch multiple tournament's to see who advances. Gotta get these TV's warmed up for March Madness starting next week.

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Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk
 
Audience Rises For College Hoops Regular Season, With ESPN Up 15%
https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2019/03/15/Media/CBB-viewership.aspx

College basketball viewership was up 5% for the ’18-19 regular season across what are considered to be the sport’s primary TV partners -- ESPN, CBS, Fox, FS1 and ESPN2. Fueling gains was a big increase for ESPN this season. For 129 games on the flagship net, viewership jumped 15% to 1.2 million viewers per game (1.04 million for 127 games in ’17-18). Duke and freshman phenom Zion Williamson were a major reason for the jump, as games on ESPN featuring the Blue Devils averaged 2.14 million viewers. That is up 30% from ’17-18. Even without those Duke games, ESPN was up 6%. Combining ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU, men’s hoops were up 6% this season as well. Meanwhile, Fox/FS1 continued to set new records for the company, and this year marked the fifth straight season of growth. The two networks combined to average 269,000 viewers, a new record and up from previous record of 258,000 viewers in ’17-18. On its own, Fox drew 894,000 viewers for its 28 games, up 3% from 867,000 last season (26 games). FS1 for its games was up 19%. Seeing a decline for the second straight season was CBS, whose 1.54 million viewers for 35 games was down 6% from 1.65 million last season (39 games). But CBS was still the top net for college hoops this season in terms of average viewership.
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StandOnIt said:
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I don't sub to The Athletic, but it is a pretty well-known albeit taboo topic in baseball that MiLB players are horribly underpaid. It's good to see that at least one team has stepped up and will increase pay around 50% on average, but much of this falls on MLB itself. The lobbying efforts done by MLB to slip some legislation through to maintain the impoverished state of minor leaguers are very poor optics as well.

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/...inor-league-salaries-by-more-than-50-percent/
 
FLRacingFan said:
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The F1 number is strong for that start time. I keep waiting for all this big push Liberty Media is going to make into the American market, and nothing meaningful has happened yet. A number like that for a race starting after 1:00 AM Eastern is encouraging, especially given how poor the racing currently is.

I got a PM from Stern confirming that SX ratings are down 20-25% compared to last year on FS1. My response:

"Thanks for the info, that's unfortunate. It had been a sort of fixture on FS1 Saturday nights for several years..To me it feels like NBC hasn't promoted as much, but I'm not tuned into NBCSN that often. It shouldn't be down this much as a sport with a loyal niche following. The racing has been good, but the guys that were supposed to dominate aren't. Perhaps not having an established star winning lots of races is hurting."
 
gnomesayin said:
The F1 number is strong for that start time. I keep waiting for all this big push Liberty Media is going to make into the American market, and nothing meaningful has happened yet. A number like that for a race starting after 1:00 AM Eastern is encouraging, especially given how poor the racing currently is.

I got a PM from Stern confirming that SX ratings are down 20-25% compared to last year on FS1. My response:

"Thanks for the info, that's unfortunate. It had been a sort of fixture on FS1 Saturday nights for several years..To me it feels like NBC hasn't promoted as much, but I'm not tuned into NBCSN that often. It shouldn't be down this much as a sport with a loyal niche following. The racing has been good, but the guys that were supposed to dominate aren't. Perhaps not having an established star winning lots of races is hurting."
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I think the key with NBCSN is that they'll always be out of sight, out of mind with most sports fans. NBC obviously has a business plan to cover niche sports in-depth, but their ratings will always be lower than they can be since no one else has any real reason to watch, no one else gets exposed to the network, and no lead-in or lead-out can help catch casual eye balls. I am sure in SX's case that no longer having lead-ins from college basketball or Xfinity races and instead having a lead-in from an event that had more people at the track than watching on TV (Sebring) does no favors whatsoever. But I would agree that I haven't seen much, if any, promotion of SX by NBC either. With FOX seemingly just dropping it outright at the end of last year you have to imagine Feld just took whatever they could get.

I think over time it will also be shown that Disney's offer for IndyCar was better than what NBC offered (very unpopular opinion), in spite of NBC perhaps 'promoting' better. Now that ESPN has established themselves as the F1 rightsholders in America I think we'll see more gains made, although not by a few hundred percent as Australia had.
 
Sucks to see NHRA viewership is going down, Pro Stock needs a boost.

Also, AAF ratings: Saturday night saw an increase as the AAF game on NFL Network increased to 354,000 viewers with a .21 rating. Sunday night on the NFL Network had a downward trend as the game drew 234,000 viewers with a .06 rating. Both games ranked in the top 150 cable shows for the day.
 
I don't understand why the NHL and NBA didn't schedule the start of their postseasons a week later this year. With the Final Four and Masters moving back a bit in the calendar the Masters, NHL playoffs, NBA playoffs will all be on the same weekend next week - seems pretty stupid to me. But I guess the suits know more than I do.
 
LewTheShoe said:
NBC's contract is $2 billion over 10 years, and ratings are about what Nascar pulls for Xfinity Series practice or qualifying sessions..:idunno:
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I've been paying attention to a fair amount of sports media coverage over the past few years from figures like Richard Deitsch, John Ourand, and many others. One concept they talk about often in terms of what provides value to the sports networks is "tonnage". As in, the reason why Stephen A. Smith is particularly valuable to ESPN isn't because he attracts huge audience numbers, but because he delivers the desired levels during mid-morning hours for two entire hours every day. This is much more valuable than one of their 30-minute shows that pulls in similar numbers.

Similarly, there are certain sports like baseball and hockey that do not or no longer attract large national audiences during the regular season, but they provide dependable viewership across hundreds and hundreds of hours of programming. Some of it is purely about the challenge of filling the schedule and using it to cross-promote.
 
LewTheShoe said:
NBC's contract is $2 billion over 10 years, and ratings are about what Nascar pulls for Xfinity Series practice or qualifying sessions..:idunno:
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It's a lot of inventory as @gnomesayin said - 112 regular season games and still ~85 playoff games still to come, when the big numbers roll in. They averaged 1.45M for all 83 playoff games last year and can reasonably expect about 2M average for the conference finals and 5M average for the Stanley Cup Final. They might get their money's worth on the playoffs alone - NHL was also NBCSN's/VERSUS's bread and butter for some time and is still comfortably up there with NASCAR as their most valuable sports property.
 
LewTheShoe said:
NBC's contract is $2 billion over 10 years, and ratings are about what Nascar pulls for Xfinity Series practice or qualifying sessions..:idunno:
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The Vegas Golden Knights just paid 500 million for their franchises and the yet unnamed Seattle expansion franchise will pay 650 million.

For a niche sport the NHL does well but not so much for Nascar. I will say the NHL has good product.
 
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