MLS Debut on NBC Sports 82k http://www.socceramerica.com/article/45973/nbc-sports-network-debut-draws-82000-viewers.html [TELEVISION WATCH] NBC Sports Network’s broadcast of Sunday's FC Dallas-New York, its first MLS broadcast, drew a 0.07 national household rating, or about 82,000 viewers. By comparision, ESPN averaged 291,000 viewers per game on ESPN and ESPN2 in 2011, and Fox Soccer averaged 68,000 viewers.
The vast majority of the 82K viewers were a young crowd. Does anyone under 50 years old watch fishing/hunting shows? Even if they get slightly higher ratings than MLS, those shows are still worth less overall.
Well, no, but he'd spin it. He'd say the ratings were "a good start" or "something to work with". Saying he was "very excited, very pleased" doesn't sound like spin. One more thing to keep in mind when worrying about ratings: the business model of cable sports networks doesn't revolve solely around selling advertising. It's all about carriage fees and convincing cable companies to pay them. That's a lower bar to meet when it comes to ratings for a specific program. Advertisers may be concerned about the ratings for a specific show, but the cable carriers are more interested in the value of a network as a whole. Adding MLS to its stable increases NBCSN's value, even if it doesn't hit it out of the park, ratings-wise, each and every broadcast. ------RM
I think soccer is fundamentally different than other US sports in that there are far fewer "universally loved" teams. Part of the attraction of the sport is settling on a team and following it come hell or high water. Consider that the EPL and the Primera Division are the two most popular leagues in the US, but very few people follow both, and many fans of either look with disdain or total non-interest on the other. This doesn't happen with other US sports. And as MLS has expanded there are fewer and fewer soccer fans who "don't have a team". For me, now that the Union exist, I watch a lot less soccer on TV than before. Whining over ratings (or should that be whinging) makes no sense with soccer.
These numbers really don't matter. Big Soccer posters place way more importance on overall Neilson ratings than people in the industry.
I don't think there is anything to be disappointed about here. Anyone who thought the NBC broadcast would match ESPN right out of the gate has unrealistic expectations. Viewership for NBCs first game is significantly better than the average for FSC...which is what we should compare it to...because that's the TV partner who was replaced.
Unfortunately, the channel, at least with my cable package, was one I had to search for it. It's hardly one a casual sports fan would find. Who watches that channel anyway and what else is on it?
Besides NHL. Bicycle racing, and some random sport that looks like hockey players on a ice race course. I think it has poker, too.
I think he was just being polite. The numbers are not good and Miller knows it. Notice in his reply below, after the first 2 sentences... ... he continues(in red) with a non sequitur, as if to deflect further attention from the original question.
The concept of weighting (using a sample to make characterizations about an entire population) is a settled science. For example, national surveys of presidential general elections tend to be pretty accurate. You don't need thousands and thousands of surveys to determine the nation's preference amongst two candidates. However, the surveys can break down when trying to extrapolate on rare items. Such as, how many people will vote in the general election for the Libertarian candidate. Or even more difficult how many people in New Jersey will vote for the libertarian candidate. Still harder - how many people in Hoboken will vote for the LP guy. Neilson has a tough problem - hundreds of channels to deal with. My understanding, though, is that Neilson really extracts every last drop of info from their viewers. Their exact methodology is private, so a lot is left to conjecture. However, there is something to be said for the consistency of the Neilson data over time. The continuous sampling that Neilson performs is statistically far stronger than the various one-off presidential surveys.
I wouldn't necessarily infer that myself, it could just as easily be he wanted to talk about something he was genuinely excited about.
You kind of made my point for me...If you want to compare Nielsen ratings to a political candidates, the big two (or in this case big 3 or 4) are easy to extrapolate because they will get the vast majority of votes. Fox Soccer and NBCSN are the Libertarian from Hoboken. It's like hundreds of other candidates competing for FOX, NBC, CBS, and ABC's table scraps (to make a crude analogy), much harder to pin down the exact number. I suppose the reason why I'm trying to make this point is, the shows that are getting millions of viewers each episode aren't as worried about 20-30 thousand viewers, but for MLS on NBCSN it probably makes a noticable difference (pure conjecture, but probably somewhat accurate).
...according to? A Sunday late afternoon/early evening timeslot on a channel few people were seemingly aware exists separately from NBC and taking place on Selection Sunday...yet with much better presentation and better numbers than you previously saw on FSC. What the hell were you expecting?
Don't want to read this whole thread. But, the NBC numbers are about what I expected. It's going to be a slow build for sure. Unless you read Big Soccer, you probably don't even know what NBCSports is yet (or that the season has even started if in a non MLS city). That includes all those hundreds of thousands that show up for the summer friendlies. Most people don't even know it exists. Slow build. Starting numbers similar to Fox Soccer numbers (basically same demographic pool). Hope to see better numbers by end of season. If not, then there might be something to talk about.
To compare to Final Numbers in 2011 https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1742835&page=16 2011 ESPN After 4 games - 497.7 K ESPN2 After 20 games - 267 K FSC After 29 games - 70.6K Spanish After 18 games - 72.1K Also regarding House holds per rating: This is the info we had last year Current ratings: Fox 75K per 32 million households ESPN2 237K per 90 million households Versus 76 Million households IMO Versus will need about 178K-200K per 76 million households to even out with ESPN2 and FSC. (ratio 3.2-3.6: k viewers/M households) If NBC sports can grow their MLS tv audience to more than 178K then they would have improved on Fox SC and above 200K they would get a better viewer per household available ratio. I think 200K is a good target for NBC Sports in 2012. https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showpost.php?p=24117249&postcount=117
Just to add some more context to this. NBCSN's ratings for the debut of Bob Costas' interview show, which had some big named guests, had even more dire ratings (31,000) than MLS http://thebiglead.com/index.php/201...s-costas-tonight-ratings-were-incredibly-low/
How is the Costas show doing now? Low ratings at first are to be expected, the test will be after the Olympics and the end of the season. Also next year, FSC year 1 and 2 had 33K-50K ratings, the last 2 years they were about 70-75K.
Re: MLS Debut on NBC Sports 82k Can't say it's that bad seeing that the broadcast did get 14K more than the FSC average, especially when you consider that NBC Sports doesn't have the niche audience that a one-sport channel has. That being said, the numbers do need to get a LOT higher for them to make a true splash. Not that bad a start though.