MLS Cup TV Ratings.

[Brrca Fan redded]

Please post MLS Cup ratings here.

[Thomas A Fina]

I'm sure you posted something here, but I'll be damned if I know what it was.

[tobycharles]

The overnight rating was a 1.0 (about a million households) up from a .8 for last year's Cup. Probably helped a bit by the OT. Source: ABC Sports.

[tobycharles]

Is a 1.0. Up from .8 last year...probably helped by OT.

[Brrca Fan redded]

The overnight rating was a 1.0 (about a million households) up from a .8 for last year's Cup. Probably helped a bit by the OT. Source: ABC Sports. That's good. Damn I take that to the bank homes.

[geordienation]

Merged.

[wufc]

It also helps that a higher percentage of Los Angeles residents watched it this year.

[wcharriscpa]

How does it compare to the Raiders game? Just curious.

[uclacarlos]

What were the LA ratings?

from the MLS News and Analysis thread...
Revs - Gals did a 2.7 in Boston.

Other Sunday sports on during MLS Cup in Boston:

NFL (CBS) Patriots v Miami 1-4p did a 24.7.
NFL (CBS) Patriots wrap-up show, 4:15-5:45, a 12.1
NFL (FOX) Tampa v Skins 4-7:30 did a 9.4
NASCAR (NBC) Checker 500, 3:30-7:00, did a 2.5 !!
NFL (FOX) Vikings v Giants, on Fox, 1-4:15, did a 1.6

(Each rating point represents 1% of the area's 2.4 million homes)
(94% of homes have cable or satellite service)

[uclacarlos]

From murtaugh on MLS News and Analysis...

'05 MLS CUP NIELSEN METERED-MARKET RATINGS
market - size rank - rating/share
1) Boston (#5) 2.8/5
2) Cincinnati (#33) 1.7/3
3) Austin (#54) 1.6/3
4t) Detroit (#10) 1.5/3
4t) Los Angeles (#2) 1.5/4
6) Atlanta (#9) 1.4/2
7t) Knoxville (#59) 1.2/2
7t) Minneapolis-St. Paul (#14) 1.2/2
7t) Providence-New Bedford (#49) 1.2/2
7t) Seattle-Tacoma (#12) 1.2/3
7t) Washington, DC (#8) 1.2/3
12t) Denver (#18) 1.1/2
12t) Kansas City (#31) 1.1/2
12t) Memphis (#44) 1.1/2
12t) Norfolk (#41) 1.1/2
12t) Orlando-Daytona Beach-Melbourne (#20) 1.1/2
12t) Richmond-Petersburg (#61) 1.1/2
12t) Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto (#19) 1.1/3
19t) New York (#1) 1.0/2
19t) Pittsburgh (#22) 1.0/2

[New Orleans and Miami-Ft. Lauderdale are non-reportable markets due to hurricanes]

[joebloe888]

From murtaugh on MLS News and Analysis...

'05 MLS CUP NIELSEN METERED-MARKET RATINGS
market - size rank - rating/share
1) Boston (#5) 2.8/5
2) Cincinnati (#33) 1.7/3
3) Austin (#54) 1.6/3
4t) Detroit (#10) 1.5/3
4t) Los Angeles (#2) 1.5/4
6) Atlanta (#9) 1.4/2
7t) Knoxville (#59) 1.2/2
7t) Minneapolis-St. Paul (#14) 1.2/2
7t) Providence-New Bedford (#49) 1.2/2
7t) Seattle-Tacoma (#12) 1.2/3
7t) Washington, DC (#8) 1.2/3
12t) Denver (#18) 1.1/2
12t) Kansas City (#31) 1.1/2
12t) Memphis (#44) 1.1/2
12t) Norfolk (#41) 1.1/2
12t) Orlando-Daytona Beach-Melbourne (#20) 1.1/2
12t) Richmond-Petersburg (#61) 1.1/2
12t) Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto (#19) 1.1/3
19t) New York (#1) 1.0/2
19t) Pittsburgh (#22) 1.0/2

[New Orleans and Miami-Ft. Lauderdale are non-reportable markets due to hurricanes]

Interesting.

Neither Houston nor San Antonio got a 1.0.

As usual, San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose didn't care.

[napolisoccer]

What does mean a million households? How many persons?
Thank you for the reply.

[Khansingh]

A.C. Nielsen Media measures television audiences by distributing devices that record which channels are being watched during fifteen-minute increments throughout the day. Families that agree to use these devices are paid a nominal fee. Nielsen extrapolates these data across the entire population. A ratings point represents one percent of all of the television households in the United States. There are approximately 105,000,000 television households. The share represents, among the televisions in use at that time, the number to a particular channel. The overnight ratings are drawn from the fifty largest television markets in the country; a market being a city and its environs as determined by the Federal Communications Commission. The final rating takes a little more time (a week?) to calculate.

[joebloe888]

From Larry Stewart's column in the November 18 edition of The Los Angeles Times.

"Major League Soccer continues to grow as a television sport, but ever so slightly. The Galaxy's victory over New England in Sunday's MLS Cup on ABC got only a 0.7 national rating, with the number of households watching increasing from 850,000 last year to 854,000. In Los Angeles, the game got a 1.5 rating on Channel 7 and was seen in 83,046 households."

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-spw-tvcol18nov18,1,6089137.story?coll=la-headlines-sports

---

The year-to-year comparison was essentially flat when you account for statistical sampling error.

[geohiller]

From Larry Stewart's column in the November 18 edition of The Los Angeles Times.

"Major League Soccer continues to grow as a television sport, but ever so slightly. The Galaxy's victory over New England in Sunday's MLS Cup on ABC got only a 0.7 national rating, with the number of households watching increasing from 850,000 last year to 854,000. In Los Angeles, the game got a 1.5 rating on Channel 7 and was seen in 83,046 households."

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-spw-tvcol18nov18,1,6089137.story?coll=la-headlines-sports

---

The year-to-year comparison was essentially flat when you account for statistical sampling error.

Oliver,

Here's the problem with your comment - the media/advertising marketplace never cares about statistical sampling error when using the Nielsen ratings. The reality is - depending on the level of confidence you care to use - most differences in Neilsen ratings at the level achieved by MLS are within sampling error.

In earlier posts, you pointed out that with the increasing fragmentation of media viewership, the rating that MLS gets on ESPN2 is enough to perhaps justify a rights deal. The problem is, that at such low levels, almost any change is within statistical confidence intervals of the sampling process Nielsen uses, and as such either a slight gain or a slight loss is "essentially flat". The reality is, every single MLS Cup telecast has been either within or close to statistical sampling error limits (especially if you use an 80% confidence interval, which is common in media and marketing research).

Because of this, the common usage is to ignore these error ranges, and accept the Nielsen estimates (and they are only estimates) as accurate measurements of change in audience. Therefore, the fact that Nielsen's estimates show a slight gain in audience must be viewed as just that. That is certainly the way media professionals will view it.

As a marketing research professional (who uses statistical sampling techniques like this all the time) I can tell you that's the way it works (otherwise, pricing of TV time would be too "helter skelter").

Were we to use your comment as a basis for evaluating the change in TV ratings, we could just as easily say MLS has never had a "true" decline or "true" gain in TV audience.

George

[joebloe888]

C'mon George.

Not even SUM/MLS will boast of an 0.5% year-to-year increase in viewing households.

[Gioca]

C'mon George.

Not even SUM/MLS will boast of an 0.5% year-to-year increase in viewing households.

Yeah but after 100 years or so, there might actually be a television audience for MLS.

[geohiller]

C'mon George.

Not even SUM/MLS will boast of an 0.5% year-to-year increase in viewing households.

I'm not arguing they would boast of it, but they would undoubtedly say that viewership increased very slightly. They wouldn't say it's "essentially flat", even though that's what it is statistically speaking.

George

[kenntomasch]

From Larry Stewart's column in the November 18 edition of The Los Angeles Times.

"Major League Soccer continues to grow as a television sport, but ever so slightly. The Galaxy's victory over New England in Sunday's MLS Cup on ABC got only a 0.7 national rating, with the number of households watching increasing from 850,000 last year to 854,000. In Los Angeles, the game got a 1.5 rating on Channel 7 and was seen in 83,046 households."

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-spw-tvcol18nov18,1,6089137.story?coll=la-headlines-sports

---

The year-to-year comparison was essentially flat when you account for statistical sampling error.

I had 840,000 TV households last year. Maybe I was off.

[The Greatest]

I'm not sure where that 0.7 number came from, but here are the final numbers:

http://tv.zap2it.com/tveditorial/tve_main/1,1002,272|||sports,00.html

ML SOCCER CUP '05(S)-11/13/2005
ABC
Sun
3:30 PM
0.8/2 - Household Rating/Share
854,000 - Household Audience
1,137,000 - Total Viewers
182m - Length