I completely respect your right to have an opinion. It's not a smart one, and the facts don't support it, but hey it's yours. Have a nice day.
So I tried to get a sense of the average ratings for each tournament. Here is an article that nicely shows the average for all matches of 2014 on just ESPN/ABC (64 matches): 4.6 million. That's a total of about 294.4 million English language US viewers for the entire tournament. Using numbers derived from sportstvratings.com (which is pretty comprehensive) it looks like the 2015 combined average rating on Fox, FS1, & FS2 (52 matches) was about 1.76 million. That's a total of about 91 million English language US viewers for the entire tournament. These numbers were based on first a summary that stated that the average up through the US v Colombia match (inclusive) was an even 1 million. That was 42 matches. The remaining 2 Round of 16 games, the quarterfinals, the semifinals, and the final were individually obtainable (9 matches). The third-place game was hard to find for some reason. I gave it a bit over 1 million, though I found an entry that was 66,000 (which seemed far too low and the time was not right). That drags the 52-game average down a wee bit to 1.75 million from 1.76 million without considering the 3rd place game. So, based on average rating, the 2014 cup was 2.6 times "more viewed" on English language channels. By total audience, 3.2 times. Have we had a comparison of advertising rates between the two similar events (NBA and soccer of any kind aren't really a great comparison, plus comparing the two World Cups would remove sports as a variable and compare ratings vs. ad rates alone)? As an aside for an interesting comparison: Tuesday's US v Honduras Gold Cup opening group game on FS1 (same broadcaster as much of the WWC) got 986,000, which surprised the crap out of me. Nearly the average of the first 42 matches of the WWC. It got 1.9 million additional on UniMas, also pretty surprising.
Just enjoy it for what it is. The sport is getting even more attention, and has reached a higher plateau than it has ever reached before. Lots of discussion, lots of controversy, lots of eyeballs, lots of attention. This is why it was great that the USWNT got drawn into the "Group of Death", as it got more eyeballs on their games from the beginning of the World Cup, and the advertised "Group of Death" on television got a lot of patriots intrigued to watch along with less casual soccer and sports fans. The Movement of the Women's Game is on a power shift up a strong incline. Look for NWSL to land a few expansion franchises soon enough.
Gender discrimination in one chart...TV charges 2x as much for 67% of the eyeballs... Also, if it was the NWSL drawing an 8 for it's final, it'd be on youtube.
I point you to my numbers above. The 2014 tournament, per match, averaged 2.6 times what the 2015 tournament did. Given those verifiable numbers, the ad costs seem perfectly in line (which I am genuinely surprised about). Actually, to be perfectly in line in terms of average audience, using $210,760 as a basis, the 2014 tournament broadcasters should have been charging $547,976. This implies that either 2014 was undervalued, or 2015 was overvalued in that sense. (In total audience terms, 2014 should have fetched $647,432) I haven't the foggiest idea where the WSJ is getting its audience numbers. Just as 25.4 million isn't typical for the entire 2015 tournament (how the package is sold), neither is 17.3 million (which game is that, by the way? "Finals" implies the tournament itself, while "final" implies the championship match) typical of the 2014 tournament. Ad spots are sold WELL in advance of the commencement of the tournament (at least typically). In my research, that was definitely confirmed for 2014, as ESPN apparently was lamenting that they should have asked for much higher rates given how the ratings turned out for them. It seems the WSJ has cherry-picked some numbers to glom onto a notion that has currency right now, regardless of context. Or they have sloppy researchers. Or both.
The most jarring think about that graphic is the cost of NCAA ad given it's a non profit that doesn't pay their athletes
Or you won't let facts intrude on your preconceived notions. But it couldn't be that simple, could it?
Interesting, that seems to contradict this report from Adweek.com: "The price of a 30-second ad for Sunday's final was $500,000, according to the source. That's similar to what ESPN charged for the 2014 men's final." Has anyone seen a third report that confirms either of these numbers? I would tend to trust the WSJ numbers but surely there is some other journalist out there who investigated these prices.
Umm...no, in fact. I gathered comprehensive numbers and they disagree rather profoundly with the graphic's intended conclusion, or at least call it into pretty severe question. You wanted facts. I got some and presented them. It would be nice if you dealt with them rather than dismissed them. In your attempt to "answer" the gathered numbers. you regurgitated something that appears to be contradicted by another source and has at least one audience number of unknown provenance.
The graphic shows the sources they claim they pulled from, but there are questions, particularly where the 17.3 came from, in addition to the ad rates.
lol. The facts don't agree with your world view, so you made other ones up, changed context, and misrepresented an apples to apples comparison (I liked that you threw in the discussion of how you think ad rates are set). The Internet belongs to you. Reality. ..I gotta work
This APPEARS to be your original argument, which was a naked assertion, albeit one that had a decent chance of having a lot of truth in it: Upon further examination, it seems that the first part is highly questionable given Adweek (for the final, anyway) and the second part is only true for a final in which the US competed, while being extremely untrue for the overall event. It seems to me that you're the one behaving this way. One more time, the WSJ 17.3 million doesn't line up with what I've seen for the 2014 final elsewhere. I'd like to know where it came from. It also looks like the WSJ graphic disagrees profoundly with Adweek, an organization whose job it is to get things like advertising rates correct. As far as ad rates, they ARE set well in advance. Re-negotiating mid-event is very, very rare. It is NOT rare for ad spots to change price depending on where in the tournament they appear. In fact, that makes sense that knockout round and final prices would be higher than 1st round games, for example. I don't know why you're so wound up about this, except for the fact that your naked assertion - in which you are emotionally invested - didn't bear out like you thought. I'm honestly pleasantly surprised there was little if any "cultural inertia" related "sexist" pricing. I was expecting at least a 20% or so difference than "equality" would dictate, and instead found that for the whole event, it was about -10% to -20%.
Does anyone on here work in TV ad sales or know someone who does? I'd be interested to know how broadcast companies decide to sell their inventory of ad space for an event like the World Cup. I can't find the article at the moment, but I recall reading in the run-up to the tournament that while sales were going very well, Fox was purposefully holding back some spots (presumably because they were confident that ratings would outpace historical trends, barring an early US exit). Anyway, this article had some interesting information regarding the demographics of the WWC American TV audience.