And furthermore, the relatively ad free nature of soccer lends itself better to cable than ad supported broadcast. This is because the majority of the revenue for cable sports channels comes from carriage fees from cable companies. It doesn't take many people dropping a $100/mo cable package because they can't get their soccer fix for cable companies to notice. Then the cable companies offer big bucks to sports networks that provide soccer.
Exactly. This is why soccer will ALWAYS be mostly on cable and never on network TV, even if it was as popular as the NFL. It doesn't matter if it can make crap loads of money in ad revenue on network TV, it's more valuable for these media conglomerates to put soccer on cable and leverage greater carriage fees.
Thank you for this. This sounds like a much more reasoned and plausible reason for leaving it on NBCSN. In the long run, that's good for MLS... which brings us full circle on this thread. Along with MLS36 (I've seen a couple episodes. They are good but not great), NBCSN is becoming a more hospitable home for soccer.
But my whole point the whole time is that we aren't comparing soccer to canoeing, we were comparing it to whatever was on NBC at the time. 5-6x the commercials when you have 1/4 the viewing audience and a sport that very few care about much and (possibly since I don't know much about the canoeing demographic) a less desirable demographic seems like in terms of ad revenue it might be a wash, but if its a wash revenue-wise, then its a good move to put it on NBC. Of course, Stan Collins just posted a very informative post that makes this all moot except in a more theoretical sense. I think its an interesting discussion of a nuanced issue, which is why I've continued to post on it despite probably others of you being bored by it.
Right idea and a good point. Numbers are way way way off though. I spend $5 a month extra for all the sports channels, maybe 40 of them. 2 of them are dedicated to soccer, 3 if you count NBCSN in that although I think I get that without paying for the "sports" package.
If you were comparing soccer to a new episode of a prime-time show, there might be a point about commercials and ad revenue. But when you're comparing a soccer game that is, ratings-wise, a premier event to something that isn't, the comparison doesn't work. 4x more commercial slots is 4x (relative) peanuts, which is still peanuts. If we were talking about a difference of 20-30%, there'd be a point there. (But even then, the revenue difference would probably be a bit trivial, and subject to other, broader network calculations.) The cable carriage price point is true when that price is likely to vary because of that particular event...which is probably the case with a new network like NBCSN and an event like this. They're trying to get on more systems, and get greater fees for that. Being able to say you've got premier events helps out. And btw, having just actually watched water polo, I can confirm there's no natural breaks in that game other than at the quarter intervals. NBC cut away during the middle of the game--and missed a goal (during a dramatic comeback of a gold-medal game that went to OT). The reason there's not likely to be an uproar over this is precisely that water polo isn't a premier viewing event where Olympic soccer is (at least, in the late rounds).
You can put up advertising during the run of play in a Soccer game... You don't have to cut away to commercials. On Sounders broadcasts the announcers always do a Dairy Queen plug for instance. A company can pay to have their name and logo in the score box, something that is up the whole game and viewers look at constantly.
My, what a logical pretzel we've twisted ourselves into. What you meant to say is, 'we dare not disagree with my personal speculation as to what those more educated are thinking. . . but when someone more educated on the topic disagrees with me, well, he's a near moron.' You should have bolded this part, since it's really the bottom line.
I watched the USA basketball game. There were very very few commercials. A few minutes more than a soccer game I think, but not much more than that. I wonder why they put it on NBC?!
I see it on Colombian Soccer games, it can be very annoying, but I guess they got to do what they got to do to pay the bills.
Regardless, there are methods to insert some advertising into Soccer games without interrupting the games. Some less annoying than others. I think the argument about losing money because of a lack of commercials and ad space is not that strong. I won't deny it can play some part, but their are alternatives that are being used currently.
I wonder how the spread of the DVR will change things. For me, already, it makes more sense for GM to put their logo by the time/score of a soccer game than pay for an ad in a football game, because I'll fast forward past their commercial.
It was not that long ago that MLS had commercials running along side the game in a split screen format. I don't think it lasted more than a year though for what ever reason.
There were a lot more commercials in this game compared to a soccer game, don't forget the hoop game is in quarters. Hell they even cut away from the live action to go to a commercial, something that would have made Big Soccer explode in anger. You can't have it both ways. If you want the game to be on NBC you will have to put up with some sort of commercial interruption, however minor. IMO, the best thing that could have happened for MLS did and that was for the majority of the soccer games, including the women's final, to be on NBCSN, exposing the channel to new people.
Actually I was comparing your knowledge, my knowledge and Heistands knowledge level to the people who actually have the information and make the decisions at NBC. I would trust their knowledge base more than all of ours put together. That doesn't mean they are infallible of course, but they simply have more information and understand the constraints they are working under better than any of us could IMO. If you think you have more information than they do, so be it. No big deal either way. In the end NBC is going to do what they want to do no matter what a tiny niche of the public thinks. And IMO, what NBC did with soccer may actually help MLS because the NBCSN needed as much exposure as possible. I think NBC will take all of the data from this Olympics and toss it into the mix with plenty of new variables come 2016. Whether that means soccer will get on the main network with or without commercials, I have no idea.
BigSoccer would have been rightly pissed off. If there's some Olympic basketball message board somewhere it should be pissed off too. In terms of actual minutes of commercials, don't be so sure that basketball and soccer were that different. I DVRed the game and plan to check at some point. I'll let you know the results. The game obviously stopped to go to commercial quite a few times, but those commercials were darn short. Some seemed to be only 15 seconds. I'm not totally sure that skipping a few seconds of the game was on purpose either. No you don't! Why do you keep coming back to this? I've seen plenty of soccer games on broadcast TV without commercials. I get that's probably most of the reason they did it as I've noted in other posts. That doesn't do anything to bolster any of your above points.
During the broadcast of the men's gold medal game, the announcer said time outs under international basketball rules could only be called by the head coach and only during a dead ball situation. I rather like that rule, even though advertisers would probably hate it. The interest of college basketball wanes for me each passing year. It takes 20 minutes in real time to play 3:00 clock time of a game that more often than not, doesn't go into overtime. I love college hoops, but the end-of-the-game strategy oftentimes makes it less appealing.
I meant during the Olympics, I apologize if that was unclear. I already explained my point of view to you in this post about this exact topic but you may have missed it. Again, sorry that I was unclear as I in no way think soccer does not belong on broadcast tv. https://www.bigsoccer.com/community/...n-a-3-year-deal.1800376/page-88#post-26241826 Obviously soccer games have been and will continue to be on broadcast TV with out commercial interruption, just as they have since the 1994 World Cup on ABC. Hell, we have three of them coming up on NBC for MLS specifically this fall. Lets hope for the best ratings possible so that we may see more next season If basketball had a cut away during live action on top of the normal commercials they have on the main channel, I am surprised you think they would show a soccer game with no commercial interruptions during the Olympics on the main channel. It just doesn't make any sense to me. Can you at least point to any events in the Olympics on the main channel that did not have commercials? If so I think I could buy your assertion much easier. I will admit that I did not watch NBC 24-7 during the Olympics so maybe there were but what I did see always had some commercials, usually no more than 10-15 minutes apart, sometimes more frequent. As for the commercials you want to count, make sure you count all the ones between the quarters (which don't exist in soccer), the relative few during the game and the one where they cut away from live action (they did this as well during the water polo match according to a poster earlier in the thread as well). I watched the game and while there were less commercials than your typical NBA game, there were certainly more than during your typical soccer game (which we know is none). I am obviously not talking about pregame, half time and post game since those exist for every team sport mostly.
Lets expand on this point as I am interested in your thought process. Assume the following *No other cable channels existed for NBC to show soccer on Do you believe in that case, that soccer would be shown on the main network, 100% commercial free? If you answer no to that, are you willing to recognize that moving soccer to NBCSN was a happy confluence of variables for NBC? It helped them put a sport that draws eye balls while not as much ad revenue for a brand new station more concerned about exposure than ad revenue. If you answer yes to that question, well then I guess that is that.
If NBC wanted to show a game with no commercials (apart from a TON during the pregame, halftime, and postgame of course), they would just do it. I didn't watch NBC 24-7 (and actually the Olympics weren't on during the afternoon or anything close to 24-7 on NBC). I don't know of any sports that were broadcast without commercials on NBC. I can't even think of many broadcast live or any that even lent themselves in any way to a broadcast without commercials. I suppose you could argue for some of the longer track events or the marathon? I think the confusion is I'm comparing the whole block of time for the basketball and the soccer. I'm not sure why you don't find all of those parts of the broadcast relevant. Basketball had a few very short commercials. I'm not sure if cutting off part of the game was in purpose or a slip-up so I don't want to get into that. It seemed like a slip-up to me. Anyway, I'll let you know an approximate minute count on the basketball commercials.
The assumption is a little weird given the actual circumstances of having other channel options. Without other options the bar would have been a lot lower and it would be much easier to suggest putting it on NBC. I think if they did show it on NBC on that Thursday afternoon they could have and should have had no commercials during play. Whether you call that 100% commercial free or not, I don't really care. They definitely would have packed the pre-game, halftime, and postgame with ads and who could blame them.
Not going to argue with this. They could obviously show anything they want, with in reason. I thought we were discussing how they would most likely present soccer on the main network, given their fiduciary responsibilities and other variables. This is what leads me to believe that NBC would not show soccer commercial free. I don't know any more than you do though so obviously they might in the future, especially if the data from this Olympics works out for them. I do find them relevant, sorry if I came off that I did not care about them. In the end though I am just thinking about the final number. Since all team sports (for the most part) will have commercials during pre, halftime and post, I feel like they are a wash and the real difference in revenue comes from commercials during the actual game. Also it should be noted that the ad revenue is obviously higher during the game than it is during pre/half and post games making that time more valuable to sell. Does this make my point clearer about why I focus on the in game ad revenue?