The negative slant is that these ratings should not be combined. I am sure the 2 have different values for commercials, so they need to be seen as 2 different things.
The numbers that advertisers see is a hell of a lot more detailed than the single value that the general public sees.
What I mean is that the number we will be seeing as viewers will be less relevant. What we really need to be considering is how attractive the league is to advertisers. Overall popularity means nothing if it doesn't monetize.
That is the argument people use to concentrate in the (18-49 age range), but we use the main rating because it is more available and it is easier to compare.
For sure, in American leagues terms MLS and NBA are the youngest. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-sports-with-the-oldest-and-youngest-tv-audiences-2017-06-30
BTW, I have to Google the numbers but Spanish coverage of the MNT seems to be doing better than English, at least this past FIFA dates. Then again the rivals make a huge difference, a US vs. Turkey may not get great numbers on Spanish tv. The success of TUDN in attracting #USMNT fans over FS1 is remarkable. Happened again this week vs Uruguay. I have been watching the US on TUDN, its predecessor network or Univision for a while now. This as someone who knows only a little Spanish. They are doing a lot right!— Kartik Krishnaiyer 🇺🇦🌻⚽️ (@kkfla737) September 12, 2019
Yes I would think it had a lot to do with the opposition. But securing players like Jonathan Gonzalez and Efrain Alvarez for the USMNT would probably help too.
https://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/out-home-count-adds-12m-super-bowl-viewers-171669 http://nbcsportsgrouppressbox.com/2019/05/14/nbcuniversal-delivers-most-watched-premier-league-championship-sunday-ever-in-u-s/ Funny you say that, as some over there love to tout EPL numbers but unlike MLS apples to oranges this has been something that EPL has always had factored into their TV numbers as part of NBC's (TAD) Total Audience Delivery number. This is basically the industry standardizing it across the board where as ESPN and Fox Sports had only reported MLS and its TV numbers in general in the traditional way. ESPN last year did track and release the OOH numbers separately in it's end of year MLS ratings; however they just didn't officially combine the numbers as one. Can't say how much a big deal this is for all the hang wringing thru the years at MLS TV ratings we will start to get a more complete picture of where MLS on the TV landscape. BTW this starts next Sept, so only the last quarter of the season and playoffs MLS Cup run will get captured.
From: Soccer America:"USA-Uruguay game averaged 1.2 million viewers on Univision (simulcast on @TUDNUSA), almost five times the audience on @FS1 (245,000 viewers)." #USAvURU— Roberto Abramowitz (@RobAbramowitz) September 12, 2019
Do we really? For the most part, this thread has been used to determine how "popular" the league is and not, necessarily, about how attractive it is to advertisers. For the purpose of determine how "popular" the league is, including the "out of home" number with the "in home" is significantly more important than having that number broken out.
I figured that we're only doing this due to lack of available information... Popularity with no monetization means nothing.
You make some points, but I've long tried to note around here despite the hand-wringing through the years, that MLS does well with advertisers punching above its weight. It's because of its numbers in the key 18-49 demo. This can be seen when looking at the TV Top 150. When MLS games are on you will often see MLS rated higher (250-300k) than some other televised programming with 4-5x the raw viewing number, because those shows have a much smaller number of 18-49 yr olds watching vs MLS. It's vital to conversations of MLS and the TV landscape and how they take place. Far too often people don't know how to read the numbers. Even the numbers itself they want to read to make a opinion are often greatly misrepresented . Like the EPL numbers vs MLS. One league (EPL) is having additional data added to its final numbers via TAD(total audience delivery) and one league MLS through its network partners are still just getting traditional TV numbers. Then you look at networks like ESPN who fight a battle over ad rates but are still mightily in it to prop up leagues with high viewing numbers regardless of if the key demos are watching at a high percentage. Why? because they hope to increase or maintain a steadily decreasing subscriber base. This has started to change as they've learned/accepted why the subscriber base is shrinking. It's because that 18-49 yr old base have moved from cable to a new viewing medium. What this change does is allow networks to sell and advertisers to set additional advertising rates for Out of Home viewing across the board. This means additional TV revenue all around for every one, Networks and sports leagues. Before only some advertisers would agree to give networks credit for out of home viewing and they'd either factor it into the regular ad pricing or agree to sell it, but at a cut rate price. Now they all have to accept it as the industry standard now.
Want to add to this thought on ESPN. It's a good sign that ESPN is putting and looking to feature more MLS on the ABC flagship. It signals they recognize that MLS is doing well in the key demos and I believe they think putting MLS out to a wider audience on OTA can be beneficial to numbers for the league and ESPN. What will be interesting to watch next year will be if there is an increase in MLS advertising coverage on ESPN/ABC.
The fact that all of these except one have higher average age in a 10 year period of time where life expectancy has gone down is a bad sign for the future of sports viewership, UNLESS it's offset by streaming, which I tend to believe is the case more than an aging viewership. Saying that I think we all need to take all strictly TV viewership numbers with a grain of salt when comparing them to the past. TV isn't the same. I'm about to completely abandon it and cut the cord and many have done so before me. Cool stats though, good for the NBA and MLS to be sure. Shocked at how big the gap is to everything else.
Things that stuck out to me was the rapid aging of the NHL and WNBA audience in that 16 yr span. NHL went from a average fan age of 33 to 49 in 16 yrs which means that fanbase is literally aging out and WNBA from a age of 42 to 55 as of 2016. So this points to not increasing your fan base and a aging fan base as younger fans aren't become fans you are literally living and dying with your fan base. Lucky for NHL it's still a middle aged fans base probably in entering their mid 50's. So they have some time to turn that around. Bad news for PGA/LPGA tennis and horse racing tho. Those are sports that will literally be viewed as senior citizen oriented in 10 yrs if things continue on the pace they are.
Olympics, College football and College basketball being higher than NFL really surprises me. Boxing being that low really surprises me. All the others would be about what I would have guessed.
No kidding. 16 years aging viewership over 16 years? That's really bad news... but the fact that it's still one of the youngest means a lot, you're right. I think expansion will help as well. In another 3-4 years we'll get numbers with Vegas and Seattle and both of those are likely to see a younger demo shift. The funny thing is that when I watch the NHL on TV, I see a LOT of young people, primarily women in the stands compared to other big 4 sports. Seems like there is a very recent growth pattern in that demo. MLS easily looks the best of all of them. Young viewership, much less aging than all of the others (except women's tennis). It's probably this type of data that is getting SUM/MLS great TV deals despite rather low viewership. They know the growth potential is really strong.
When you think about it college football and basketball have been around long before the NFL came to be and those are sort of the legacy sports Going back the the old days of the Princeton formation in basketball and the Doak Walker/Lou Groza days of college football. Its funny to track these sports and their place and age and popularity in society thru the times kinda tacks with this chart. The only odd ball is boxing, which goes to America at heart being a violent society.
I feel like they have to be including MMA in the boxing category. That is a big sport and they don't list it anywhere else. I would argue it may be bigger than boxing and is definitely bigger than many of the other sports on the list. If MMA is include then the age may make sense.
Which is why I'm bullish on MLS. Just what you mentioned is why I think the league will explode once it's given a steady OTA time on networks like FOX and ABC the growth will help to facilitate future growth on cable networks. If people were shocked at the TV deals MLS has gotten previously despite relatively low raw viewership numbers. They will be gobsmacked by future deals. All because of how well the league does in key demos.
Despite the decreases in life expectancy since 2015, the life expectancy is still higher than in 2006. Also, the median age of the US population has been steadily increasing, in part because the decrease in life expectancy is driven by an increase of deaths of people in their 20s and 30s and a decrease in the rate of births. Median age was 35.3 in 2000, 36.4 in 2006, 37.9 in 2016, and is 38.2 in 2019.
It does well. Again I'll explain it, It has a disproportionate amount of fans relative to its size. If it was getting 750k-1mil but still had the same raw demo numbers you'd probable think that's great. Well the situation now is we're averaging 250-300k with 18-49 yr old demos that are comparable or better then programming with higher raw viewers. The thing is most of those viewers are 50+ and something like two-thirds of MLS viewers are 18-34yrs old. Its called bang for your buck. Plus there is room for growth on both sides of TV investment for MLS and it network partners. It's easier to go from 250-300k to 400-500k in viewing audience than to go from 1mil to 2 mil. Networks know they are hitting the target audience they value with any MLS numbers it just a matter of increasing that amount to get even more of it.