So a Seattle v Portland final would rate nearly as high as the Rose Bowl? Edit: Or do you mean local rating? Seattle's most viewers last season came playing against Los Angeles, Portland and New York. The second highest was the match against Portland which obviously they would get a bump because of the novelty of a renewed rivalry. Portland is the only club Seattle played on ESPN that isn't from a big market. The home tie drew 467k (.3) viewers and the away tie 328k (.2) Seattle is a draw because of the support in the city which is reflected in the local ratings. I think that translates for TV as well but still national broadcasts of the Sounders recently have been paired with a club from a big market. I'd like to see Seattle play Dallas away like New York on the first week and compare. I don't doubt the numbers might be bigger but I'd just like to get a fact based data rather than speculation that Seattle would draw those kind of numbers nationally because of strong local support. The only matches that Seattle is going to be on national TV that isn't in a major market is Portland and Vancouver, which you expect to be high. I do agree with your overall point that the Galaxy can do better. I think it will get better with the new TV deal. You don't invest $55m on a clubs media rights unless you intend to promote them in their market.
i guess i just don't understand how your coming to that conclusion. wouldn't it be fair to assume LA is contributing a higher percentage of eyeballs counted in national broadcasts then most other MLS markets? that's an honest question, as i don't know the numbers.
One thing I can say for sure, after having watched several games on FSC last year and now NBCSN this year, I love NBCSN so much better. The picture, commentary, and audio, it all is so much better.
Re: Oy. Fanboys. Now there you go being the voice of reason and sucking all the fun out of this. Okay, nothing snarky about FSC (because you're right, what goes around), but how about MLS bashing EPL Talk, which just dumped all over the rating for the first game on NBC Sports calling it "embarrassingly low" ? To see what looks to be a pretty nice number for Philly v. Colorado coupled with their meltdown over Al Jazeera possibly acquiring the U.S. EPL rights . . . You won't deny me this smidgen of schadenfreude will you?
It might be a concern to the Galaxy but not for MLS. If the league has a team that can draw higher ratings than most other teams then something must be going right. They should name it FOX Sports Net lol
Yep. Someone else was talking about their hockey coverage earlier. They have given MLS the same production quality and it is awesome. To be fair, I think ESPN has done a nice job as well and improves each year, but it is impressive how well done these two games have been right out of the box on NBCSN.
That last part is key. Now admittedly, the execs are looking at micro numbers that we don't have. I assume from past data that the demographic numbers are even more encouraging than the big macro number that we are looking at. If MLS can exceed their other programming AND allow them to actually make some money, the ratings success will fuel the beast with more promotion across all of the NBC properties, I would think. Couple this with Jon Miller's comments after the Portland game he was at (I've been to super bowls and game 7's in baseball and nothing matches this) and you have a recipe for a sports property that this guy will WANT to succeed. That is a big part of the battle.
What is this, 2000? Fox tried to get their own nationwide sports network going by using FSN affiliates to carry nationwide content, but too often, that nationwide content couldn't get traction because it was always getting preempted by local sporting events at all sorts of different times. Now, if they want to create a completely new channel separate from the FSN affiliates, that's fine, but they're going to get a bit of pushback from the cable and satellite providers who already have to swallow a huge chunk of channels that News Corp forces on them through bundling.
Well, hell, then that's even better. I guess I can theorize as to how all the late viewers but that's really fantastic. I hope NBC keeps it up. Their show is extremely professional, even if I like FSC's UCL coverage, it's really being raised up to a higher level on these broadcasts.
I get that sense also. This is an NBC sports executive that has a long history of taking niche or overlooked ideas and turning them into moneymakers. I feel like he thinks he is seeing something really special in MLS and is almost giddy with thoughts about what he can do with it from a marketing perspective on his own channel. The comments from Portland were more like a kid on Christmas morning, seeing that he got more than he expected, than a television exec pumping his latest show. But, I digress.
Actually, Miller's comments came at HALFTIME. It was a 0-0 affair and he was impressed. I wonder what he was thinking after seeing those 4 second half goals.
The interview was done high up in the press box at halftime. Quite informal. My brother is up there and some people go around right before halftime and say "Commissioner Garber will be here to answer questions." Miller just came along with him. Every time Garber has been in town for a game he makes himself available at halftime.
I suspect that the goalfest part was probably not that relevant(in the sense of augmenting his already high impression) to someone like him.
Personally I miss the Kwikgoal prop and the recurring production errors that FSC used to have, but maybe it's just me. Also, now that Sully is not doing MLS I am confused as to who is the trequartista and whether a team is playing with definition or not, etc. etc.
You guys did just notice the local TV deal the Galaxy just signed, which is the biggest local cable deal in the league by a long-shot? Notice most games LA have on ESPN are the highest rated? Not to mention attendance figures of LA away matches, I'd say they're more then pulling their weight.
So now that we have a good 2nd week NBCSN number, has the crises been averted? That's not a premier match TV wise, especially considering it was at Philly.
Kid on Christmas morning, or like any of us when we had that "moment" where we were hooked into the game.
Aren't ratings based on percentages of the local market as well, so a 0.2 in Los Angeles may equal the same number of viewers as a 1.0 in Portland (don't know the exact math, you get what I mean).
I really like the small, not not insignificant, decision to start the game at quarter after and have a 2.5 hour window so they can have a small pre and post-game show.
Perhaps it would be the same number of viewers, but I believe what Twix is suggesting is that the big markets -- LA and NY aren't doing the job of big markets when you have such a small proportion of local viewers tuning in. In other words, at this point in time MLS isn't getting a big market bounce from these teams. The point of having big market teams, from a TV standpoint, is that if you get the same proportion of viewers from the big market as you get from the smaller markets, then your viewership is significantly enhanced. In other words if LA got a 2.0 local rating, that would provide a starting point of about 250,000 viewers. A 2.0 in New York City would bring in approximately 380,000 viewers as a starting point. In this sense, one of the biggest failures of MLS from a TV ratings standpoint is its inability to capture its largest local markets.