2017 game feeds/TV/media

Discussion in 'NWSL' started by lil_one, Jan 13, 2017.

  1. MiLLeNNiuM

    MiLLeNNiuM Member+

    Aug 28, 2016
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #51 MiLLeNNiuM, Feb 2, 2017
    Last edited: Feb 2, 2017
    http://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/currency/ae-buys-stake-women-s-soccer-league/163021
     
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  2. MiLLeNNiuM

    MiLLeNNiuM Member+

    Aug 28, 2016
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I don't think Lifetime should be dumped if they're returning a profit AND base salaries in the NWSL keep rising.
    The Lifetime deal might only be a stepping stone or might succeed in the long-term (I certainly hope that it will).
    Time will tell; we have 5-6 years to see how it plays out.

    Realistically, though, I'm with STT on this for the sustainability of the league.
    I think a synergistic TV deal for the NWSL with USSF, MLS, and SUM would allow for stronger revenues in the long-term.
     
  3. holden

    holden Member+

    Dundee FC, Yeovil Town LFC, Girondins de Bordeaux
    Oct 20, 2009
    Los Angeles
    Club:
    Dundee FC
    That's why I said basically for free. Sure they'd've had to expend some money and effort (and I'm not so sure much of any would've been on promotion), but the cost of producing 1 game every other week (assuming Univision wouldn't take a turn) would be a very small part of their overall budgets.

    According to this USA Today article, it costs between $90,000-$120,000 for ESPN to do a MLS broadcast (and the whole point of the article was that they are working to reduce that cost by 30%). So even if the NWSL game were produced at the same level and so had the same production cost (which would be great, but I doubt would've happened), that would be a cost of around $2 million per season (assuming 20 game season + 3 playoff games) to split among the broadcasters (though I'm guessing it would be closer to the ESPN3 production cost that was mentioned, and so would been under a million). Compare that to the $90 million per year they are paying just for the rights.

    So I don't think the cost of producing the NWSL games (at least alone) was the issue. The NWSL was probably just hoping to get some better deal than what would've amounted to paywalling 1 stream per week for nothing in return. Lumped in with SUM, the NWSL rights would've just been an after-thought and not guaranteed to actually air on TV. Striking their own deal (even if they were only partial seasons and they had to pay rather than get paid) at least got them some games on the actual TV networks.
     
  4. IZIE

    IZIE Member

    Feb 6, 2016
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    This deal shows that SUM didn't really care about this league, which we all knew.
    The fact NWSL was able to get Multi-billion dollar media conglomerate to invest their resources at this point and create something similar to SUM is huge, the deal with A+E don't last 3 yrs , they are a 25% stake holder and board members (only Lifetime broadcast/sponsorship does).
    The league now has something that gives it ligitimacy and connections we never thought we would see in year 5. Also people are over looking the fact that A+E and ESPN are under one umbrella , AE CEO even said that she is speaking to ESPN president about this and how to deal with live sport broadcasts
     
  5. Airox

    Airox Member

    Mar 14, 2016
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    This deal looks good so far. My only concern is the one that's been mentioned regarding Lifetime attracting guys. As a guy myself, I have nothing against the channel itself, but the marketing so far is clearly not directed at me. I just hope the pre-game, commercials, etc. don't make me hate Lifetime when I try to watch the games.
     
  6. apog

    apog Member

    Dec 13, 2005
    Cypress
  7. CoachJon

    CoachJon Member+

    Feb 1, 2006
    Rochester, NY
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I really like this. No need to figure out which ESPN, which Fox, if you need an App to watch, or what time the game is on.

    4 pm Saturday. Lifetime. BAM!

    P.S. It is important to me that NWSL still streams every game and that the streams are available world wide.
     
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  8. CoachJon

    CoachJon Member+

    Feb 1, 2006
    Rochester, NY
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    P.P.S. I have basic 20-channel cable. To get Lifetime, it would cost $30/month more to get the 70-channel package.

    Even with ESPN, ESPN2, Fox Sports, A&E, History, NatGeo, and 50-odd others, I don't think I will take the plunge.
     
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  9. SiberianThunderT

    Sep 21, 2008
    DC
    Club:
    Saint Louis Athletica
    Nat'l Team:
    Spain
    I mean... Lifetime isn't going to ever try marketing *to* men. That's not their audience; their whole premise is marketing to women. So I'm really concerned as well. I think the most recent Equalizer article said it well in that it seems this deal is trying to turn women into WoSo fans as opposed to trying to turn generic sports fans into WoSo fans. I don't think that's the right model. It's nice that NWSL found a time slot that generally won't conflict with other soccer matches, but...
     
  10. DynamoManiac

    DynamoManiac Member+

    Jan 27, 2014
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Sling TV
     
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  11. Blaze20

    Blaze20 Moderator
    Staff Member

    Seattle Reign FC
    Sep 22, 2009
    Club:
    Philadelphia Independence
    Does anyone know how many sport fans were converted into following the NWSL while it was showing 4-6 games a year on FOX/ESPN? The level of engagement and commitment it will take to attract the traditional sports fan to the NWSL is not something that ESPN/FOX will be willing to give in the next decade or so.

    So yes I do not think it is a bad idea to instead try to reach an audience that have cash to burn but are not being catered to by the likes of ESPN and FOX. Sports at the end of the day is entertainment. And Lifetime's recent history in producing content that appeals to this generation of media consumer is top notch. So if they want to turn the entire league into a big reality show, I say be my guess as everything these days is a reality show.
     
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  12. SiberianThunderT

    Sep 21, 2008
    DC
    Club:
    Saint Louis Athletica
    Nat'l Team:
    Spain
    First, those games on ESPN/FOX drew much bigger numbers than Lifetime will be able to do. I'm sure NWSL pulled in quite a fair number of new fans, even with just 4-6 games.

    And that also points out that it wasn't even a fully-fleshed experiment, since by not showing an entire season's worth of games, you're gonna be selling yourself short since fans won't be able to get emotionally invested. So that's not exactly a fair comparison to make in the first place.
     
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  13. Blaze20

    Blaze20 Moderator
    Staff Member

    Seattle Reign FC
    Sep 22, 2009
    Club:
    Philadelphia Independence
    It is not a fully fleshed experiment and it will never be. How long do you think it will take before the NWSL get the kind of deal MLS got? Can the league afford to wait that long with the status quo?
    I think we have all in the past criticized some teams for appealing to mostly kids as that is no way to grow. I think the same argument can be made for trying to target the traditional sports fan which in this case is euphemism for male fans. I say if after 3 years the league could not make any head way there, let's give Lifetime 3 years to try and convert their female audience to NWSL fans.
     
  14. SiberianThunderT

    Sep 21, 2008
    DC
    Club:
    Saint Louis Athletica
    Nat'l Team:
    Spain
    #64 SiberianThunderT, Feb 3, 2017
    Last edited: Feb 3, 2017
    NWSL doesn't *need* the scale of the deal MLS got to still get a full season's worth of games. False dichotomy.
    No, you can't make the same argument because the two demographics are entirely different, not only in age/gender but also in passion and spending power - and the simple fact that, just looking at in-person attendance for the different teams, the experiment has already been done. It overwhelmingly favors marketing to the traditional sports fans.

    You're saying the league "didn't make headway" while ignoring the fact that the league's profile and pocketbook has grown incredibly over those three years. If you think the ESPN/FOX exposure didn't at least help in any of the growth, you're making a big mistake.
     
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  15. DynamoManiac

    DynamoManiac Member+

    Jan 27, 2014
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    It's all in the marketing. I'm constantly amazed by how many NWSL fans still have no clue that all games have been available on YouTube.

    If you go on Lifetime but you do it with the same (non-existent) amount of marketing, then your viewership likely isn't going to increase that much.

    As for how many were converted? I have no idea. I'm a sports fan, though. If I feel like watching TV but don't have anything specific in mind, first thing I do is check all of the sports channels. If something appeals to me, I watch it. I search non-sports channels when I am looking for a sporting event. I suspect I'm somewhat representative of sports fans in general, including casual sports fans.

    So the odds that you are going to pick up casual fans or sports channel surfers, even if it is just for one match, have gone down. The trade off is you are hoping that you can convert a pre-existing viewership on Lifetime to become fans.

    Lifetime's viewership is put at around 1 to 1.2 million. How many of those viewers are already NWSL fans? No idea, but I think the average number of views on a YouTube stream is maybe 20,000. Of course that's just one stream, so let's extrapolate a bit and say the number of people watching YouTube streams each week is 60-80k maybe? A chunk of those are overseas. In any event, safe to assume that the number of regular NWSL viewers is a small percentage of the Lifetime viewers. So, say you convert 5% of the other Lifetime viewers into being regular NWSL viewers. That's 50,000. Not a great number, but not terrible. 10%? That's a really good number that probably doubles the regular viewership. Does that offset the number of casual viewers you lose by not being on a traditional sports network? No idea.
     
  16. Blaze20

    Blaze20 Moderator
    Staff Member

    Seattle Reign FC
    Sep 22, 2009
    Club:
    Philadelphia Independence
    You raised good points. But I think what I would like to know (and you probably do not have the answer to this) is what is worth more to the NWSL at this point? Casual sport viewers or a dedicated fan base?
     
  17. DynamoManiac

    DynamoManiac Member+

    Jan 27, 2014
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Why not both? I've no problem with a deal with Lifetime. I'd like to see a robust marketing plan around that to build awareness amongst existing fans and, ideally, build awareness around casual fans. For that latter point, I have no idea if this is feasible but Lifetime is an affiliate of ESPN (granted Disney only holds 50% of Lifetime via a 50% ownership in A+E Networks). Through that affiliate relationship, could we see promotion of Lifetime's NWSL coverage on the ESPN set of channels? If I'm at the table in negotiations, that's definitely an angle that I would have explored.

    From what I hear, the alternative deal was with the NBC group with games on Oxygen. Same general concept, I think (too lazy to look it up) that Oxygen reaches fewer households than Lifetime. However, with it all under the same roof, maybe cross promotion with the NBC Sports Network and the NBC family of sporting programming would have been very feasible.
     
  18. MiLLeNNiuM

    MiLLeNNiuM Member+

    Aug 28, 2016
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The other (new) online TV streaming option ---> Directv Now.

    Both are better than most cable subscriptions.
     
  19. holden

    holden Member+

    Dundee FC, Yeovil Town LFC, Girondins de Bordeaux
    Oct 20, 2009
    Los Angeles
    Club:
    Dundee FC
    You don't watch Project Runway? Tim Gunn disapproves.
    [​IMG]


    Lifetime is not exctly an affiliate of ESPN. An affiliate of ESPN would be ESPN2, ESPNews, ESPNU, Longhorn Channel, or the SEC Network. Technically speaking, though, both ESPN and Lifetime are affiliates of Disney and Hearst (just different percentages as I stated in a previous post).
     
  20. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I know a few of you don't like Merritt Paulson, but it's hard to argue he isn't a good business person who knows what he's doing in relation to marketing men's and women's soccer. I'm guessing he knows more on that subject than any of us posting here. He's big on the quality of experience presented to the fan, whether at the game, in broadcasts, or on-line, and also via social media generally. I believe this is something he's pushed within the NWSL management circles. He thinks this is a really good deal and will be very good for the league. I'm inclined to give him some credibility on this.
     
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  21. kernel_thai

    kernel_thai Member+

    Oct 24, 2012
    Club:
    Seattle Sounders
    I like Paulson more than Palpatine but less than Vader or Maul
     
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  22. kernel_thai

    kernel_thai Member+

    Oct 24, 2012
    Club:
    Seattle Sounders
    My take is totally dependent on the shoe yet to drop. I think a full season is better than a few games at the end. I think any cable channel especial one I get is better than one I don't get. So I have no problem with the Lifetime experiment The bigger problem is the rest of the games. If they aren't going to be free it hurts the league. If they r going to be geo blocked it hurts the league. If they r harder to access than Youtube it hurts the league.
     
  23. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I agree on at least two out of three. On geo-blocking, I'm not sure. If broadcasting where the game is won't hurt attendance, then don't geo-block. But if it will have a significant effect on attendance, I can see a geo-block being reasonable. They don't want to put on a show where there's no one there cheering, it would make for poor TV and actually could hurt over the long term. That's a judgment call I'll defer to the experts.
     
  24. holden

    holden Member+

    Dundee FC, Yeovil Town LFC, Girondins de Bordeaux
    Oct 20, 2009
    Los Angeles
    Club:
    Dundee FC
    I think kernel_thai was meaning using geo-blocking to prevent international viewers from watching.
     
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  25. kernel_thai

    kernel_thai Member+

    Oct 24, 2012
    Club:
    Seattle Sounders
    We take these things for granted but is Lifetime readily available in Canada?
     

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