The 2019 MLS TV thread

Discussion in 'MLS: News & Analysis' started by POdinCowtown, Dec 19, 2018.

  1. RfrancisR

    RfrancisR Member+

    Aug 7, 2006
    New Orleans Diaspora
    So, this is important to an earlier query about whether OOH has a bigger impact on MLS viewership than other leagues.
    Here’s the impact of OOH on NFL’s Thursday Night Football:



    So the numbers on TNF run between 14-35%. Whereas the three OOH numbers we had before today average a tad over 50% increase. Have to see ATL-TFC Nielsen numbers to see how OOH impacted last night’s matchup.
     
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  2. RfrancisR

    RfrancisR Member+

    Aug 7, 2006
    New Orleans Diaspora
    Thanks much. We do have to add the caveat that we are comparing MLS Conference finals to NHL regular season. So, a bit apples to oranges. But with that limited data, given MLS regular season on ESPN is about 77% of NHL on NBCSN then it wouldn’t be unreasonable to guess MLS regular season would get about 125k OOH viewers. That makes the real MLS English language viewership somewhere about 371k (on limited data). Adding ESPND, you can expect of 406-416k total audience for games on ESPN family of networks.

    Earlier in this thread I discussed my best guess for what impact OOH would have on MLS games. That projection stands a good chance of being accurate.
     
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  3. RfrancisR

    RfrancisR Member+

    Aug 7, 2006
    New Orleans Diaspora
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  4. RfrancisR

    RfrancisR Member+

    Aug 7, 2006
    New Orleans Diaspora
    That means that OOH numbers increased the Eastern Conference final ratings by 74.7%.
    Consider what that would say about past MLS events. A similar increase in OOH numbers for last years MLS Cup would mean 2.7 million people watched the Fox broadcast.
    That’s outstanding when you think of it.
    Unfortunately, another Toronto-Seattle final is likely to depress ratings significantly because those teams simply are not fun to watch. Nobody likes bunker ball — at least not neutral fans.
     
  5. DCYC

    DCYC Member

    Chivas, DC United, Reno 1868
    Mar 24, 2010
    Reno, NV
    Club:
    CD Chivas de Guadalajara
    Nat'l Team:
    Mexico
    In this day and age of social media, big data, 5G and ultra-targeted adds, I have always felt the "rating" measurements are extremely primitive and out of age. Is there really no other way? genuine question

    I have never in my life met someone that knows someone that has one of those mistery machines from which this billion dollar industry gets its unquestionable numbers. I even know that many people within the advertising industry have never seen one.

    Maybe this is for a separate discussion of course, just wanted to let that out
     
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  6. DCYC

    DCYC Member

    Chivas, DC United, Reno 1868
    Mar 24, 2010
    Reno, NV
    Club:
    CD Chivas de Guadalajara
    Nat'l Team:
    Mexico
    Well that doesn't make a lot of sense. Is not like if OOH viewership did not exist before, is just that it wasn't measured. If ESPN is paying $10million for the rights of league X it already includes OOH right now. It's not like the fact that the games are shown at bars is ignored in negotiations.

    If something, they would need to show that these OOH viewership is growing (which won't be easy considering it's a "new" metric) and hopefully it will balance the loses caused by people just cutting cable.
     
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  7. RfrancisR

    RfrancisR Member+

    Aug 7, 2006
    New Orleans Diaspora
    Agreed. OOH numbers just give a more accurate representation of the audience size. So far, for MLS not measuring OOH appears to have had the worst impact on MLS.

    MLS fans have been saying for a while that MLS has a hidden audience at bars and restaurants. With OOH increasing viewership by as much as 77% for MLS, excluding that number is staggeringly unfair to the league and its fans. When we complain about a lack of coverage on highlight shows we are told “nobody cares about MLS” and “you can’t even get 300,000 per game on a regular basis.”

    While I don’t want to get too excited because we have so little data right now, but it looks like our critics were wrong and MLS optimists like myself and eddygee are right. There is a good chance that the MLS audience is much more respectable than the skeptics thought.
     
  8. eddygee

    eddygee Member+

    DC United
    May 12, 2007
    Moco, Maryland
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #858 eddygee, Nov 1, 2019
    Last edited: Nov 1, 2019
    This is all about that Networks were always in the drivers seat and advertisers need that medium to advertise their products to consumers. TV is still the biggest platform to do so.

    I agree it didn't make much sense but exactly how I described it was how Networks and media advertisers dealt with it. The only network I seen published in the past that was able to get advertisers to pay anything for OOH viewership was ESPN and that was pennies on the dollar. Yes a network like ESPN was calculating it in but it wasn't at full market price or even half from the sounds of it the added benefit of it was minute; now Networks Advertisers will pay the same per eyeball regardless if its coming from OOH or traditional in home linear TV. This change by Nielsen has been in the works for awhile and was fueled by networks not buying into and giving data to Nielsen and networks threatening to pull out of Partnership with Nielsen.

    Make no mistake this change is MASSIVE. Look no further than these two tweets one coming from a media advertiser consultant strategist bemoaning the change because their clients(advertisers) will have to pay more.


    One coming from a TV insider who knows what the implications of this will be to sports leagues more$$
     
  9. eddygee

    eddygee Member+

    DC United
    May 12, 2007
    Moco, Maryland
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I think its a good discussion to have as this is falls in the whole TV ratings media purpose of this thread. This will directly affect the next MLS TV Deal and how much the league gets when the deal is renegotiated and announced during the 2022 season.
     
  10. DCYC

    DCYC Member

    Chivas, DC United, Reno 1868
    Mar 24, 2010
    Reno, NV
    Club:
    CD Chivas de Guadalajara
    Nat'l Team:
    Mexico
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  11. crookeddy

    crookeddy Member+

    Apr 27, 2004
    MLS to Birmingham!!
     
  12. Paul Berry

    Paul Berry Member+

    Notts County and NYCFC
    United States
    Apr 18, 2015
    Nr Kingston NY
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Their USL team is paying $350k a year for the next 8 years for a 5,000 capacity stadium.
     
  13. The Marquis

    The Marquis Moderator
    Staff Member

    Aug 13, 2007
    Washougal, WA
    Club:
    Portland Timbers
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I recall having this conversation about Birmingham once before on this forum. Some other stat, top 10 viewer list was posted and it was on there then to... It's no fluke it would seem.
     
  14. JasonMa

    JasonMa Member+

    Mar 20, 2000
    Arvada, CO
    Club:
    Colorado Rapids
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Back on the local TV front, Altitude and DirecTV reached a deal last night and DirecTV started broadcasting Altitude immediately. The assumption is the dam has now broken and DISH and Comcast won't be far behind in making their deals.

    The fact that the Colorado AG's office was reportedly starting an investigation to determine if Comcast and DirecTV charging the regional sports fee without broadcasting one of the regional sports networks (the one that shows the local NHL and NBA team no less) constituted fraud may have helped speed the deal up. Or maybe not.
     
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  15. DCYC

    DCYC Member

    Chivas, DC United, Reno 1868
    Mar 24, 2010
    Reno, NV
    Club:
    CD Chivas de Guadalajara
    Nat'l Team:
    Mexico
    Or could it be due to the flawed method to measure ratings? maybe they have 50 or so rating machines in Birmingham and coincidentally they are in soccer fans houses at a rate considerably higher than other cities?

    who knows
     
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  16. crookeddy

    crookeddy Member+

    Apr 27, 2004
    The number of rating machines is distributed to make it statistically relevant. They have mathematicians over at Nielsen to determine how many Nielsen families it would take to create a sample large enough to represent the population. It's not just some random number leading to random results.
     
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  17. RfrancisR

    RfrancisR Member+

    Aug 7, 2006
    New Orleans Diaspora
    They managed to write that article without any significant whiff of condescension towards MLS. They actually mentioned that MLS playoffs were up by 100,000 viewers per game on ESPN/ESPN2 through the conference semis. They failed to produce ESPND’s numbers unfortunately. But one could reasonably guess that they are averaging about 100k per game this year during the playoffs.
    They do have a lower viewership number than previously reported, but that lower number is the product of averaging the ESPN2 numbers for El Trafico. That might be the official numbers but it needs a big asterisk next to it given the circumstances.

    Also, adding the OOH numbers would put the total audience above one million to 1,073,000.
     
  18. Stupid_American

    Stupid_American Member+

    Jan 8, 2003
    New York, NY
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The ESPN Deportes numbers are reported in this ESPN press release that was just released today:

    https://espnpressroom.com/us/press-...ls-cup-playoffs-up-36-percent-year-over-year/

    Included in the press release is this tidbit: "Five live ESPN Deportes playoff matches in 2019 have averaged 174,000 viewers, a 235 percent increase from 52,000 viewers for six matches in 2018. The 2019 MLS Cup Playoffs is also the most-watched MLS postseason series on a Spanish-language cable network on record."

    It'd be nice if Fox published something with a similar breakdown for FS1 and Fox Deportes, but historically they haven't.
     
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  19. SocFanda

    SocFanda New Member

    Seattle
    United States
    Mar 19, 2019
    Fox's numbers are :cry:
     
  20. Stupid_American

    Stupid_American Member+

    Jan 8, 2003
    New York, NY
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The FS1 match (ATL v TFC) on Wednesday night drew 359k (which went head-to-head against Game 7 of the World Series on FOX). That's a pretty darn good number on FS1 (in fact, it was the #1 broadcast of the day on that channel).

    The early round games were less successful on FS1 (169k for SEA v RSL; 111k for NYC v TFC).
     
  21. crookeddy

    crookeddy Member+

    Apr 27, 2004
    I wonder if the good playoff ratings cause rage in the eurosnobs demanding a euro style championship.
     
  22. Centennial

    Centennial Member+

    Apr 4, 2003
    Centennial
    Why are so many on BS so obsessed with so called euro snobs???

    Who gives a crap what anyone thinks. We are our own league, we follow the purists rules on the field. We are growing the sport and will carve our own destiny.
     
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  23. crookeddy

    crookeddy Member+

    Apr 27, 2004
    The epl outdraws mls with games at 4am. Until that changes we have to care what they think.
     
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  24. DCYC

    DCYC Member

    Chivas, DC United, Reno 1868
    Mar 24, 2010
    Reno, NV
    Club:
    CD Chivas de Guadalajara
    Nat'l Team:
    Mexico
    #875 DCYC, Nov 2, 2019
    Last edited: Nov 2, 2019
    I work at marketing, I know is not just random results, but even though the sample can be "statistically relevant" there is always a margin of error that needs to be considered. Hillary Clinton was a sure president in all the "statistically relevant" polls. I don't want to get political, what I'm just saying is those kind of things happen.

    We can all just asume without question that Alabama was considerably more into the LAFC - LAG than Las Vegas or Salt Lake City for example. But also we can question it.
     

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