http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2013/03/22/Media/Final-Ratings.aspx TELECAST DATE NET TIME (ET) RAT. VIEWERS (000) MLS: DC United-Red Bulls 3/16 NBC 12:30-3:00pm 0.3 461
There is a reason why I put 1997 in my post. By 1997, if you look at the attendances, the novelty was well and truly gone. And yet, ratings were higher for national broadcasts than they are now, even though the quality of play was much lower.
Still no luck with Unimas but I did see this http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/20...n-metastasis-and-more-at-2013-upfront/182810/
One possible reason to consider: people who wanted to see a bit of soccer on television in 1997 had a LOT fewer choices, especially if they just had the standard cable offering.
At the times at which most MLS games generally take place (weekend evenings), you had the same live competition that you currently have: the Mexican league on Univision and Telemundo. I guess you can try to make the argument that people were more likely to watch MLS at 8:00 at night because they couldn't watch Euro soccer at 10:00 in the morning, but I'm not sure I buy that. And what of the fact that much (most?) of MLS' season takes place during the European (and Mexican) offseason, when there are few live games on TV and maybe replays games that took place weeks and months ago?
One thing to consider within this line of discussion is not just Soccer options, but overall options have increased exponentially over the past two decades. So while I agree with you that there is likely not a correlation to football on in the morning versus football on in the evening, there quite frankly is a whole host of entertainment options available to draw people away from any single event. Ratings across the board are declining even as TV viewership in one the rise. Essentially we are creating parity in TV. Look at the NBA - ratings for the finals in the 16-18 range in the 90s. Now, 10 is an extraordinary number. Baseball had ratings as high as 24 for the World Series. Now, 10 is a good number. Much of this commentary has been voiced over the past week as the networks are seeing precipitous drops in ratings across the board. Fact is, people have more options from cutting cable to simply tuning into more obscure network programming. Bringing that to MLS, the challenge of growing ratings in this environment is beyond tough - which is also why people should't fret the leagues rating numbers. If they can get to a rating of 2 as a season average within the next ten years they are going to be one of the must have items on TV.
Yep Yep! The industry knows that the days of huge ratings for anything other than the largest of events are becoming a thing of the past. So smaller numbers do not scare them. What is important are things such as commercial ratings and demo data. That dictates the contract sizes. That and the mad dash to get as much content as possible. Because even though the pie is bigger, the pieces have gotten smaller (ratings), so these guys are trying to get as many small pieces as possible
That Demo is why Univision is now talked about being #4 in the USA in terms of the big 5 TV networks.
err . . not really. Journalists who have made that comparison are doing so more on sheer numbers of viewers (and the meteoric rise) as opposed to demo data. Advertising is still fairly cheap on Univision as compared to even cable outlets. The demo data will drive price.
My bad I thought you were talking specifically about the young people demo, where Univision does better than NBC. But yes Latino homes tend to be poorer than average, that is why Univision advertising buys are cheaper.
I was actually talking about the generic listing of demo data which includes the gambit of categories; not one in particular.
Ratings still do matter, even if content is needed. For all of the talk about the NHL contract and how NBC is going to throw money at MLS to keep it because it needs content, I still see an inordinate amount of non-HD "mycleanPC.com" ads during major NHL playoff games.
They matter, but are down the list of metrics. Demo data, commercial ratings, long term trends, and CBA, all matter before the raw viewership number.
Understood, but As much as I like the NHL, NBCSN has some ads on it that are clearly very cheap and you have to figure that you need a certain gross rating to clear the overall hurdle. It's hard to see a 55k audience for MLS equate to a high rights fee, super demos or not.
They look like the cheap local ones, but because they are non-HD they have the side pillars on them that have the NBC Sports logo in them. So they are clearly national. They are so cheap looking I wondered if they sold the ads years ago for a 5-year deal and still have to run them. I also saw a whole slew of EPL ads the other night during the NHL games.
MLS 2013 TV Ratings Summary Home teams listed first. All times are Eastern NBC Sports Network (all ratings for 2.5 hour window unless specified) Game 0: 95k (RSL vs SEA) Saturday 7:30pm 2/23/2013* Game 1: 107k (HOU vs DC). Saturday 8:00pm. 3/2/2013 Game 2: 79k (CHI vs NE) Saturday 7:30pm 3/9/2013 Game 3: 82k (KC vs CHI) Saturday 3:00pm 3/16/2013 Game 4: 209k (SEA vs POR) Saturday 8:00pm 3/16/2013 Game 5: 97k (DC vs COLU) Saturday 3:30pm 3/23/2013 Game 6: 100k (NY vs PHI) Saturday 3:30pm 3/30/2013 Game 7: 41k (COLO vs RSL) Saturday 7:30pm 4/6/2013 Game 8: 86k (DAL vs LA) Saturday 3:30pm 4/13/2013 Game 9: 108k (POR vs SJ) Sunday 10:30pm 4/14/2013 Game 10: 58k (LA vs KC) Saturday 10:30pm 4/21/2013 Game 11: 53k (MON vs CHI) Saturday 4:00pm 4/27/2013 Game 12: 122k (COL vs NY) Saturday 4:00pm 5/4/2013 Game 13: 51k (CHI vs PHI) Saturday 1:30pm 5/11/2013 * This was the Preseason Diamond Cup final. Will not be included in the season average ESPN2 (all ratings are for a 2.5 hour window) Game 1: 221k (POR vs NY) Sunday 7:30pm 3/3/2013 Game 2: 179k (SJ vs NY) Sunday 10:00pm 3/10/2013 Game 3: 108k (DAL vs HOU) Sunday 1:00pm 3/17/2013 Game 4: 157k (CHI vs NY) Sunday 5:00pm 4/7/2013 Game 5: 170k (DC vs PHI) Sunday 5:00pm 4/21/2013 Game 6: 145k (LA vs HOU) Sunday 11:00pm 5/5/2013 NBC Game 1: (NY vs DC) Saturday 12:30pm 3/16/2013 Over Night: .7 Final: .3, 461k
Please note that you should not do a direct comparison for ESPN2 of 2006-2010 with post 2010. From 2011 on, games were split between ESPN2 and ESPN with ESPN getting the many of the "bigger" games. Also, 2013 has to be looked at differently in general since it is the very first year the ratings on ESPN2 are being judged on a 2.5 hour time slot instead of a 2 hour time slot. I don't know how much this will drop the ratings but it obviously hurts since it is very likely that less people are watching the pre and post game shows than the game itself.