According to: http://sportsmediawatch.blogspot.com/2009/11/mls-cup-overnights-rise-29.html It looks like MLS Cup ended up with a .9 rating. Bit lower then I expected personally but better than last year when it was on ABC. Slowly but surely.
Seems like a good number - particularly in comparison to the semifinals which got a .5 rating. This is the first time the game has been on ESPN. Does the number include ESPN Deportes?
Misleading thread title. It's the overnight rating. (Actually, I'm surprised we have the overnight so quickly.) The national rating usually settles somewhere south of that. Plus, it's a different universe, correct? 0.9 in cableverse is different than 0.9 OTA, if I am not mistaken (though cable penetration isn't WAY far away from the total TVHH, in some metro areas, it still lags). Let's wait and see the estimated TVHH count on this before we do big comparisons. Haven't we been told for years that prime time was where MLS would get great ratings? Is that like the "Cuauhtemina?" Actually, I think the star power was probably about as much as you were going to get absent Blanco vs. Beckham (which might have done better on Galavision anyway). In any case, MLS Cup ratings are what they are, and what they have largely been for years. This is where we are.
Let's also remind ourselves that this was a game involving Salt Lake City. Great fans, small-ish media market. Had this been a contest between LA and a larger market, I think it would have gone higher. Not knocking Salt Lake City or its fans - it's just smaller, and fans from other cities aren't as interested in its fate.
Too bad for the boring first 20 minutes which probably drove away some curious viewers. Having a small market team in the final didn't help either. That said, if it settles down to .7 or .8 final (around 1 mil viewers) it would still be a good improvement from the .5 in the LA-Houston game. Disney is probably more happy with .7 on ESPN than even a 1.0 on ABC anyway. Can't wait to see how the game did on Galavision.
I was hoping we could have got 1.0, but its close enough for now, you know if Chicago was in it, it could have made 1.0 because of Blanco
This is an important point. I don't think the game was even mentioned this morning on msnbc.com's sports page or CBS Sportsline. There is a reference on cnnsi.com.
Nope. Blaco would have increased ratings on Galavision. ESPN 360 rating probably isn't very relevant, but Galavision's is. If that one is really high, that's totally fine and good. Does it make sense to add them up?
No national impact, but pretty large articles in the local papers in L.A. probably even bigger in SLC. I guess MLS is a regional thing, with little to no national footprint.
This is a serious question. Perhaps someone smarter than me can answer: Is there any tangible to the league whether the rating is .8, 1.0 or even 1.2? It seems pretty much the same to me.
I don't think there are public figures available for 360. Could possibly see Galavision at some point.
Oh, it was big news in the Salt Lake papers this morning. My 9yo son was so excited to find out that the championship got the "wrap-around section" treatment from the Salt Lake Tribune, plus a big headline and picture on the front page. But Salt Lake is itself an obscure place, sportswise, so it's not surprising the media play it up here.
I don't know a lot either, but for comparison, MLB Sunday Night Baseball averages around a 1.6 rating (or 2.46 million viewers). http://www.sportingnews.com/mlb/article/2009-10-12/lack-races-chases-baseball-tv-ratings-down (Interesting note, in trying to find the baseball comparison, I found a site showing the median age for ESPN baseball telecasts and it was almost always 50 or higher... my guess is it's much younger for soccer, making advertisers happier with a lower rating). Assuming we drew a .9 (which, I learned in this thread, may be optomistic because it will probably settle lower), you can spin the baseball comparison either way. You could say the Cup final was within the ballpark of what an established "major" sport draws in a Sunday night show case game. You could say the final only drew 1/2 of a regular season baseball game. Like Kenn said, we are where we are, but hopefully the comparison gives some insight as to where that is.
I have had people trying to sell TV time tell me anything below a 1.0 is essentially a 1.0 because of the margin of error. The sample is so small it can be negligible. That was a bunch of years ago so I'm not 100 percent sure how relevant it still is. The problem with this, and most ratings discussions, is that we only get the overall figure, which is one of the least tangible for MLS, ESPN and the advertisers. They are more interested in demographic info and the quarter-hour breakdowns (which is why Garber made a big deal of the high early-game rating in the Western Conference final). The overall rating is more or less a public relations figure, not a true assessment of how the broadcast did. Ads are sold usually with a promise of a certain rating, generally a demographic rating for sports. Ads also could be part of a package where more than this game's rating will be relevant to the buyer. So the tangibility is really beyond our grasp. That's why the percentage growth will likely be the most popular figure for the league to use.
Yes. And as to the general point, there's a certain audience for this. It's at a certain level, and it's unlikely to get raised significantly over time. Goosed occasionally, yes. But the history of the sport in this country tells us that there is a significant audience for top-tier (World Cup and high-level international) soccer on television in this country, and a smaller audience for levels of soccer below that. Our Division I outdoor men's league (whatever its name over the years) has never been a particularly strong long-term draw on television. MLS' ratings are fairly steady, which is good. And, as monster points out, demographically, I'm sure they appeal to certain advertisers and investors. You can sum it all up in one basic sentence that applies to most things regarding MLS: it's not going away. To debate the details is like sitting in a rocking chair: it gives you something to do, but you don't really get anywhere. Television is one of the myriad of health indicators MLS has. But it's just one. It's neither critical nor trivial.
I think this raises a good point. I would think by now advertisers and media outlets have enough experience with soccer where they probably have different expectations for different levels of soccer events. Its past the days of thinking they will catch lightning in a bottle and are happy with a consistent,steady showing that incrementally over time they hope improves. Its past the days of whether it will be here the next year or not and is now about growing it bit by bit in a smart way over time. That seems to be ESPN's startegy with MLS. That is why this year they have tinkered with timeslots for games.