do you remember the last time ABC showed a non MLS Cup final game (ie. a regular season game)? I can't remember if it was before the 2006 contract when it was more of a time buy/revenue sharing deal or if it happened in the early part of the deal? Our historical data does not show any ABC regular season games after 2006 so I was concerned we were missing some data.
I believe that somewhere in this thread it was pointed out that an MLS game on ESPN came in as something like their 100th highest-rated program...but the MLS game on ESPN2 managed to be something like their 7th highest. From that standpoint, it'd make much more sense for ESPN to show games on ESPN2.
yes, this exactly my point. Lower ratings on ESPN2 can actually be considered good while higher ratings on ESPN can be considered poor. We can slightly gauge how Disney felt about the ESPN ratings this year when we see the breakdown of ESPN/ESPN2 game next year. It is so hard to know how the ratings/viewership/demo's are looked at from the broadcasters with out knowing the expectations.
At an event this week the Sounders President had a slide showing local TV viewership for all the teams in the league.
holy crap. at 3x the local viewership of the Galaxy does that mean their yearly local tv contract should be upwards of $15M? 36K households on average per game ... plus 40K at every game and your nearing 100K watching each and every Sounders game ... any video of this whole meeting online yet?
No. It does not mean that. Conditions outside of average local viewership help to determine what specific MLS teams can/do earn from local/regional broadcast partners.
All the US-based teams (except for Columbus for some reason). Any insight as to what year(s) that data represents?
Looking at the Houston number, it appears to be 2010 or 2011 when most if not all of our games were on a DTV channel that did not rate (meaning it consists of only a few local only broadcasts). The numbers, when reported in the Chronicle this year, have been more than double that chart.
This underlines what I keep saying, the numbers we see as ratings while making interesting conversation starters on BS, do not mean that much to the industry (many other factors ahead of viewership).
I don't to move this too far off topic (and maybe it has already been answered), but do we know which/how many teams get paid for local TV contracts? I know many are still time-buys, and LA has their $5.5/year deal. What about the rest?
Colorado's is essentially neutral since KSE owns the team and the network. They may move money from column A to column B (either from the Rapids to Altitude or vice versa) but in reality the only cost to either one is what looks best on the year-end financial statement.
good thing the Rapids don't have to try and get somebody to actually pay for their local TV rights given that chart ...
Yeah, well, I'm not so sure of the accuracy of that chart. Or I happen to know a unlikely high percentage of the people in Denver who "watched the game last night" based on their discussions with me. Not to mention that 2K seems impossibly low for a network on cable in 9 Western states and nationwide on DirectTV and DISH.
So, according to the Sounders, Seattle has double the attendance, triple the TV audience, and higher merchandise sales than the Galaxy. It's astounding that they have a lower payroll and revenue.
It does seem amazingly low. Though, how many of the people do you know are STH'ers, members of supporters groups, or at least regularly attend Rapids games? I think I know of two households that might tune in, and it's not for the majority of the games. (I guess that's the problem with going anecdotal.)
Sorry, I meant to add that a number of them aren't season ticket holders and rarely (if ever) attend games. Now I think some of them watched the game because they're friends with me or work with me and I've gotten them at least a little interested in it, so its a biased sample. The more I think about it, I find it impossible to consider 2K an accurate number. There were 3600 season ticket holders last year, lets say only 25% of season ticket holders watch the away games. That's 900 per away game alone. Split in half (since 2K is the average for home and away) that's still 450 of that 2K number. So in 9 states and on DISH/DirectTV only 1500 other people tuned into the game? I know that Nielsen itself says that it can't accurately measure ratings below a certain threshold, so I have to wonder where that 2K number came from and how accurate that reporting is. KSE is all about being cheap and using their own team for their own network, but infomercials would have to be more profitable than these numbers suggest. KSE would jump all over that if they're accurate. Hell, a test pattern would probably get more viewership.
4000 for Houston and New England and 5000 for San Jose and Chivas (ok, maybe not Chivas?) also seem test-pattern low given the size of those TV markets. [Edit: last comment removed, misinterpreted the chart]
As an example of what the competition is like, the Fire's 9k households competes against the following regular season averages from various sources: Bulls: 157k Blackhawks: 114k White Sox: Around 70k Cubs: Around 65k
I wonder about this too. I can't imagine the accuracy is so precise at the low end. It certainly is a surprise to see Chivas ahead of Houston. Back before the Dynamo, Houston was often cited on these boards as having the best TV ratings of any non-MLS market. This chart makes that seem rather unlikely. Or the data is off base, which is quite possible, at least a the low end. That said, the difference in Chivas USA's support vis a vis other MLS teams tends to be rather overstated, I think, by the Chivas-hating masses on Bigsoccer.
Regarding Houston...if the data is before this season are games were on 11.2 which is NOT measured which means that would be from a handful of home games over two years and not accurate.
Yes, as that's about half of the average attendance. Are we really seeing that kind of bizarre disparity?