Sports Media Update - Sept. 23rd

Have the TV people and the NFL done "too good" of a marketing job? It may be only 2 weeks into the season, but I see some indications of this. Over the years, the NFL has been the most effective of the pro sports leagues in terms of building up the league as a whole.

Even the casual football fan finds appeal in watching a good matchup involving the Cowboys, Patriot, and Colts (among others) simply based on the success of these teams and their key players over the years. NBC has had major success with its first 2 Sunday Night Football telecasts, while ESPN had record viewership for a cable telecast for its Monday Night Football game this week. In fact, the Colts-Dolphins game ranks as the biggest cable TV audience of the year for anything.

Obviously, these huge ratings mean that the audience is coming from well beyond the market territory of the participating teams. So why is this "too good"?

Stories were published leading into the season about certain teams being concerned about not selling out their games and having telecasts blacked out. This past Sunday, the Detroit Lions game was televised in Detroit because the blackout deadline was extended another 24 hours. It barely made the deadline, even though it was Brett Favre's first appearance in Detroit since having left the Packers. But the outcome of the game was never in question, as the Lions lost still again. The Jacksonville Jaguars loss to Arizona was blacked out locally. Both of those games were Fox telecasts, and early indications are that Fox-TV's NFL ratings were down for week 2 compared with week 1 and last season.

The San Diego Chargers game also sold out only because of the 24 hour extension. It was shown locally in both San Diego and Los Angeles.

My hunch is that the fans in Jacksonville were probably happier with the "better" game they got early. Some Lions fans were probably upset at the sellout, since they could have seen a better quality game had it not. Therein lies my point. The NFL has marketed the league and the out of town teams so well that in many instances the fans prefer out of town matchups to the local teams.

Need more proof? Fans in Houston had the Houston Texans vs. Tennessee as the first televised game of the day, and of course had the Cowboys vs. Giants game on NBC Sunday Night Football later on. The Texans are not expected to set the league on fire. Which telecast had more viewers? The Cowboys-Giants game wound up with .8 higher ratings in the Houston market. And if CBS wasn't airing The Emmy Awards against it, there is no telling how NBC would have fared.

The teams with crappy records either don't or barely sell out. Yet, interesting matchups on Sunday and Monday nights generate significant ratings in only the first 2 weeks of a young season. The NFL appeal has reached a point where fans will watch the best matchups, regardless of the home team.

If the attendance concerns really were due to the economy, then even the better matchups wouldn't sell out.

This could be a push for local radio. There is the percentage of fans who are not going to buy tickets this season that will listen on the radio since they can't see the game on local TV when it doesn't sell out.

It is not just the NFL with increased ratings. The college game with Florida vs. Tennessee this past Saturday on CBS-TV drew a rating 60% higher than for the same matchup last season. It wound up as CBS' highest rated telecast this early in the season since Sept. 7, 2002, and the U. of Florida was in that game (against rival Miami).

Personally, I think this trend is great. With ticket prices, parking, concessions, and fans being gouged just to go to a game these days, staying home or going to a gathering place to watch the best matchups sends a message to the home team that they need to be competitive in order to fill the seats. The will to win is, or at least should be, what sports is all about.

Meanwhile, a TV oddity in New York City this Sunday. Both the Jets and Giants will be on at the same since the Jets moved their kick off against Tennessee up to the early game due to the Yom Kippur holiday. For the same reason, Jets and Giants fans who are also Yankees fans face additional competition, as the Yankees vs. Red Sox game was moved from Sunday Night to the afternoon. The baseball game will be seen on ESPN which does Sunday Night Baseball during the afternoon. TBS will not show a game this Sunday, instead showing the Yankees and Red Sox on Friday night in prime time.

LOOKING AHEAD: CBS-TV has announced that it will show the LSU at Georgia game at 3:30 PM ET on Saturday Oct. 3, with Verne Lundquist and Gary Danielson on the call.

But ESPN is looking past next week. They have announced their 2010 college football opening telecast for next September 2nd. North Carolina will play LSU at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. So now when you get your 2010 calendar, you have a September event to pencil in.

ESPN is ready to welcome college hoops with another 24 hour marathon of games on November 17th. It starts at 12 Midnight ET with Cal State Fullerton at UCLA on ESPN. A live telecast from Hawaii will be game 3, starting at 4 AM ET, and Temple at Georgetown airs at 4 PM ET. By the way, Nov. 17th is a Tuesday.

LOS ANGELES: UCLA basketball won't be hard to find for local TV viewers when its season starts in November. As of now, 26 of its games are scheduled to be televised. In addition to 15 games shown as part of the Pac 10 Conference packages with ESPN, CBS, and Fox Sports Net, 8 games will be seen on Prime Ticket and Fox Sports West. ESPN will also show their 3 games in the 76 Classic in Anaheim on Thanksgiving weekend.

PHILADELPHIA: WIP 610 will handle both the Sixers and Flyers broadcasts for the upcoming season, but the station will not have control over the advertisers. How times have changed. The teams will oversee their own broadcast advertising and package sponsorships with other opportunities beyond the broadcasts themselves.

For the past couple of years we have been bombarded with reports on how radio stations are cutting back on jobs, programming, and whatever other costs they can think of. They search for ways to increase revenue. Then they let pro teams take over game broadcast revenue. Now a sponsor can spend additional money on game program magazines, arena signage, corporate seats and boxes, and promotional giveaway items. With money that in the past may well have been spent sponsoring other team or sports related programming on the radio station.

SAN DIEGO: It seems like old news even though it begins, again, on Monday October 5th. Lee "Hacksaw" Hamilton in afternoon drive on San Diego sports radio. After weeks of speculation, Hacksaw begins on XX1090 AM in the 3 - 7 PM slot. He will continue to call NFL games for Compass Sports. It is a long way from past years when he called Chargers games, San Diego State, or USC football. Hamilton has always been a good fit in San Diego because of his vast knowledge of national sports. With so many transplanted sports fans, San Diego is not the typical market in terms of non-stop talk about only the local teams.

SAN FRANCISCO: Three of the inductees to The Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame at next Tuesday's (Sept. 29) ceremony are or were sports broadcasters. Most noteworthy is Hank Greenwald, the voice of the Giants from 1980 to 1996.

You may remember the call of "The band is on the field!!!" from the famous Cal Berkeley game in 1982. He is still the voice of Cal Bears football, but Joe Starkey was also Sports Director at KGO for 30 years.

Going back a few years, the 3rd sports honoree is Cliff Johnsen, who called San Francisco 49ers games back in the 1940's. That was so long ago it was before the All-America Football Conference "merged" with the NFL in 1950 and included the 49ers. Congrats are in order to all 3, who have brought thousands and thousands of hours of enjoyment to Bay Area sports fans.

KTRB 860 has a new Sports Director, but he is far from new to the market. Ken Dito takes over the position on the station, which now carries the A's games and Stanford football. Dito called A's games years ago on KSFO and KFRC, and was at KNBR as far back as 1979.

DALLAS: The radio ratings for August again show that males 25-54 are The Ticket. In that key demographic, The Ticket shows more than double the audience of ESPN Radio, which has a slight lead over The Fan.

TAMPA: NHL Hal of Famer Phil Esposito will host a one hour segment on WHBO 1040, which is the local ESPN station. It will air from 1 - 2 PM local time each Wednesday afternoon. My thinking is that Espo is being groomed to do a show in Boston, where he had the best of his Hall of Fame bound seasons, and where ESPN needs to make inroads into that crowded sports radio market. This show doesn't figure to be on because Tampa is such a hockey hotbed, especially airing once a week on a Wednesday afternoon.

REDDING CAL.: After a year and a half, sports radio is on the comeback as of this week, as KNRO 1670 debuted its syndicated lineup of Fox Sports Radio programming on Monday (Sept. 21). No word yet about regional play-by-play, but speculation is that Giants, 49ers, and Kings play-by-play could happen within the next year.

NORFOLK: ESPN Radio moves to 94.1 FM as of Monday Oct. 5th. At that time WGH 1310 will change formats, except for keeping James Madison U. play-by-play.

Sports Media Report - July 14th update

The financial "battle" for fans to be able to see their favorite team via their local cable system without having to keep on spending seems to continue even after some cable systems have worked things out.

Without any movement from Bright House Networks, an Orlando FL area cable TV provider, the Orlando Sentinel has published an editorial complaining on behalf of Magic fans. As things stand right now, FSN Florida remains on an "optional" (and of course, extra cost) sports tier, meaning that nearly half (35) of the Magic's games will not be seen by subscribers with only a basic cable package. The editorial urges FSN Florida and Bright House to get a deal together. I'll go one step further and put some blame on the Magic as well. The team approved this deal, and as it stands now, approved their games going to a much reduced audience. And if I had to pony up even more bucks for a cable sports package, it would come out of any money spent toward attending games in person. Even if it is not the Magic's fault that I'd be forced to pay several dollars each month to the cable company for religious, foreign language, and other cable channels I am forced to pay for and have zero interest in. (Nothing against those channels - but I don't know of anyone who practices multiple religions and multiple languages simultaneously.)

Yet, if I was in charge of the radio station which broadcasts all of the Magic games on "free" radio, I'd be sure to do some significant ticket giveaways during the broadcasts this season. Let the fans benefit financially (saving the hefty ticket prices) as a result of listening to the games instead of trying to find them or paying more for them on TV.

Speaking of "outside" dollars and sports, it is already time to wonder if or to what extent the international purchase of Busch will have on Budweiser's significant sports sponsorships. Bud is literally the local level sponsor of more than half of the big 4 pro sports broadcasts (baseball, football, basketball, hockey) around the country. If the new owners cut back on these, that would be a big pinch for radio and TV local telecasts everywhere before the next round of negotiations.

Meanwhile, after weeks of an anticipated announcement that the SEC would form its own TV network similar to the Big Ten, this possibility appears to have gone backward instead of forward. Fox Sun Sports has signed a $1 million+ per year deal with the University of Florida.

This is termed a "media rights" deal with the school, which has very recent football and basketball championships to run with into the upcoming seasons.

This deal will include football, including the Sunday morning replay of the previous day's (or most recent) game, men's and women's hoops, and baseball. Sun Sports already reaches over 6,000,000 Florida homes. When you consider that Tennessee, LSU, and Kentucky also generate significant local TV revenue, this Florida deal could be a temporary or even long-term set back for the SEC. Compared with the Orlando Magic story, this is somewhat of a "victory" for regional sports fans, who already have Sun Sports as opposed to now being asked to pay up. The SEC is now expected to announce new partnerships with CBS-TV and the ESPN Networks which will add to the increased Conference revenue. Word is that the new ESPN package would include rights to games previously used for game syndication. If that comes to pass, a SEC Network would then be highly unlikely.

No word yet about the extension of "Media Rights" such as how programs, stadium signage, and more, will be integrated for advertisers.

As we have been pointing out of late, the trend for pro teams to step in and work directly with large advertisers and sponsors continued again since our last writing. Now the NFL Indianapolis Colts, about to open their brand new stadium in a few weeks, have secured AdJuggler to use on the team's official web sites and to provide software to provide the team with additional reporting statistics used in conjunction with advertisers. Another team with one less weapon for radio sales concepts.

Speaking of pro teams and radio, The Cincinnati Enquirer confirmed in a report that the Reds have taken steps to slightly delay their Reds broadcasts in order to synchornize their play-by-play with the telecasts. The report says that the sponsors are happy with this, since it allows more fans to enjoy popular Reds broadcasters Marty and Thom Brennaman (father and son) while watching the picture. The Reds are not the only team to have this situation. There are other cities with radio broadcasts far more popular than TV, such as the Chicago White Sox where the TV voice Ken Harrelson is not popular.

However, fans at Reds home games, one of the few baseball parks where fans still bring a radio to listen, are disappointed when they see a play unfold to THEN hear the description after the fact.

As I have also been pointing out for months, here is another example of how HD Radio could be utilized and become attractive to the public. In this instance, WLW could air the game truly live on its main channel, with an HD Channel to carry the game synched up with each telecast, and make everyone happy. And, of course, it could then rebroadcast the games on that HD Channel, enabling shift workers and others to hear the games (and the commercials!) at their convenience while not distracting from current programming.

NEW YORK - Talk about putting your money where your mouth is when it comes to sports! Got to give credit to Greg Marotta. The 52 year-old Marotta has, as of this week, purchased 10 hours of air time, from 3 - 5 PM Monday through Friday, to literally do his own sports show on WVNJ 1160. The signal is known to cover NYC and into New Jersey, along with west Long Island and Westchester and Rockland. His purchase also includes steaming on WVNJ.com. Long ago, Marotta played football at Memphis State (now Memphis). He is not believed to be related to long time Los Angeles sportscaster Rich Marotta.

ALASKA - College hoops fans who have enjoyed the Great Alaska Shootout tourney each November may be stuck without it on the tube for the first time since 1985. The University of Alaska Anchorage Athletic Director has acknowledged that since ESPN has created a separate tourney on the same dates the Great Alaska Shootout has been shot out of the ESPN fold. The school may not have enough time to arrange for another national package in time for this year's tourney. So still another 20+ year sports tradition goes by the wayside. Kind of makes you wish ESPN would stay in the TV business rather than a creative one.

BOISE - Let me add one more set of congrats. After last week's announcement that Bob Behler becomes the new Idaho State play-by-play voice comes word that Jadon Dailey joins the crew as analyst. Dailey was a started in BSU's recent 2006-07 Fiesta Bowl bound team.

FRESNO - It's not exactly a Nebraska or Florida type package, but Fresno State University has extended its contract with KMJ Radio through 2013. The school reported chose to renew instead of going with a reportedly higher competitor offer based on KMJ's 50,000 watt signal and regional impact.