Football Ratings Heading For A Big Score

Last weekend's SEC Championship Game telecast between Alabama and Georgia proved to be huge for CBS and its stations. With a peak of nearly 18 million viewers, this telecast became the highest rated conference championship telecast (any conference or network) since 2018. 

Overall college football season ratings were also good for CBS. The network finishes with the highest average viewers amount of any for college football. This becomes even more impressive when you factor in that ESPN and Fox share the highly rated Big 10 Conference package. For example, the impressive Alabama vs. Georgia numbers were slightly below last month's Michigan vs. Ohio State (regular season) showdown on Fox.

Adding to this is the consideration that the Michigan vs. Ohio State telecast was in the early window (Noon ET start), whereas the SEC Championship game was leading in to prime time in the Eastern Time zone. Because of this, the Big 10 Conference stands to do very well during 2022. Their deal with both Fox and ESPN expire at the end of the 2022 season. Could be quite the bidding war, especially if the Conference is willing to add a possible third TV partner.

On the NFL side, it appears that the surge by the New England Patriots is paying off in the TV ratings. The October Sunday Night Football game on NBC with the Patriots facing Tom Brady and the Bucs was among SNF's top three telecasts ever. Their recent Monday Night Football game vs. Buffalo wound up as the most watched MNF Week 13 telecast since 2013. This comes after Patriots ratings were reportedly down by more than 20% during the 2020 season. For this season, overall NFL telecast ratings are up more than 7% over last year.

 

Joe Davis and Kurt Warner will be calling the Saturday Dec. 18th  Las Vegas vs. Cleveland telecast and the Christmas Day Indianapolis vs. Arizona telecast, both of which will be only on NFL Network and in the local markets.

TNT should be getting concerned about disappointing ratings for its NHL telecasts over the first 1/3 of the regular season. The numbers are down significantly from what NBCSN had been doing for previous "comparable" telecasts. It's looking much better for ESPN's telecasts. 

PHOENIX: Baseball fans know the name Garigiola. Chris Garigiola, the grandson of NBC baseball voice Joe Garigiola and son of former Diamondbacks GM Joe Jr., has been named to host the pre-game and post-game shows on the Diamondbacks Radio Network. Chris had most recently been calling minor league games, such as Pensacola, the AA affiliate of the Marlins.

The Cost of Cancelation

As much as the sports fans' collective appetite for watching live sports continues to be strong, the growth on what it takes out of our wallets is also on the increase. Now comes word that Comcast, which is the nation's largest cable provider, is preparing still another round of price hikes for subscribers to start in January 2022. The big reason, according to sources in the know, is due to the increase in the costs for Comcast to carry channels, especially the sports channels.

Of course, these rising costs for cable and satellite are leading to cord-cutting, which is on the increase. A recent report by Leichtman Research Group which covers all of the larger cable/satellite groups around the country, there was a loss of approximately 650,000 subscribers during the 3rd quarter of 2021 alone. For comparison, the 3rd quarter subscriber losses for Q3 of 2020 (same length of time) was around 90,000.

You would think that the loss of this many subscribers would be cause for concern among the networks increasing their fees as well as for the providers. Instead, they all seem content with increasing the costs for the millions of us that keep paying up. It means that they have those of us that continue to spend the bigger bucks to watch these games are paying back the difference those who want to send a message by canceling are trying to send.

The ratings don't lie, however. This past Saturday's (11/27) Big Ten showdown between Ohio State and Michigan drew nearly 16 million viewers, making it the largest audience Fox Sports has ever had for a college football telecast. Keep in mind this game was at Noon ET and not in prime time. Adding to that was the more than 3,000,000 viewers reported for their morning pregame show. 

Even this past Monday Night Football game (11/29) drew nearly 11 million viewers for ESPN. What makes this viewing number significant is that the Seattle vs. Washington matchup was between two teams entering the game under .500. 

 

 If you are still wondering why so many of the TV sports networks are running so many more betting shows than ever before, the answer is in the opening paragraph above. It's more than the revenue generated for airing these shows. The more people are betting on these games, the higher the interest and the more than fans will want to watch them. At the rate things are going, some bettors may have the goal of trying to cover their cost for the next month of cable or satellite.

College football fans get a tough break for the coming Championship Saturday. Casual fans are not as familiar with the University of Cincinnati, which continues to contend for the final four and the championship games. This Saturday (12/4) has the Big 12 Championship at Noon ET (Baylor and OK State) on ABC, which leads in to the much anticipated Alabama vs. Georgia clash in the SEC Championship game on CBS at 4 PM ET. The Big 10 Championship battle between Michigan and Iowa follows at 8 PM ET on Fox.

Meanwhile, U. of Cincinnati's game vs. Houston for the American Conference Championship (also on ABC) also happens to get underway just after 4 PM ET. This puts it up against the Georgia vs. Alabama telecast. Put that together with the expected blowout by Cinci and it probably means that they could be the "least known" team to compete for a national championship.

Two Games Two Sports No Problem

It's fun for play-by-play announcers to handle more than one sport over the course of a year, but now we have a number of announcers doing so within the course of a couple of days. This includes one or more on a national level.

Joe Buck at Fox continues his busy stretch of crossing over from NFL games to the MLB Post-season, even with the World Series in progress. Adam Amin, a rising star at Fox, catches a break this coming weekend by not having to travel for multiple events. Amin is scheduled to call the NBA game between Chicago and Utah for NBC Sports Chicago on Saturday night (10/30) which is being played in Chicago. On Sunday, he calls the NFL game for Fox between the Bears and visiting San Francisco 49ers. He will then travel to Boston to call the Bulls vs. Celtics game on Monday night. 

Steve Levy had quite the experience this past weekend. Levy got the gem of an assignment for any hockey announcer by getting the Seattle Kraken home opener (Oct. 23) against Vancouver. Although he had not called an NHL game on national TV since 2004, you would have sworn that he calls them all the time. He needed to be in Seattle anyway, because, as coincidence had it, he was there to also call his usual Monday Night Football game (10/25) with the Seahawks hosting New Orleans.

CHICAGO: WSCR 670 The Score has a multi-year extension in place for Bulls broadcasts to continue. The Score has been airing the Bulls since 2018. Chuck Swirsky, now in his 14th season as radio voice of the team, will continue in his role. 

WASHINGTON D.C.: A familiar name for the locals, Steve Buckhantz, is returning to NBC Sports Washington. He will serve as analyst for this coming Saturday's (10/30) telecast of James Madison vs. Elon, working with Curt Dudley, who will call the game. Buckhantz is expected to be added to more games in the near future.

National With A Local Flare

Milwaukee sports fans now have two national voices calling local team play-by-play on their telecasts, with the naming of Lisa Byington as the new play-by-play voice for the Milwaukee Bucks. Byington was chosen to replace Jim Paschke, who had called the Bucks games for the previous 35 seasons. Paschke gets to go out "on top" with the Bucks having won their first NBA Championship in 50 years back in July. 

Byington has been calling college basketball for Fox Sports and the Big10 Network, in addition to having been the first woman to do play-by-play for Turner Sports and CBS during this year's NCAA Tournament. She also called a football game for Big10 Network back in 2017. 

In addition to becoming the first woman to be named primary play-by-play announcer for an NBA team, she adds this to her incredible year which also includes calling Olympics events for NBC.

The other "national" voice calling games in Milwaukee continues to be Brian Anderson, who also calls NBA games, as a primary play-by-play voice for TNT's coverage. Anderson continues as the lead voice of Brewers TV for every game his TBS/TNT baseball and basketball schedule allows him to. Although the networks generally don't want national telecasts to include the local team's announcer, it is worth noting that TBS will carry the National League Division Series and the NLCS. Look for Anderson to call the series not involving the Brewers in the NLDS. If the Brewers advance, it will be interesting to see if TBS goes with Ernie Johnson on the call instead of Anderson.

Speaking of TNT, the network is preparing to debut its NHL coverage next month with a number of national games. Adding none other than Wayne Gretzky to their studio staff brings them major credibility. Kenny Albert and Brendan Burke will share play-by-play duties. For primary analyst, the network will have a Chicago Blackhawks flavor. Ed Olczyk joins TNT as primary analyst to work with Albert, while continuing as local analyst for every Chicago Blackhawks telecast his TNT schedule allows. Working with Burke most night will be Darren Pang, who also played in Chicago for most of his career.

If Sports Is About Competition, What About Sports Radio?

We don't need still another example of what's wrong with radio today, but the sister sports talk stations in Indianapolis have provided one. First, it should be stated that David Wood is an excellent radio executive, as his role of overseeing a cluster of stations within this market prove beyond a doubt. It's just that the corporate decision to add to his duties is the example. Wood has also (the important word here) been tapped to oversee programming on both Sports Talk 93.5 AND 107.5 The Fan. 

 

Let's get this straight. We have two stations going after the same audience of sports fans all day and all night long. Now we have the same management person overseeing them both. How ironic that stations which are based around sports and competition each have the same leader. I suppose that if New York City were to have the same General Manager making acquisitions for both the Yankees and the Mets that there would be outrage from fans filling up the sports stations with content.

You would think that the parent company of these stations would look at this much differently. Imagine assigning separate management responsibilities to different people, while assigning the same budget and opportunities. Whichever delivers the highest ratings gets a bonus or incentive. I suppose that's asking too much these days.

The reach of the Las Vegas Raiders shows during the preseason with the availability of the local telecasts. Their exhibition game telecasts, as called by Beth Mowins and Rich Gannon, are being seen well beyond the Las Vegas and Salt Lake City market. In addition to being shown on KRON-TV San Francisco (understandable, at least for now), their exhibition games also air in both Anchorage and Fairbanks Alaska, Honolulu, and in Los Angeles. 

Speaking of preseason telecasts, the duplication was amazing last weekend (8/21) when the Dallas Cowboys played the Houston Texans. A total of 10 TV markets within Texas had both the Cowboys and Texans telecasts available to them at the same time. The Cowboys telecasts are also seen in Oklahoma City as well as two markets in Arkansas and two in Louisiana.

DENVER: Rachael Vigil has joined KKFN 104.3 The Fan as a digital host and producer, coming over from a similar role with the Western Athletic Conference.

 

 

Field of Dreams, But Nightmare For Baseball Fans

If only Fox Sports hadn't treated Thursday's (8/12) Field of Dreams telecast like it was a movie. Would have been nice, and helpful to keep baseball fans up to date. Fox is supposed to be the big player for Major League Baseball. 

 

Perhaps it is being a White Sox fan that added to the frustration, but I would imagine that other avid baseball fans felt it too. Here was Fox Sports, which will be airing the World Series again this season and has NFL telecasts coming up, forgetting to use their usual scroll of scores and updates at the bottom of the screen for the entire night. Making it even worse, there was no mention of scores of other games in progress, or that had been played earlier in the day.

 

The "earlier in the day" was significant to this "Dreams" game. Cleveland, which is a distant second to the White Sox in the A.L. Central, had already lost during the afternoon, raising the White Sox division lead to 11 games at game time. At the time, this was the largest lead the White Sox held over Cleveland all season. That was news that White Sox fans wanted to hear. Instead, we got Joe Buck saying that the "lead was 10 and 1/2 games going in to today's action". Did the lead network for MLB not know there were other games taking place?

 

Early in the game, the White Sox scored on a homerun by Jose Abreu. It so happened, as many White Sox fans knew, that this homerun tied Abreu for #3 on the franchise's all-time homerun list. Given the history of the franchise, which played a role in the movie Field of Dreams, this was a big deal. Yet, zero mention of that accomplishment from Joe Buck or anyone else on the telecast.

 

But the horrible lack of information was not just aimed at White Sox fans. While I can understand not having a camera for the bullpens, we were rarely told which pitcher was warming up for either team. Even worse was a pinch-hitting appearance by Danny Mendick of the White Sox in the all important 9th inning. 

 

As a Sox fan, I had no idea that Mendick was on the active roster. There was zero mention on the telecast about how and why he was in the game. (It so happened that MLB, for some strange reason, allowed both teams to add a 27th player. Until finding this out on my own, I was falsely worried that there was an injury I hadn't heard about.) Joe Buck and company didn't even mention who Mendick was hitting for. Sheesh.

 

However, Fox was ready with all kinds of graphics and video about the movie Field of Dreams throughout the telecast. It's OK to do that under these circumstances, but there is no excuse for not even making an effort to inform the fans of what's going on.

 

The Pittsburgh Penguins will have Josh Getzoff calling all games on radio starting with the upcoming season. Getzoff called the team's road games over the previous three seasons, adding home games this past season when Mike Lange opted out due to the pandemic. Lange, who called Penguins games on radio for 46 seasons, is giving up his play-by-play role after 50 years total of calling hockey. He will continue to be a part of Penguins broadcasts throughout the coming season. Ray Borque continues as analyst.

 

The ESPN Monday Night Football crew with Steve Levy and Brian Griese will get to do some local pre-season telecasts this year as a warmup. The pair will call the locally available Denver Broncos telecasts. These will be in addition to the pair of exhibition game telecasts which will air on ESPN.

 

Mike Golic will serve as an analyst for Westwood One NFL regular season broadcasts this season. This will be in addition to Mike's weekly football show which will be distributed by Westwood One.

 

How exciting can this week's NBA Summer League telecasts sound? With Gus Johnson scheduled to do play-by-play on Friday (8/13) on NBA-TV, we are likely to find out.

A Performance of Olympic Proportion

Just as NBC did with the NHL contract over the past few years, NBC did a tremendous job with its just coverage of the just concluded Olympics. Using its family of networks while making specific sports and events relatively easy to find added to the quality production value. Mike Torico was superb as primary "studio" host, making it clear to all that he had done his homework and was on top of everything going on around him.

This makes it even harder to swallow that NBC lost the NHL contract and lacks content to continue with NBCSN starting very soon.

However, while NBC Sports deserves applause on that count, it is quite the opposite for college football fans, especially of Notre Dame and Toledo University. NBC wants to promote Peacock, especially it's premium version which costs $4.99 per month. They are trying to slip it under the radar that the Notre Dame home opener on September 11th against Toledo will ONLY be available to paying customers on Peacock. It will be treated as a regular NBC telecast, with Mike Torico calling the game. This game also marks the debut of Drew Brees as analyst.

Yet, fans of both schools (including Toledo University, which, because of this, gets robbed of the national spotlight) are expected to pay to watch this game, while the remaining telecasts will be as usual on NBC.

It's not up to me, but if they must make a money grab, put the "regular" telecast on NBC as usual. Offer up a $4.99 expanded telecast only on Peacock with no commercials, expanded pre and post-game coverage, and perhaps a player or coach on each time mic'd up. Do things that would make the avid fan willing to spend the money, but not rob the casual college football fans of a telecast.


With no teams calling, Robert Griffin III appears to be headed to an analyst role for the coming football season. Looks like ESPN noticed his quality work for Bleacher Report during their 2021 NFL Draft coverage. As of press time, he was reportedly completing a deal to join ESPN to work on both college games and its NFL coverage.

Over at CBS, the network has reportedly increased the role for analyst Jay Feely for the coming season. As the network prepares to unveil its NFL announcing teams, all signs point to Feely being teamed with Spero Dedes on regional telecasts. This comes after word that Adam Archuleta will now be paired with Greg Gumbel.

Local preseason telecasts will, once again, feature network play-by-play voices where possible. Ian Eagle will call the lone local Jets telecast (with Peter Schrager as analyst), Adam Amin will call Chicago Bears games (with Jim Miller as analyst), while Buffalo will have both Andrew Catalon and Steve Tasker on its exhibition games. Justin Kutcher will call Atlanta Falcons games. The champion Tampa Bucs fans will have Chris Myers and Ronde Barber on their telecasts.

NFL exhibition games will be upon us later this week.

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