Big TV Ratings - The game proves its worth again!

[Knucklehank1]

Wednesday night's ESPN broadcast of Louisville's 73-70 victory over Kentucky drew the network's best overnight rating of the college basketball season, according to ESPN.

The game also tied ESPN's record for the best rating ever for a regular-season game in the Louisville market.

The national overnight rating was 1.8, meaning 1.8 percent of the entire television-viewing audience was watching the game. ESPN's previous overnight high had been 1.6 for the Kansas-Duke game in the Champions Classic.

Additionally, there was an average audience of 60,000 streaming the game online on ESPN3.com and the WatchESPN app.

In the Louisville market, the rating was 31.7, tying the record set during the UK-U of L game on ESPN2 two years ago.

 

[zipp]

Let's take Knuckles numbers and make some estimates...

31.7% of Jefferson County (population 760,000 est.) is about 240,000. Let's assume that scales up to about one million viewers for the state of Kentucky (pop. 4.4 million). That would be 20% viewership for Kentucky outside of Jefferson County.

The US population is approx. 320 million. 1.8% of the US is 5.8 million. If there were one million viewers in Kentucky alone, that means Kentucky represented 17% of the national viewing audience. By comparison, Kentucky has 1.4% of the US population.

That math also corrects the national market share ex-Kentucky down from 1.8 to 1.5%...or 98.5% of the rest of the nation was NOT watching.

I'm not sure how compelling it is that 4.7 million people outside the state of Kentucky were watching this game. (I'm also not accounting for a few of my neighbors over here in Indiana...)

 

[Mayoman]

Wednesday night's ESPN broadcast of Louisville's 73-70 victory over Kentucky drew the network's best overnight rating of the college basketball season, according to ESPN.

The game also tied ESPN's record for the best rating ever for a regular-season game in the Louisville market.

The national overnight rating was 1.8, meaning 1.8 percent of the entire television-viewing audience was watching the game. ESPN's previous overnight high had been 1.6 for the Kansas-Duke game in the Champions Classic.

Additionally, there was an average audience of 60,000 streaming the game online on ESPN3.com and the WatchESPN app.

In the Louisville market, the rating was 31.7, tying the record set during the UK-U of L game on ESPN2 two years ago.

Hey Knuckles,,..can you use the same source to determine what the rating was for the MO/IL and USC/Clemson BB games as well as whatever else was being broadcast on the ESPN family of networks. That way.....you could show what number of sports fans that were watching sports that night were watching the UofL/KY game. Would be interesting data IMO.

 

[Knucklehank1]

Hey Knuckles,,..can you use the same source to determine what the rating was for the MO/IL and USC/Clemson BB games as well as whatever else was being broadcast on the ESPN family of networks. That way.....you could show what number of sports fans that were watching sports that night were watching the UofL/KY game. Would be interesting data IMO.

The only sporting event that basically even metered was the bowl game after the UofL game. It drew a couple hundred thousand less eyes than the basketball game. Also, the basketball game was tops on cable in the coveted 18-49 year old male demographic. So essentially the UofL vs UK basketball game was the only game anyone watched and it still well outdrew the other basketball games even if you eliminated every viewer in Kentucky. Despite Zipp's assertions, this game is very well received by the viewing public and in particular networks (and their advertisers) like it because it draws well with the most consequential demographic.

 

[zipp]

I'm not refuting Knuckles' numbers, and I'm not saying the game isn't popular, relatively speaking. But those last two words are important.

Rivalry fans wanna promote it against the backdrop of college basketball. In reality, college basketball is a blip on the radar. Who even played in the 9 PM bowl game?

On the larger issue of continuing the series, my argument is that a 1.5 TV rating outside of Kentucky is not compelling. If we have media experts in this space who know the value of that number vis-a-vis production costs and other inputs, I'm open to counterarguments...

 

[Knucklehank1]

I'm not refuting Knuckles' numbers, and I'm not saying the game isn't popular, relatively speaking. But those last two words are important.

Rivalry fans wanna promote it against the backdrop of college basketball. In reality, college basketball is a blip on the radar. Who even played in the 9 PM bowl game?

On the larger issue of continuing the series, my argument is that a 1.5 TV rating outside of Kentucky is not compelling. If we have media experts in this space who know the value of that number vis-a-vis production costs and other inputs, I'm open to counterarguments...

The difference between a 1.5 rating and lets say a .3 rating (which those other b-ball games didn't even register) is very big in terms of $$$. A show that garners a 1.5M commands roughly $100,000 for a 30 second ad spot. While a show with a .3 rating gets roughly $40,000 for a 30 second spot. When you consider that a college basketball game conservatively has 40 minutes of advertising (8 TV timeouts, 10 team timeouts, 15 minute half which roughly 50% is commercials), that adds up to big dollars. So a 1.5M rating would get $8,000,000 in gross advertising while a .3 rating would get $3,200,000 in gross advertising. An almost $5,000,000 difference in gross advertising for essentially producing the same content is pretty significant even to a company as big as ABC/Disney/ESPN. So the costs for producing and telecasting the UofL vs UK game were damn near the same as the Clemson vs USCjr game and yet theoretically the business made $5.0M more just because it was a compelling game for people to watch.

 

[zipp]

So what are the media rights and production costs/fees offsetting that $5 million?...

 

[Knucklehank1]

So what are the media rights and production costs/fees offsetting that $5 million?...

The costs of producing UofL vs UK are basically the same as say producing UofL vs Tenn (or any other school you want to substitute in). I believe the media rights are part of the ACC media rights contract, so again that is a fixed cost for the media network.

There were some telling quotes from ESPN's VP:

Because the game is in Louisville this year, it falls under U of L's television contract with the Atlantic Coast Conference, whose primary rights belong to ESPN. Two years ago, U of L's first season in the ACC, the game was on ESPN2. In the seasons in which the game is in Lexington, UK's Southeastern Conference TV contract is in effect, meaning the game tends to be on CBS.

The game taking place on a Wednesday night "may feel different to the fans who are used to going to the game in person (on a weekend), but for viewers, it won't be all that strange," White said. "On ESPN, we've had a long history of playing big-time games midweek. One of the other big rivalries in all of sports and college basketball - the Duke-North Carolina game - one of their matchups is played during the week. It's not that unusual for sports fans to be watching big-time rivalry games like this midweek."
"It'll be one of the few times this season that the "College GameDay" set comes to a non-weekend game.

"It speaks to the magnitude of the game," White said. "This is one of those matchups where when the schedule comes out for college basketball, you circle it on your calendar. It's one of the best rivalries in all of sports, and we obviously want to be a part of that and a part of that atmosphere, and there's no better way than to bring our 'College GameDay' crew down to Louisville. We're excited about being there."

White couldn't recall any other specific dates that were considered for this season's meeting, but he said any other options would also have been midweek games. The start of conference play at the turn of the year would have precluded the game from being played much later in the schedule, and final exams would have precluded it from being played much sooner.

"We all felt that for the game to get the best exposure possible and to find a place that worked for the teams, this was the date that worked out the best for everyone," White said. White said ESPN expects to draw a large audience for Wednesday's game. White said he's not sure if having the game midweek will be a one-time deal based on the 2016 calendar or may occur again in future years when the game is on ESPN networks."

 

[zipp]

Well, fixed costs are only fixed in the short run. If a revenue stream doesn't produce, fixed costs are removed from the equation. The LPT game is part of a package that has a package price. That price isn't fixed when a contract renews.

I realize it's not easy to quantify, but those are the relevant costs: what ESPN pays to produce a broadcast and what they have to pay for it in a rights deal. Five million sounds like a lot of money, but these guys deal with numbers on that order-of-magnitude all the time.

Appreciate the TV exec remarks, but that guy's not exactly a neutral observer...

 

[Knucklehank1]

I don't understand your first paragraph. The costs were fixed, the revenues for ESPN weren't. It was very successful payoff for the media provider, which is good for all involved.

Your original argument many moons ago was that moving the game to a weeknight proved that there wasn't interest in the game. The numbers and the comments by the ESPN executive refute your theory. You have nothing to support your theory.

 

[zipp]

I don't understand your first paragraph. The costs were fixed, the revenues for ESPN weren't. It was very successful payoff for the media provider, which is good for all involved.

Your original argument many moons ago was that moving the game to a weeknight proved that there wasn't interest in the game. The numbers and the comments by the ESPN executive refute your theory. You have nothing to support your theory.

The first paragraph means that if the game isn't providing sufficient financial returns, the networks eventually won't bid up for its value in a rights deal. It's true they can't mark down what they're paying in an existing contract. But that's only true with the contract in force. A new contract will reflect current value.

More accurately, my argument is that moving the game to a meaningless weeknite slot in the conference preseason indicates a lack of interest. Of course, I don't expect an exec from the network holding the contract to say that...

 

[ACCCard]

It was the highest ranked game of the year what else can you ask for?

 

[zipp]

What's been the competition this year? And I thought UNC-LPT was the highest the last couple years??...

 

[Knucklehank1]

What's been the competition this year? And I thought UNC-LPT was the highest the last couple years??...

Off the top of my head the Champions classic, ACC-Big 10 Challenge were some big games.

The reality is that you have no data, nor even any anecdotal evidence to support your theory. Time for you to wave the white flag.

 

[zipp]

Off the top of my head the Champions classic, ACC-Big 10 Challenge were some big games.

The reality is that you have no data, nor even any anecdotal evidence to support your theory. Time for you to wave the white flag.

There are no compelling basketball games in Nov and Dec because everything is in reality exhibitions.. I barely watch it myself until football is over. The networks go out of their way to set up tournaments and "classics" and whatever will generate interest to get 1.5 market share nationally, and them thump their chests about it.

It's no different than when we were having the same debate a few months ago, just with updated numbers. There's nothing ambiguous about this trend...

And these are the best college basketball games of the season. Note they're also raw numbers (not population adjusted). We're talking about a blip in a declining product...