Building a market by DMAs

[billsin01]

My 5 year old watches games with me all the time. Particularly Syracuse.

I am father of the year.

​

It drives me crazy that my boys don't. The 2-year-old, fine. But the 4 and 6-year-old? Come on boys!! Drives me crazy. But they're funny, they like live sports, but only b/c nats games have the play ground, dippin dots and nachos.

 

[Timonen]

TIMONEN! Where have you been the last year?!?!?!?! Finally, someone who agrees with me on this topic.

not sure if rhetorical, but if not...I switched jobs almost exactly a year ago and went from working in my basement to working in a busy office. logically, my posting stats have taken a hit.

i've been back working from home in my basement the last two days...hence the increase!

 

[cuse522]

When considering commercial viewing, keep in mind there are a lot more live ad reads and dropped in graphics in sports programming. Your keys to the game are sponsored, your replays are sponsored, etc... Heck, they have ads on the bottom of the scoreboards so when someone is at the free throw line the baseline camera gets the ad in... Now that's stadium revenue, not tv revenue, but you get the point.

 

[Guinness]

Even if you watch it live I think a lot of folks probably either pause the TV at commercial breaks and then skip ahead when it comes back live or simply change the channel to another game.

 

[OrangePA]

i'm convinced the BTN valuations are crazy. i'd love to know what kind of assumptions they're using. i bet the growth rates are completely nuts. and i bet the nincompoops who run maryland are suckers. and that's not even factoring the uncertainty about how programming will be bundled and priced in the future

Does BTN get paid per basic subscriber in the way ESPN is paid?

 

[Moontan]

Does BTN get paid per basic subscriber in the way ESPN is paid?

For subscribers in their footprint, yes.

 

[Toga]

It's arithmetic

Absolutely correct.

Like I just said in another reply, only ~40% of American home even have a DVR! So it's not possible for a majority of TV minutes to be viewed as playback, the math just doesn't work.

 

[MadNY3]

Does BTN get paid per basic subscriber in the way ESPN is paid?

BTN gets paid $x.xx/household plus ad revenue from its network/website.

ESPN is on the basic tier commanding the most money per household by far. Over $4 a house. Then you have channels like Bllomberg which get paid nothing, but are happy to have the distribution in hopes of having eyeballs to attract for just the ad revenue.

Big determiner is whether a channel is on a paid tier or basic one among other things (e.g. channel placement).

 

[cuse522]

Does BTN get paid per basic subscriber in the way ESPN is paid?

That's what they're striving for. Right now in areas like the mid-Atlantic and NYC they are on a tier of sports channels, so they get paid based on how many people buy that package. Their goal is to force those cable companies to put them on the basic tier or withhold the channel all together, banking on the fans complaining about not seeing games if they withhold.

In other words, 100,000 Rutgers fans complain and 10,000,000 New York/New Jersey folks get stuck paying extra for the B1G network. I figure they'll be complaining a lot, since most of Rutgers' games should be Tier 3 and below.

Beautiful, aint it? And if that doesn't work, Newscorp's involvement means they can withhold other channels to get more people complaining.

 

[Scooch]

Even if you watch it live I think a lot of folks probably either pause the TV at commercial breaks and then skip ahead when it comes back live or simply change the channel to another game.

Very few people do that actually. Like I said earlier, commercial retention, meaning the share of viewers that stay tuned in to the entirety of commercial breaks, is 90+% for sports.

 

[MadNY3]

Very few people do that actually. Like I said earlier, commercial retention, meaning the share of viewers that stay tuned in to the entirety of commercial breaks, is 90+% for sports.

I have worked at firms that spend about $800 million a year on advertising.

DVR penetration is STILL relatively low and live events - sports, American Idol and any other mass water cooler-driving show - are DVR'd as such, whcih is why networks will pay big $ for them.

 

[Scooch]

I have worked at firms that spend about $800 million a year on advertising.

DVR penetration is STILL relatively low and live events - sports, American Idol and any other mass water cooler-driving show - are DVR'd as such, whcih is why networks will pay big $ for them.

Yep. I mean viewer behavior clearly has changed a lot over the past decade. But people overstate the magnitude at times.

And yet I'll be called a dinosaur by somebody here the next time I suggest that maybe not *everyone* is going to cancel their cable and only stream shows through a Roku withn 3 years.

 

[TampaLaker]

My 5 year old watches games with me all the time. Particularly Syracuse.

I am father of the year.

​

My 14 year old daughter won't watch football, but she turned off the movie we were watching today to watch the b'ball game. She doesn't like to miss SU bball.

 

[alphaorange]

One of the things I wonder about is how this model may/will change as the way we watch sports on television evolves. As more and more fans start using online feeds for games, they have less and less need for cable/satellite packages. I understand that the cable companies and the in-orbit brethren with also adapt, but you have to wonder how that will look. If it ever came to a true ala carte system, the Big$ might find that it doesn't have the broad appeal it believes it has. Eyeballs in a particular area that are "forced" into buying a complete package in order to see something desired may be very, very different than eyeballs paying for only what they intend on watching. I can envision where a true ala carte programming option could very well spell financial doom for several entities that bank on the current system.

Back when the "big dishes" roamed the earth, watching sports could not have ever been better. Wild feeds, open channels, and ala carte programming choices and suppliers made that the gold standard for viewers.