Non AFL - International Ratings/Crowds/Finance etc News

[The_Wookie]

For those who give a damn about such things lol



“I’m not surprised that our ratings are down thus far,” Silver told The Washington Post by telephone from New York on Thursday. “I’m not concerned, either. In terms of every other key indicator that we look at that measures the popularity of the league, we’re up. We’re up in attendance over a record-setting high from last year. Social media engagement remains in the magnitude of 1.6 billion people on a global basis. Our League Pass viewership is up. Our merchandising sales are up. The issue then, for me, is that we’re going through a transition in terms of how [the league] is distributed to our fans, particularly our young fans.”

 

[The_Wookie]

 

[The_Wookie]

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

This story goes with the OP, both from the Washington Post, this story from the 27th December by Ben Mullins that was reproduced in The Australian on 30th. I guess when an NBA team really only has 5-8 main players of the 13 active for any game, and a side losses its star player, then that star is harder to cover his contribution, compared to an AFL team that has 22 active players per game, and fans - especially the more casual ones, drop off.

Injury-Plagued NBA Draws Fewer TV Viewers
Commissioner Adam Silver recently called the traditional pay-TV system ‘broken,’ emphasizing the importance of reaching fans on several platforms
Television ratings for National Basketball Association games are down 15% so far this season, a drop that the league and its TV partners attribute to injuries that are keeping some of the NBA’s biggest stars on the sidelines.

NBA games on national TV drew an average of 885,000 viewers in the U.S. in the first eight weeks of the season, according to Nielsen, compared with about one million over the same period last year and 1.2 million two years ago. Some of the league’s marquee players, including Kevin Durant of the Brooklyn Nets and Klay Thompson of the Golden State Warriors, had been expected to miss the entire regular season recovering from injuries suffered in June. Then the New Orleans Pelicans’ Zion Williamson, one of the most highly anticipated rookies in years, hurt his knee and had surgery a day before the season’s Oct. 22 tipoff.

Days later, two-time NBA Most Valuable Player Stephen Curry broke his left hand, an injury that is expected to sideline him for months and helped turn the Warriors from one of the league’s best teams to a bottom-dweller. Other prominent players, including the Nets’ Kyrie Irving, have also missed a significant number of games.

The ratings drop has raised eyebrows among analysts who follow the world of traditional TV, where live sports are one of the few remaining reliable drivers of viewership.

Most broadcasters, including the ones that have NBA rights— AT&T Inc. ’s Turner Sports and Walt Disney Co. ’s ESPN and ABC—are fighting an uphill battle as more viewers abandon the traditional pay-TV bundle for internet-based options, said Rich Greenfield, a media and telecommunications analyst at LightShed Partners.
......

Injury-Plagued NBA Draws Fewer TV Viewers

Television ratings for National Basketball Association games are down 15% so far this season, a drop that the league and its TV partners attribute to injuries that are keeping some of the NBA’s biggest stars on the sidelines.

www.wsj.com

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

David Stern 30 years as NBA Commissioner has passed away today after complications from a brain hemorrhage he suffered on Dec. 12. Was only 77 years old. Changed the league massively during his tenure as well as helped globalize the sport and the league.

 

[The_Wookie]

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Wookie do you know what that means. I saw the tweet 30 minutes ago and thought of this thread and then though is that the ratings average for a national game? local market games added up?

Sometime there are 5 or 6 games going on at once, given you have Thursday night 1 game, Sunday night 1 game, Monday night 1 game and the remaining 13 games are split over 4 time zones on a Sunday arvo.

 

[The_Wookie]

 

[Kwality]

Similar result here in Aus with Supercars, a very limited FTA coverage of the top level of motorsport. James Warburton was the CEO of Supercars who did that deal, now CEO at 7.

F1 ownership was bought by Liberty Media in 2017.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Ok found this website - looks a bit like your blog Wookie.

It also looks like these are the average viewership for national televised games with some allowance for local market games. The yanks talk about ratings share, just as much as total viewers, as seen in the list of local market figures under every graphic of each week of NFL. Basically the average is the average per game of the 5 or 6 games a week broadcast nationally, with little influence from the other 10 or 11 games that week. Their abbreviations are

TNF — Thursday Night Football, SNF — Sunday Night Football, MNF — Monday Night Football, DH — Doubleheader, Single — Singleheader.

NFL TV Ratings page

See for yourself which NFL games are getting the most viewers with the NFL TV ratings for the 2023 regular season and playoffs.

www.sportsmediawatch.com

The_Wookie you might want to read the comments section as there is some interesting stuff there. This one from 4 days ago confirms my interpretation of the numbers. The bold 16.97m figure is my calculation.

JWJ
4 days ago
Simplistic view, week 16, total season-to-date 2019.
Total viewers across 82 network televised games, cumulative through week 16, 2019: 1,392.1M [ ie 16.97m]
Same time period in 2018: 1,331.8M
4.5% increase through the first 16 weeks in viewers.

Just as a historical comparison total 2019 viewers was about 10.0% lower than total viewers in 2015.
(this excludes ALL the Thu night games and special intl games, the three Thanksgiving games, week 17 games, and Sat games as all that is tracked separately)
For the total season , the Sunday Night game had the smallest percentage increase over 2018 at 1.1%. None of the 5 regular time slots showed a season comparison year-over-year reduction.
The Sunday Late Doubleheader game had the largest percentage increase over 2018 at 7.8%.
MNF was 6.2% higher than 2018.
(Thanks again to Paulsen for readily providing all these numbers)

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

This article on the current home page of above linked website says that 47 of the 50 top rating sports programs of the last decade have been NFL games in the US. 2 were Olympics from London and the Cubs game 7 winner in 2016 WS to break a 108 year drought.

2010s Ratings Wrap: NFL dominates, plus Olympics and Cubs

A look at the most-watched sporting events of the 2010s. The NFL dominated the list, generating the 40 largest audiences.

www.sportsmediawatch.com

The top non-NFL sporting event was the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics, which avereaged 40.65 million on NBC. Outside of the NFL and Olympics, Game 7 of the 2016 World Series took top honors, with the Cubs’ historic victory averaging 40.05 million on FOX

 

[Professor Knowall]

NFL TV ratings might be up, but the average regular season crowd average is the lowest since 2004 -

NFL Avg. Attendance Drops To Lowest Point Since ’04

The NFL shows it isn't immune to changing fan trends, as the league averaged its lowest game attendance since the '04 season.

www.sportsbusinessdaily.com

 

[Rob]

NFL TV ratings might be up, but the average regular season crowd average is the lowest since 2004 -

NFL Avg. Attendance Drops To Lowest Point Since ’04

The NFL shows it isn't immune to changing fan trends, as the league averaged its lowest game attendance since the '04 season.

www.sportsbusinessdaily.com

Attendance numbers are pretty dubious in America - they base it on tickets distributed, not the actual crowd at the game. As evident by the number of NFL teams that have an average attendance higher than the capacity of the ground they're at.

 

[Johnny Bananas]

I see the NBA are adding a team in Mexico City in their reserves league. It can only be a matter time time until they make their way to the top league, unless they're a financial disaster. Feels like Mexico City is big enough to have two NBA teams though, it has as many people as New York. And if only one team joins, it could be a West Coast Eagles type situation where a team rakes in an insane amount of money but there's no neutral fanbase left over in the city to support a second team (or third in the case of Perth). So starting two teams there at once might be an idea, but I doubt even the NBA would have the balls to do that.

 

[The_Wookie]

 

[Rob]

I see the NBA are adding a team in Mexico City in their reserves league. It can only be a matter time time until they make their way to the top league, unless they're a financial disaster. Feels like Mexico City is big enough to have two NBA teams though, it has as many people as New York. And if only one team joins, it could be a West Coast Eagles type situation where a team rakes in an insane amount of money but there's no neutral fanbase left over in the city to support a second team (or third in the case of Perth). So starting two teams there at once might be an idea, but I doubt even the NBA would have the balls to do that.

It would be a massive punt given the nature of the NBA draft and that you'd suspect that a vast majority of draftees would not want to move to Mexico City. Never mind that you'd still need to generate the income of any other NBA team and most residents would simply not be able to afford tickets. Filling a stadium 41 times a year at US ticket prices is going to be tough.

It's probably comparable to the NRL putting a team in PNG. Sure they have a few million people and they love the game, but there just isn't the money and no player wants to move there.

 

[Johnny Bananas]

It would be a massive punt given the nature of the NBA draft and that you'd suspect that a vast majority of draftees would not want to move to Mexico City. Never mind that you'd still need to generate the income of any other NBA team and most residents would simply not be able to afford tickets. Filling a stadium 41 times a year at US ticket prices is going to be tough.

It's probably comparable to the NRL putting a team in PNG. Sure they have a few million people and they love the game, but there just isn't the money and no player wants to move there.

Mexico is a far richer country and has plenty of billionaires.

 

[Rob]

Mexico is a far richer country and has plenty of billionaires.

It is, but the average wage in Mexico City is something like 100 bucks a week. Going to be a tough ask to fill a stadium 41 times a year when a huge proportion of the city can't afford a ticket. It's not like they can adjust for cost of living.

Maybe they're looking for one of those billionaires to subsidise the whole thing. Might work then.

 

[Johnny Bananas]

It is, but the average wage in Mexico City is something like 100 bucks a week. Going to be a tough ask to fill a stadium 41 times a year when a huge proportion of the city can't afford a ticket. It's not like they can adjust for cost of living.

The average wage in a city of 21 million people is irrelevant. What is important is the number of wealthy people who would be interested in purchasing a ticket. Given the level of income inequality, I'm betting there are a lot more than 18 000 people in Mexico City who can afford a NBA ticket.

 

[HavUEvaSeenTheRain]

It is, but the average wage in Mexico City is something like 100 bucks a week. Going to be a tough ask to fill a stadium 41 times a year when a huge proportion of the city can't afford a ticket. It's not like they can adjust for cost of living.

Maybe they're looking for one of those billionaires to subsidise the whole thing. Might work then.

They have something like 100,000 millionaires living in Mexico City.

 

[HavUEvaSeenTheRain]

Attendance numbers are pretty dubious in America - they base it on tickets distributed, not the actual crowd at the game. As evident by the number of NFL teams that have an average attendance higher than the capacity of the ground they're at.

The EPL is very similar where the actual attendances are hugely over reported by some clubs because of the counting of season ticket holders who aren’t even there.

 

[Rabman]

The EPL is very similar where the actual attendances are hugely over reported by some clubs because of the counting of season ticket holders who aren’t even there.

Yep, My club Arsenal are the worse offenders.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

The average wage in a city of 21 million people is irrelevant. What is important is the number of wealthy people who would be interested in purchasing a ticket. Given the level of income inequality, I'm betting there are a lot more than 18 000 people in Mexico City who can afford a NBA ticket.

Yeah 18,000 people in 21 million is 0.1% of of the population. The top 5% or more of income earners would be making at least US average/median wage or earnings.

The GDP of Mexico City is about $400bil USD, which makes it about the 30th largest economy in the world if it was separated from Mexico and with an exchange rate of $0.70 that is about 20% larger than what the annual Oz government budget is. Look at how big trade between USA-Mexico is? Its 3 or 4 times the Aust-China figure.

Just gotta look at all the different numbers in the Liga MX national soccer league to see how big sports market in Mexico is. TV $$$ would be a s**t load bigger if clubs weren't owned by TV / media groups and you had central TV rights, not clubs doing their own deals.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

In the AFL and its place in the world of sports business thread jim boy linked this 2018 Global Sports Salaries Survey, and whilst most of the 115 page report is dominated by salaries info, it has other useful stuff.

http://www.globalsportssalaries.com/


Like this table on page 22, on the annual value of domestic and international TV rights for 10 leagues, the 4 big North American pro sports leagues, the MLS, and the big 5 Euro soccer leagues.

The NHL is massively behind in international rights for a sports played in many nations.

NFL gets a smaller % than NHL from international rights but its domestic rights are so massive it doesn't really matter. AFL domestic rights at approx AUD$400 mill per year are bigger than NHL, which does surprise me, and MLS which doesn't.

The_Wookie have you got any figures for international TV rights value for AFL?? Don't think I have ever seen any.

Exchange rate used £1 = USD$1.250 and £1 = AUD$1.786 (others are on page 7)



From page 23

The Premier League is way out in front in foreign broadcasting earnings, making £1.4BN a year, or £4.2bn for the current threeyear rights cycle from 2019-22. The Chinese digital broadcaster PPTV alone is paying around £185m a year, and NBC in the USA is paying $1bn (around £800m) over six years to 2022, or around £133m per year. Broadcasters in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Scandinavia, France, the Middle East, South America and subSaharan Africa are each paying tens of millions per year for Premier League rights.

Of total annual broadcasting right of around £3.1bn per year, the Premier League’s overseas rights contribute nearly 46 per cent of the total.

La Liga, with £800m annual earnings from foreign rights, are a long way second on aggregate but that still equates to 44 per cent of La Liga earnings, and still puts them well clear of the third highest foreign rights earners, the NBA, on £360m. For the NBA this equates to 14 per cent of rights earnings.

The five North American leagues all make the vast majority of rights income from within North America. The figures for the European football leagues are all a matter of public record, and we thank SportBusiness for the foreign rights figures for the North American leagues. Other knowledgeable sources inside US sport assisted in clarifying some details.

We asked all the leagues for confirmation of the numbers and none wanted to confirm them, on the record. In a rapidly changing marketplace it is quite feasible that the North American leagues are making additional sums, relatively small at the moment, from direct-to consumer international digital channels on top of ‘traditional’ rights income.

Using the metric of annual foreign rights income, the world’s most popular three leagues, again, are the Premier League, La Liga, and the NBA.

It should be noted that if considered in the same way, then cricket’s IPL has total and foreign rights annually that are dwarfed by these bigger leagues. Star India hold the current global rights (for India and everywhere else) in a £2bn, five-year deal that runs to 2022 and is worth just under £400m per year. Given the vast majority of the IPL’s global audience is within India, which has a population of more than 1.3bn people, we would attribute most of that £400m per year to ‘domestic’ value, and some tens of millions of pounds at most to foreign rights value.

DO RIGHTS FEES REFLECT VIEWERS?

In trying to gauge whether rights earnings are an accurate reflection of audience size, the honest answer is: it is impossible to tell, definitively, but probably yes. It is impossible to tell because, for the most part, sports leagues never publish detailed breakdowns of their global viewing figures. And they never do it, we have to assume, because the figures are much smaller than most people believe, and are absolutely nowhere close to claims of hundreds of millions for a single “ordinary” game.

The NFL has huge domestic TV contracts because the NFL draws huge domestic TV audiences, of 15.8m people inside the USA on average for a regular season game in 2018. Super Bowl is the cherry on top. But again, most of the viewers are inside the USA.

MLB’s premium content, the World Series, has averaged between 10m and 20m viewers for the past 20 years, inside the USA. Regular season games averaged 2.4m on FOX in 2019, and 1.6m on ESPN, both of those increases on 2018. An MLB spokesman told Sportingintelligence: “It is impossible to secure the average viewership for a game outside the US when there are so many countries carrying games.” But the reality is audiences in most countries will be tiny. To give one example: baseball is huge in Japan, and Ichiro Suzuki, who spent 19 years in MLB, including with the New York Yankees and the Seattle Mariners, is viewed in Japan as among the greatest Japanese sportsmen of all time. His final MLB match was played in March, on Japanese soil, as the MLB 2019 season opened with the Mariners facing the Oakland A’s in a series in Tokyo. Japan’s greatest contemporary sporting hero, on home soil, in a competitive MLB match, drew a household rating of 2.2m in Japan, the highest rating for an MLB game since 2004. That equates to around 2.5m people in a nation of 127m. This is not to belittle MLB or indeed Ichiro, rather to illustrate even some ‘huge’ occasions are not as huge as widely perceived.

The average global audience for a ‘big’ Premier League will reach a few tens of millions, as will El Clásico in Spain. There is more reading about this on the Sportingintelligence website, especially in a report called The Premier League In Numbers, and in associated materials, all of which can be found at this link: https://www.sportingintelligence. com/2015/12/31/the-premierleague-in-numbers311201/

The Premier League gave an indication of their real recent numbers earlier this year when announcing the global cumulative audience for 2018-19 was 3.2bn, and that the global live cumulative audience was 1.35bn. Given that there are 380 games in the season, that equates to an average of 8.4m per game (including non-live coverage in highlights show) and 3.55m per game for live coverage. And that’s globally. Not all games are shown in all markets, of course, including in the Premier League’s home market of the UK. So the actual average audience per shown game (including highlights) is somewhere over 10m and the live total will be higher than 3.55m. “Big” games will be seen by substantially more people and “small” games by virtually nobody.

Those familiar with the data for other leagues confirm the same phenomena there. And a fascinating academic paper from 2016, “English Soccer’s Mysterious Worldwide Popularity”, cited an average global audience per game for the Premier League at 12m while Europe’s other big leagues attracted between 2m and 4.5m per game.

These are bewilderingly small numbers to many people assuming massive audiences are common. And the market is changing, rapidly and in different ways, not least digitally.

But if you start with home market averages and reason that your product won’t be as popular elsewhere, it starts to make sense. The average Premier League game in the UK will attract an average of maybe 1m people. The average La Liga game in Spain will be half of that. Any given Premier League match won’t hit even 1m in most markets and only reach the hundreds of thousands in a few.

Barring the release of detailed figures by those who know them - the leagues themselves - the full picture won’t be known. But overseas rights values are almost certainly a good indication of the real size of a worldwide audience.

 

[The_Wookie]

never seen any