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SBJ Media: Big Ten Sought Network Counsel Before Decision


I went to a friend’s house last night to watch the two NBA playoff games on ESPN. It felt so normal, I almost forgot that we are still in the middle of a pandemic.

  

BIG TEN CONSULTED TV NETWORKS DURING CFB RETURN PROCESS

  • The Big Ten’s decision to play football this season came after careful deliberation with many stakeholders, most notably network execs at Fox and ESPN, multiple sources told me. That’s an important step the conference overlooked a month ago when it postponed the season.

  • This time, conference execs and subcommittee members studying the Big Ten’s return to play kept in regular contact with TV networks. The conference sought their opinions and made sure the networks’ schedules would accommodate the conference’s games.

  • That was not the case on Aug. 11 when the conference voted to postpone the 2020 football season over health and safety concerns. TV network execs were caught off guard last month when the Big Ten made the historic decision not to play, sources said. Press reports suggested that a delay was likely in the days leading up to Aug. 11, but the networks clearly felt like they were out of the loop, a situation that caused some angst given how much money Fox and ESPN have committed to the conference.

  • In their discussions with the conference, network execs made it clear that they would like the Big Ten to play football this fall, but only if it could be done in a safe environment. With popular teams like Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State, ESPN and Fox expressed relief that their college football schedules will get stronger after Oct. 24, when the conference expects to start its season.

  • The conference’s decision benefits Fox much more than ESPN. Fox has rights deals with four college conferences (Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and Mountain West). Right now, only one is playing (Big 12). Given the emphasis Fox has put on its college football pregame studio show, it’s important to add Big Ten games to its schedule.

 

ESPN and Fox were relieved that their CFB schedules will improve once the Big Ten begins on Oct. 24

 

SPORTS BEING UNDERCOUNTED IN "FAST AFFILIATE" RATINGS STORIES

  • TV sports research and communications departments are beating their heads against the wall in frustration about how sports ratings and viewership are being reported. More specifically, they have started pushing back against using a metric called “Fast Affiliate” ratings, which reflects primetime ratings on the East Coast (8:00-11:00pm ET) and West Coast (8:00-11:00pm PT).

  • These ratings are the first ones released by Nielsen, usually around 10:00am ET, and are used by entertainment TV execs as a way to predict how their shows will rate. For primetime sports, the fast affiliates always undercount audiences because games played from 8:00-11:00pm on the East Coast won’t be counted in the West Coast primetime rating.

  • The confusion was evident in the first reports of the NFL Kickoff rating last week. Deadline put out the first story I saw based on those fast affiliate ratings, saying that the game showed a 16.1% drop. The story said those numbers “will certainly be adjusted upward,” but that note largely was ignored and other publications and social media ran with the 16.1% drop.

  • When the final numbers came out, the viewership drop was only 5%. That’s a big difference.

  • I called Fox’s Mike Mulvihill to ask him to explain what that big problem is. “When incorrect data points get introduced into the conversation, it really throws a wrench into things. Sometimes people use the ratings data not to make a point about a program or an event, but to make a larger point about the entire business or a political point where they have an agenda that they are trying to advance.”

  • Nielsen isn’t going to stop reporting the fast affiliate rating because its entertainment clients find it so useful; so Mulvihill called on reporters and commentators to stop basing stories on a fast affiliate rating that undercounts sports audiences 100% of the time. “The point of all this data that comes out in the morning is to be predictive of what the final data is going to tell us. The fast affiliates are very predictive of what the final data will be for entertainment."

  • Mulvihill noted overnight ratings, which come out at 11:30am ET, are more predictive of what the final data will be for live sports. "If people can grasp that as a rule of thumb, the flow of information is going to be better for everybody.”

  

SHOWTIME GETTING TV VERSION OF "ALL THE SMOKE" PODCAST

  • The most interesting part of Showtime Sports’ announcement that it was rolling out the second season of its podcast “All the Smoke with Matt Barnes & Stephen Jackson” this month is the news that Showtime -- the premium TV channel -- will carry compilation episodes of the podcast starting Oct. 20.

  • I called Showtime Sports President Stephen Espinoza to ask him to explain his strategy of expanding a podcast to TV. “We launched this with the idea that it could be made into a linear television program, and we’re beginning to take steps in that direction,” he said. “We mainly were interested in curating these voices and these storytellers and seeing where it ended up -- whether it led to additional stories or documentaries.”

  • Espinoza described “All the Smoke” as a brand play for Showtime Sports. “This is one of the few outlets we have to speak to non-Showtime subscribers. Most of our programming obviously is behind a paywall. In some ways, this is a critical component for how our sports brand is perceived. ... Everyone wants to make money. As important is continuing to grow and establish and strengthen the brand of Showtime Sports in the market.”

  • Expect Showtime Sports to continue investing in podcasts, but Espinoza said: “I don’t see us launching dozens. We’re in the content business, whether it’s scripted series, documentaries, live sporting events and now podcasts. They are all basically repositories for good, human storytelling.”

 

 

SPEED READS 

  • The Dactylcam Pro, an end-to-end cable camera running along the west side of CenturyLink Field, is the latest broadcast innovation from the Sounders, per SBJ’s Mark J. Burns. Sounders Senior VP/Communications Alex Caulfield noted the MLS team is the only U.S. pro soccer club using the camera, which can move up to 30 MPH. The camera is used exclusively for home matches and can be seen regionally on a Fox affiliate and streaming via Prime Video, Caulfield said.

  • "Hard Knocks" averaged 243,000 viewers for premiere episodes on HBO this season, which featured the Rams and Chargers, per SBJ's Austin Karp. That is easily the lowest season average for the show on record. Streaming figures for HBO Max were not disclosed this year. Last season, HBO averaged 649,000 viewers on TV alone for premiere episodes around the Raiders during a less hectic spot on the sports calendar, and that averaged jumped to 793,000 when streaming was added. When the Rams were last featured in 2016, HBO averaged 580,000 viewers.

  • Warriors co-Owner Chamath Palihapitiya told CNBC's "Squawk Box" that sports is the "next big category in streaming and I think that the people who figure out how to do that … can build real value.” Netflix has stated it plans to not be a bidder for live sports for "at least the next three, four, five years," and that means "there is a window here where you can compete against Netflix and acquire these rights cheaply," Palihapitiya said.

  • ESPN+ added more college content, as the Patriot League has agreed to a new multiyear deal, joining conferences like the Big 12, AAC, America East, Atlantic 10, Conference USA, Ivy League, MAC, MVC, Sun Belt and WAC with a significant ESPN+ presence.

  • Golf Digest's Dave Shedloski has an interesting read on the story behind the U.S. Open's unexpected move from Fox back to NBC Sports, which marked a "gesture of cooperation between competing networks." It was a deal that happened "neatly and quickly and ended up being the kind of win-win-win that left all parties satisfied."

  • Geoff Mosher and Adam Caplan are seeing success with their Eagles-focused podcast, "Inside the Birds, per Jeff Blumenthal the Philadelphia Business Journal. Since launching around a year ago, the podcast has enjoyed multiple weekly stints in the No. 1 spot in Apple Podcasts’ football category. To drum up business, the duo are using Anchor, a company owned by Spotify that connects advertisers with podcasters through analytics. 

  • ESPN’s Malika Andrews flunked out of middle school and developed an eating disorder. Now, she’s the youngest to ever report from the sideline for ESPN’s NBA playoff coverage. This Andrew Marchand profile is worth a click.

  • "Madden NFL 21" and "UFC 4" -- both from Electronic Arts -- were the top-selling video games (retail and digital) during the month of August, according to data from NPD. Those were also the only two sports titles in the top 10 for the month. Year-to-date, "Madden NFL 21" is the sixth-best game in sales, while Sony's "MLB: The Show 20" ranks No. 8.

 

THE LAST WORD

  • Yes, that was Sports Business Radio’s Brian Berger sitting in the Nuggets' virtual fan section for last night’s Western Conference Semifinals Game 7 win over the Clippers. Brian is on the bottom right.

 

Sports Business Radio’s Brian Berger was in the Nuggets' virtual fan section last night

 

 

 

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Something on the media beat catch your eye? Tell us about it. Reach out to either me (jourand@sportsbusinessjournal.com) or Austin Karp (akarp@sportsbusinessjournal.com) and we'll share the best of it. Also contributing to this newsletter is Thomas Leary (tleary@sportsbusinessdaily.com).