The Sports Media Thread

[dfwabel]

 

[Digby]

I may be one of the few in the center of that Venn diagram of interests. Don’t let me down SLC!

[dfwabel]

2 hours ago, Digby said:

I never trust World Soccer Talk on MLS but this is the only source I can find thus far. 1.27 million viewers for MLS Cup Final on American TV, big drop from last year. I'm tempted to blame having a Canadian market in the final but the same matchup managed 2 million viewers the first time they did it, so maybe it's fatigue.

 

https://worldsoccertalk.com/2019/11/11/seattle-toronto-mls-cup-final-disappoints-1-27-million-viewers/

It is the real Nielsen fast national.  More details will likely be out on Thursday.

 

Going into Sunday, ESPN's playoff ratings were up over 35% from last season.

[alxy8s]

11 hours ago, dfwabel said:

It is the real Nielsen fast national.  More details will likely be out on Thursday.

 

Going into Sunday, ESPN's playoff ratings were up over 35% from last season.

It was probably too bold to try to counter program against the NFL. A random weeknight may have been wiser. Honestly, would have thought the move from ESPN to ABC would have at least ensured a better rating than last year. 

[Digby]

Some useful further tidbits in this twitter thread from Tannenwald. Overall it's probably mostly a matchup thing. I think a Saturday primetime kickoff would probably be best but MLS needs TV partners who aren't invested in CFB for that to happen.

 

 

 

[Digby]

$13 for ESPN+ and Hulu seems like a good deal, and maybe there will even be something on Disney+ I want to watch (unlikely though). That said the coordinated tweets from talent are amusing. It will change lives!

 

 

[JayMac]

36 minutes ago, Digby said:

$13 for ESPN+ and Hulu seems like a good deal, and maybe there will even be something on Disney+ I want to watch (unlikely though). That said the coordinated tweets from talent are amusing. It will change lives!

 

 

I'm not a Marvel fan nor a Star Wars fan. I do enjoy older Disney movies but I have physical copies of the ones I like. Therefore, Disney would have to pay me monthly for me to get Disney+.

[dfwabel]

On 11/8/2019 at 10:00 PM, DG_Now said:

 

Steve Nash doesn't offer all that much either, and no one is really looking to him for soccer opinions anyway.

 

TNT shouldn't have bothered. It was better on Fox. And if CBS can leverage TruTV and TBS the way it does for the NCAA Tournament, it should be better off there. And maybe just find a way to use studio feeds from SkyTV or BBC or whatever; I'm sure they do it a lot better than any collection of third tier American jerks could.

CBSSN will replay featured games in primetime.

The semis and final will likely be on CBS. 

[dfwabel]

Sports Illustrated to just have 17 issues in 2020: 12 Monthly Issues + 4 specials + The Swimsuit Issue

[DG_ThenNowForever]

1 hour ago, dfwabel said:

Sports Illustrated to just have 17 issues in 2020: 12 Monthly Issues + 4 specials + The Swimsuit Issue

 

Playboy is now quarterly and is a "prestige" format with no ads and is being written by young millennials across a wide variety of races, sexual orientations and experiences.

 

It's a brave new world in magazine publishing. My doctor's office got rid of magazines because of phones. Old folks read paper stuff, but I'd rather read Reddit or whatever.

 

Paper publications will cease to exist within our lifetimes. It'll be weird when it happens. I think there's a market for prestige format stuff to look nice on coffee tables or conference rooms, but can you really employ full staffs for window dressing?

[The Six]

I appreciate reading stuff printed on paper because it lets me give my eyes a break from staring at a screen. Our eyes will probably become screens by 2030 so I guess I'm fighting a losing battle.

[dfwabel]

On 11/2/2019 at 4:43 PM, monkeypower said:

Per the Barstool blogging discussion, I think their real cash cow now is podcasting and the more visual/audio content, along with merchandise, instead of the blogging.

 

From what I understand, it's also kind of the nature of the beast with making money through internet content. It's more about the sponsors and merch than actual clicks or views.

 

This is probably for another thread, but I wonder if there's going to be a podcasting/Youtube/internet sponsorship bubble burst soon. Someone like Barstool has the history with major companies that sponsor content or put ads on their podcasts, but it seems like every Youtuber or podcaster is sponsored by Audible or whatever VPN is hot in the streets. How much money is there in these ads and how much money do these smaller sponsors have to spend?

It is.  On pace for $22M in ad revenue, according to CEO Nardini,

Quote

Barstool Sports Inc., whose podcasts include “Pardon My Take” and “Spittin’ Chiclets,” refuses any podcast ad formats except live reads. It is on track to generate more than $22 million in podcast ad revenue this year, all from ads read by the hosts, according to a person familiar with the matter. The company has 31 different podcast series with clients that include PepsiCo Inc.’s Mountain Dew brand, Nascar Holdings Inc. and New Amsterdam Spirits Co.

“Podcasting is a great medium because there’s essentially a relationship between a host and a listener—they are in your ears, they are telling you stories and it creates an ongoing relationship,” said Barstool Sports Chief Executive Erika Nardini. “That’s also what makes advertising so effective.”

The programmatic advertising now seeping into podcasting could erode that intimacy, Ms. Nardini said. And pooling ad inventory for auction could sap prices, she added.

Others worry ad tech will encourage publishers to pack podcasts with more commercials, because it’s easier with automation than doing more live reads.

WSJ: Podcast Industry Grapples With the Prospect of Automated Ads

[The_Admiral]

Live reads only is a good strategy. WFMT in Chicago has had a strict policy of live reads or pre-recorded reads by station announcers only, i.e, no canned spots, and it's a huge part of the station's image and prestige, though I don't think you can get more diametrically opposed than classical music radio and a Barstool podcast.

[BBTV]

A few things that annoy me about the live reads I hear on sports radio are:

 

• Every host seems to have their own promo code for whatever product they're selling.  I guess it's the new way of saying "tell them Bob sent you."
• The ads for gambling sites where the radio hosts read the ad as if they're betting, and they can't use any real team names.  "and looking at the lines tonight, I see that our boys in green are -7 against the team from Dallas - I'd look at the over and bet our home team straight up", and you know that they aren't actually betting or know anything about betting.
• How everything in sports is about betting now.  I had to stop reading the very few blogs that I did read because there's so much ads from gambling companies disguised as news stories.

 

EDIT:

Also, maybe it correlates with the rise of gambling ads, maybe not, but I'm hearing more and more ads from divorce attorneys, sorta warning men about what women can do during a divorce, and giving them tips and then an ad for their law firm.  Interesting that divorce lawyers would target the market that is big on bitching about sports and gambling on it.

[The_Admiral]

The reliance on those "father's rights attorneys" and sketchy home loan guys is a symptom of talk radio in general; you'd be hard-pressed to find a medium that has less esteem for its audience.

[Cosmic]

The one that always bothers me on my local sports radio is the tax relief attorneys. I’m sure there are some legitimate reasons for their services (I’m fat from a glandular disorder!) but maybe just pay your taxes?

[Crabcake]

9 hours ago, Cosmic said:

The one that always bothers me on my local sports radio is the tax relief attorneys. I’m sure there are some legitimate reasons for their services (I’m fat from a glandular disorder!) but maybe just pay your taxes?

There’s an average of two tax relief commercials per break on Baltimore sports radio. One time I finally paid attention to one of them and it was like “the IRS finally caught up with (name)” and then the guy was like “I hadn’t paid my taxes in years.” Seriously? You’re not even going to try and present it like the guy had bad luck or had to pay a bunch of money for some kind of medical procedure or something?

[JayMac]

On 11/17/2019 at 9:55 AM, BringBackTheVet said:

A few things that annoy me about the live reads I hear on sports radio are:

 

• Every host seems to have their own promo code for whatever product they're selling.  I guess it's the new way of saying "tell them Bob sent you."
• The ads for gambling sites where the radio hosts read the ad as if they're betting, and they can't use any real team names.  "and looking at the lines tonight, I see that our boys in green are -7 against the team from Dallas - I'd look at the over and bet our home team straight up", and you know that they aren't actually betting or know anything about betting.
• How everything in sports is about betting now.  I had to stop reading the very few blogs that I did read because there's so much ads from gambling companies disguised as news stories.

 

EDIT:

Also, maybe it correlates with the rise of gambling ads, maybe not, but I'm hearing more and more ads from divorce attorneys, sorta warning men about what women can do during a divorce, and giving them tips and then an ad for their law firm.  Interesting that divorce lawyers would target the market that is big on bitching about sports and gambling on it.

Since you are in the Philadelphia area, I have to ask...do they still have those Cordell and Cordell divorce ads on local sports radio? I haven't listened to sports radio in years now.

[SFGiants58]

29 minutes ago, jmac11281 said:

Since you are in the Philadelphia area, I have to ask...do they still have those Cordell and Cordell divorce ads on local sports radio? I haven't listened to sports radio in years now.

I hear them in the Bay Area whenever I’m visiting there and listening to sports talk radio. 

[Red Comet]

32 minutes ago, jmac11281 said:

Since you are in the Philadelphia area, I have to ask...do they still have those Cordell and Cordell divorce ads on local sports radio? I haven't listened to sports radio in years now.

 

2 minutes ago, SFGiants58 said:

I hear them in the Bay Area whenever I’m visiting there and listening to sports talk radio. 

 

Same in Kansas City too. Definitely a nationwide thing. 

 

On that note, can't stand listening to sports radio here right now. Everyone is acting like the sky is falling because of how the game against the Titans went. And I just know that if the Chiefs win tonight they'll be talking about how they're a dark horse candidate to win the Super Bowl. It's like dating a woman with BPD at this rate.