BCS TV Ratings Down: ESPN Says "Who Cares?"

If the cable operators would offer the channels a la carte, I could just buy the ESPN channels and save a lot of money on my bill.

also, I am going to attempt to close the hanging html tag.

Did that work?

Not sure how I feel about Insanity Wolf being boxed into someone’s avatar. It’s going to make him cranky and impossible to work with.

I think it is difficult to overstate how much fantasy football has meant for MNF TV ratings. I am watching 15X more football than I ever did before fantasy football.

DeepEddy

Neither cable/satellite operators or providers like ESPN have an incentive to offer a la carte programming at this time. I’m not sure they have a handle on internet tv business models, yet, but why would ESPN seek to decrease their leverage power by allowing individual consumers to pick and choose programming options.

Eskimo, I agree that cable/sat operators have no desire to offer a la carte packages, in fact they have lobbied Congress to legislate against it. I am just saying that I want it because I am currently paying around $60 per month and the only cable channel I watch is ESPN (and ESPN2, ESPNU, etc.). Sure, my wife watches HGTV and reruns of “Everybody Loves Raymond” and “King of Queens” on TBS, but why do I want to pay for that?

I do disagree with your claim that ESPN would not want a la carte packages. I think they would be able to charge far more money in that scenario than they currently do for their channels. I am not sure of the exact number, but I believe the cable/sat operators pay around $4 per subscriber per month for the ESPN channels on average, though that varies by operator. Perhaps srr50 or somebody else knows a more accurate number. Anyway, if you could choose to instead pay $20 per month directly to ESPN and not purchase the rest of the package, would you?

The question from the perspective of a cable channel comes down to how much they could charge a la carte, and what percentage of current subscribers would continue to purchase their channel. For the crappy channels I think they would prefer to continue collecting a small fee from everybody, whereas for the most popular channel in the world, I think they would perfer a la carte.

Fuck Brett Favre!

Oh, and Sydney, I was not familiar with Insanity Wolf before your collaboration with him, so take my choosing him as avatar as a tribute to you. I am having a hard time believing that boxing him in will make him somehow worse than he already is.

I don’t get ESPN and I don’t care.
I don’t have TV at all and I don’t care.
I watched the Rose Bowl on ESPN 360 (FREE on the internet).
I can listen on the radio for free, too.
As soon as I am forced to pay anything at all to get anything at all,
then I might care.

Extra, I mean.

Srr – how many people in America don’t have cable?

Excluding those who live in refrigerator boxes or whatever.

About 80% of the nation has some form of subscription TV. IIRC, Houston has one of the largest percentages of their population without any cable or satellite service – something like 33%.

I was stunned the Rose Bowl wasn’t on ABC. Instead, they had an infomercial and V Aliens or some shit. Obviously, I don’t understand TV. How is putting the Outback Bowl on ABC and the Rose Bowl on ESPN good business? That Rose Bowl would have been more highly watched on ABC.

I thought networks wanted higher ratings so they can promote their own shows and charge more for adverstising. It isn’t like anyone is unaware of who ESPN is.

How do the ratings for MNF compare to Sunday night games on NBC? I would imgane the gap is large, but I am ignorant.

I would think it is better for college football to have things like the Rose Bowl be on over the air networks to all of America than on cable. Can you imagine all the poor kids stuck at grandmas house watching infomercials because their parents partied on NYE and left them at the grandparents? It would seem to me that long term vision dictates you want to hook all of those 8-14-year-old boys instead of losing them completely to Call of Duty.

Is the national title game on ABC or ESPN?

Steg:

The national title game is on ESPN.

The over-the-air networks are being priced out of the business. ESPN can pay much, much more than Fox was willing to pay for the BCS games because they have a dual revenue stream (monthly subscription fees along with advertising).

And there are a lot of smart folks out there who say we are quickly moving to the next level — where the majority of people will be getting their TV off of the computer.

Sunday Night Football does get better ratings than Monday Night Football, but the NFL brand is well served by being on ESPN.

Thanks for the reply srr (long time no talk to).

Not having your championship on an over the air network is an overall bad in my opinion. I’m sure it is fine for ESPN, but that is bad for college football in the long run.

Steg, are you just concerned with the one game, because, as I’ve seen it written, athletic directors should thank God every night for ESPN and what it meant for college sports.

Isn’t ABC the same as ESPN? They are all owned by Disney, right ?

puma – it is all the Disney Corp. That is why I don’t understand putting the game on ABC.

Bob – I know it is good for current financials. I just think things like the Rose Bowl and the MNC game on cable instead of ABC is bad for the long term growth and health of the sport.

Steg — If you believe industry prognosticators the time is coming when the Networks won’t exist.

The debate that is coming is just how public are the public airways — and what are the obligations for “free” media.

Disney’s interest in both ABC and ESPN is solely for investor relation purposes. But ESPN has the most converged service of any broadcaster, they’re actually way ahead of the pack, I see their presence as highly beneficial to the sport in the long term. Not to mentioned that if their current strategy is successful, and there’s no reason to think otherwise, they will be the market makers and define the category. Whoever has access to broadband connection will be able to see any college bowl game on ESPN in 5 years or so. I’ll say the future of college football is bright with ESPN at the helm.

Well I guess if the entire tv market completely changes in 5 years, then my thoughts on the current tv market are rather unimportant.

Consider me skeptical of those radical changes though. Every old person in my family is without cable, and industry folks think there will be no networks soon? I would think that old (and poor) people will have someone providing entertainment to them for a profit. Of course, I could be completely wrong using stupid anecdotal evidence as ‘evidence.’

TV Networks will certainly be around in 5 years, but I’m not sure what the landscape will look like in 10 years though. The rate of change is increasing at an increasing rate and it’s already leaving a mark, if you don’t have access to a computer network in 10 years, you’re in serious trouble in a very broad sense of the word. As more services converge and move to “the cloud” this gap will start to be more apparent and the debate will most likely move to a more public forum. Will access to this vital technology be free or will it exclude those who cannot afford it? I believe that’s the greater debate that ssr50 alluded to. This is a deeper topic that it seems on the surface, it’s tied to a broader social mobility context, but that’s just my opinion. If you have a college degree, however, you should be able to participate in the spoils, and hence the future of college football is in the “the cloud” indeed.

srr50,

I’m reminded of the song ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’. In a similar fashion is ESPN killing sports?

OK. Maybe not killing sports, but watering down the content and over saturating the market to the point of driving away a lot of the “real” fans?

I realize moving content to cable will create lower ratings because of the number of subscribers, but isn’t football the exception to the norm when it comes to ratings? Look at the NFL. You could promote two of the worst teams in the league, tell the fans none of the starters will play and still draw huge audiences. College Football should be similar in terms of viewership if marketed properly (hello playoff).

On a related note, the turnout for the TicketCity Bowl here in Dallas was embarrassing. They announced 40,000 tickets sold, but most estimates had 30,000 at best in the stands. That’s 60,000 empty seats at the Cotton Bowl, and Texas Tech has a large local alumni base.

Cue The Buggles because ESPN and the BCS are killing college football.

I realize moving content to cable will create lower ratings because of the number of subscribers, but isn’t football the exception to the norm when it comes to ratings? Look at the NFL.

Art — the NFL ratings on cable are lower than on over-the-air, but for both ESPN and the NFL, cable broadcasts are the highest-rated events on subscription TV, and thus very profitable for both sides.

I am working on a post on why ESPN is willing to shell out millions to Texas for what essentially is a niche channel — but one important factor is that ESPN loves to talk about how they “buy content — not just games.”

That’s why they control 33 of the 35 bowls. That’s why are willing to pay so much to the conferences for multi-platform packages of their sports. They have a huge amount of disposable income, and they are determined to spend it on expanding their brand.

ESPN is similar to McDonalds and the BCS is the McRib. Big difference is that I have other choices in terms of hamburgers and meat-like sandwiches, but for college football I’m getting Supersized whether I like it or not.

Actually, it seems ESPN is more like Microsoft circa 1995-2000. What they can’t innovate, they buy. They then use their ever-growing holdings to extend ever-growing leverage.

From the networks’ perspective, they can run re-runs of their normal fare and get just as big or bigger ratings. Hell, they could run figure skating and beat the living shit out of any college football game.

Like srr50 says, by getting the bowls, ESPN gets the 18-49 male demographic, and what’s more, gets them completely sequestered from the rest of the crap they have to deal with on the broader-band network fare. You won’t ever hear the ESPN announcers doing promos for the latest John Stamos show during the MNC game under this system. Those who have memorized the 2006 game vs. USC will know what I’m talking about.

And advertisers can rest easy knowing they can narrowcast their ads to that demographic – stuff like trucks and beer and diamond jewelry (during pre-Christmas bowls, of course).

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