Message from Michael -- Super Bowl 2010

Message From Michael                                 

                                                                                                                        February 8, 2010                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

 

    THE SUPER BOWL SPECIAL EDITION

 

We encourage people to pass on copies of Message from Michael.  But if you would like to get your own copy, you can subscribe by sending an e-mail to Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line. 

 

      THE TRIPLE THREAT:  As everybody knows (or everybody who reads the message knows), the Super Bowl in its various permutations dominates the top 20 list of television viewing.  This year’s event is expected to add to that list.  But here is the factoid (and you know how I love factoids) that says it all.  Super Bowl viewing is three to four times larger than any other sporting event.  At nearly 100 Million viewers (specifically 98.7 Million for the 2009 game), that is more than three times the next highest sporting event which this year was…any guesses?  The BCS championship game between Alabama and Texas which at 30,776,000 beat out the next highest sport event which was...  Again, any guesses?  It was The NFL regular season game carried on Fox between the Vikings and the Packers which had 29,820,000 viewers. 

As the folks at Nielsen put it, with 43,700 hours of live sporting events in 2009, “we are living in an incredible time for sports consumption.”  And sports spending.  Nielsen says sports programming is “dvr-proof” and proof of that is that advertisers spent $7.6 Billion on sports programming this past year.  And the top advertising money maker?  Who else – the NFL which scored just under $1.5 Billion in ad dollars.

      TOP SCORING SPORTS:  Okay, let’s keep the guessing game going.  Super Bowl first, BCS championship game second, Vikings-Packers third.  What’s fourth?  Okay, proof that football is America’s favorite sport, it was the Cowboys-Giants game on NBC which scored 24,818,000 viewers which was roughly 800,000 ahead of the Rose Bowl game between Ohio State and Oregon (24,025,000).  Finally, in sixth place comes baseball with the World Series game between New York and Philadelphia on November 1^st which came in with a respectable 22,477,000 viewers.  Interestingly, unlike football, college basketball beats out professional basketball and pretty consistently.  For example, the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight games averaged a little over 9.5 Million viewers while the Western Conference and Eastern Conference games of just over 8.6 Million viewers.  In terms of single games, the NCAA championship game between the University of North Carolina and Michigan State pulled in 17,649,000 viewers compared with 15,957,000 viewers for the NBA playoff game between the L.A. Lakers and Orlando. 

In terms of single events, the MLB’s World Series game between the New York Yankees and Philadelphia pulled in 22,477,000 viewers, followed by the Daytona 500 with 15,958,000 viewers which trumped the Masters win by Angel Cordera which scored 14,303,000 viewers, well ahead of Y.E. Yang’s win of the PGA championship which had 10,079,000 viewers.  Somewhat of a surprise to me, the Stanley Cup game when Pittsburg faced Detroit at Detroit (at 7,992,000 viewers) beat out the Wimbledon Men’s Final between Federer and Roddick which had 5,706,000 viewers.  Interestingly though, the U.S. Open Men’s Final between del Potro and Federer (3,391,000) beat out the earlier Stanley Cup game when it was Detroit at Pittsburg (3,448,000).  Part of the reason for that is that the game was carried on Versus and cable pretty consistently underperforms network television.  As almost a footnote, the MLS Cup championship Soccer game scored an underwhelming 1,141,000 viewers.

      A MULTI-PLATFORM TOUCHDOWN.  All of these figures come from a Nielsen analysis titled The Changing Face of Sports Media which argues that sports is “perfectly suited” for the three-screen age.  Proof of that, an average of 81 Million people visited sports websites each month in the past year.  Let’s do the guessing game one more time.  Name the top sports site.  Give up?  It’s Yahoo Sports which averaged 28.5 Million unique visitors, well ahead of ESPN’s 21.5 Million.  But in that three-screen universe, ESPN wins the mobile side with 8.7 Million uniques compared to Yahoo Sports 2.8 Million.  In third place in site visits was Foxsports.com with 14 Million, followed by CBS Sports with 11.5 Million.  In an interesting twist, major league baseball (with 11.5 Million uniques) actually beats out the NFL’s site (9.9 Million).  MLB (2.687 Million) also beats out the NFL (2.606 Million), albeit barely, in mobile sites, as well as Fox Sports (2.6M) and the NBA (1.5 M).

Nielsen goes a step further and says that in this multi-platform world, viewers have one eye on the TV and one eye on their computer.  One in ten (12%) spent an average of 24 minutes doing both simultaneously.  And although as you would expect, much of that viewing is on sports sites (18%), most of the website viewing is on general interest portals (54%).  Web analyst comScore goes even further saying that a third (32%) log on during the game.  Three quarters of those surveyed (77%) logged on before the game and more than half (53%) logged on after the game.  But in keeping with the Nielsen findings, comScore found that nearly half (45%) said they would log on for “purposes unrelated to the Super Bowl.” 

      MONEY, MONEY, MONEY.  All right, let’s get to the important stuff – Ad Dollars.  As noted earlier, the NFL is the top money maker, but after that?  Any guesses?  Again, a bit of a surprise (to me at least) – Golf, which took in $565 Million in ad revenue which was well ahead of NCAA Football which brought in $425 Million, which I would note is less than a third what pro ball does.  The next big money pit is NASCAR which brought in a respectable $366 Million, most of which was on cable ($344 Million)  After that it’s Major League Baseball with $217 Million in ad revenue, but that barely beat out NCAA basketball which, with $214 Million in ad revenue, was well ahead of NBA basketball, with $174 Million in ad revenue. That, in turn, was well ahead of Tennis ($139 Million.)  Poor hockey was just that – poor, with just under $19 Million in ad revenue while the behemoth of the rest of the sporting world – Soccer, garnered a $5.4 Million.

      BEAUTY IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER.  Proof of that is which ad was the most popular.  According to USA Today’s Ad Meter analysis, it was the Snicker’s ad with Betty White and Abe Vigoda which scored an 8.68 on “likability.”  According to the website, fanhouse.com, which has a whole section devoted just to Super Bowl ads, it was the Punxsatawney Polamalu ad for Tru.TV.  And according to the NFL’s own website, the top ad (or, at least the most viewed ad) was the “Dorito’s Smack Commercial” as it was called in which the little boy smacks the guy.  The so-called Dorito Smack ad came in 11^th on the USA Today Ad Meter, but the Doritos ad with the dog with the bark collar actually took second place.  As everybody knows, (or at least everybody who reads the message) the top sports advertiser in the U.S. is Anheuser Busch which spent $245 Million last year on sports programs alone.  Although some reviewers contend that the beer making giant’s Super Bowl efforts didn’t match past years, the ad featuring the man who builds his house out of cans of Bud Light came in third in the USA Today report, just ahead of the Clydesdale friend ad, which came in third in the fanhouse.com report.

      THE NOSTALGIA BOWL.  That’s how the New York Times labeled the ad wars in the Super Bowl.  On top of Betty White and Abe Vigoda, there was Don Rickles, Chevy Chase, along with what the newspaper called “vintage athletes” – Lance Armstrong, Charles Barkley and Brett Favre.  And the Times article didn’t even mention Flo TV’s ad which showed scenes from I Love Lucy and MTV, along with the lunar landing and the Berlin Wall.  One of the more interesting advertising debates surrounding the Super Bowl was the fact that new media maven Google actually had a Television Ad, which got good reviews for its simple message of how the search engine is so integrated into people’s lives.  And proof that YouTube folks aren’t quite as smart as we sometimes think, their vaunted “ad blitz” campaign of most popular ads doesn’t have any scores and apparently won’t have until February 15^th – about a week after anybody cares.  That’s the kind of ‘dumbness’ you might expect from a website claiming to be devoted to Super Bowl commercials but which (no kidding) is created by ‘expats’ in Hong Kong.  (All right, opinion on my part, but still true.)

      SUPER BOWL COCKTAIL CHATTER.  You already know the cost of a spot (roughly $2.8 Million) and you probably also knew, or suspected, that Super Bowl advertisers see a significant jump in Web traffic (24%) after the game.  But, according to Nielsen figures based on last year’s game, the Super Bowl is the 8^th largest beer-selling event.  (It doesn’t say what the top seven are.)  Potato chips are the snack of choice, but tortilla chips are quickly gaining.  NFL fans are more likely to own hi-tech electronic items than the average adult, are more likely to be physically active than the average American, slightly more likely to have higher education and higher income, and they’re also more likely (by 74%) to spend money on skin care products.  As one might expect, men are more likely to watch the game (45.8 Million in 2009) but women aren’t that far behind (37.7 Million).           

      SUBSCRIPTIONS:  If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “unsubscribe-MM” in the subject line. Also, back issues of MfM are available at the website, media-consultant.blogspot.com.  You can reach me directly at Michael@MediaConsultant.tv.