major league soccer

Premier League Coverage Pays Off for NBC

September 27, 2013 by NewsMaker

“How stereotypical,” said Rebecca Lowe, the host of “Premier League Live,” referring to drinking tea as she held a full Royal Wentworth cup.

Lowe is part of the pervasive British flavor of the NBC Sports Group’s coverage of Premier League soccer, which began last month under a three-year contract. Her tea-drinking co-analysts that day, Robbie Earle and Robbie Mustoe, former players, are also British. All the games are produced in England by Sky Sports, BT Sport or the league, and are called by British announcers. Only the analyst Kyle Martino, a former Major League Soccer player who joins Lowe, Earle and Mustoe in the studio, is American.

In addition to the analysts’ expertise, NBC might be banking on the authenticity and familiarity that British voices and productions bring to the Premier League as the soundtrack for its coverage. But the network has taken an American approach to promoting the group, with billboards in Times Square and a humorous video starring the actor Jason Sudeikis as an American coach in England who does not know the rules of the game. The video promotion has been viewed online by more than 5.7 million visitors.

Lowe was tickled that she has delivered Premier League reports Sundays on NBC’s “Football Night in America” pregame show, bringing Wayne Rooney to an audience far more familiar with Dan Rooney.

“I’ve never been with a company that has invested so much on marketing,” said Lowe, who previously worked for ESPN U.K. and the BBC.

So far, the formula is working. NBCSN’s 22 telecasts have been seen by an average of 391,000 viewers, 70 percent better than the average game last season on Fox Soccer, which carried most of the games, and ESPN and ESPN2, which broadcast about one game a week in a licensing deal. NBCSN, however, has about twice as many subscribers as Fox Soccer. More important, at least to NBC, is that NBCSN’s daily viewership from Aug. 17 to Sept. 22 swelled 67 percent, to 77,000 viewers.

That is still a fraction of ESPN’s 1.2 million in that period and fewer than the month-old Fox Sports 1’s 121,000. But the highs are getting higher. Last Sunday afternoon, 852,000 viewers watched Manchester City trounce Manchester United, 4-1, in one of the Premier League’s marquee early-season matches. That was the biggest audience so far on NBCSN.

John Guppy, a veteran soccer executive who founded Gilt Edge Soccer Marketing, said, “What they’ve done — and it’s not that Fox didn’t do it, but maybe it comes across more directly to consumers — is they’ve made the Premier League feel special and important.”

NBCSN has become the NBC Sports Group’s Premier League centerpiece, filling as many as 40 hours a week on the cable network. Mark Lazarus, chairman of the NBC Sports Group, said the kickoff times of Premier League games, as early as 7:45 a.m. on Saturdays on the East Coast, had helped. Even the day’s latest matches start before American football games begin to dominate the channel lineup.

“They’re largely in windows without live sports,” Lazarus said. “It’s not totally unencumbered, with college football Saturday afternoon and the N.F.L. on Sunday. But the beauty of this league is that it goes from August to May.”

The Premier League’s success has helped Major League Soccer, which also has games on NBCSN. Viewership of the eight M.L.S. games on the network since coverage of the Premier League began on NBCSN has jumped 60 percent, and the number of unique visitors to M.L.S. games streamed by NBC has soared 322 percent. All of that should help M.L.S. in talks to extend its contract beyond next season.

For the NBC suite of networks, the Premier League was a property to covet. NBC wanted to capitalize on the league’s popularity and to breathe oxygen into NBCSN, which will show 154 of the 196 games that the NBC family of networks is televising; NBC is showing 21 games this season, with others on CNBC, USA, Telemundo and Mun2.

Another 184 games, which are not being televised, are available free at Premier League Extra Time, a service available to cable, satellite and telephone subscribers. The entire season of 380 games is being streamed on NBC Sports Live Extra.

Lazarus is politic enough not to declare that NBCSN’s identity has quickly become tied inextricably to the Premier League. That would irk other leagues it carries or longtime properties, like the Tour de France. NBCSN also carries the Olympics every two years.

Still, during an interview here at NBC Sports international broadcast center, Lazarus said: “It’s part of our definition, but you have to put it up with the N.H.L. This adds another pillar product to go with the N.H.L., and I think Nascar will be the third.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/28/sports/soccer/premier-league-coverage-pays-off-for-nbc.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Yankees Appear Headed to WFAN, Bumping Mets

September 10, 2013 by NewsMaker

Most often, the Yankees have come out ahead, winning eight World Series in that time as opposed to two for the Mets, and not stumbling into habitual losing or financial peril as their cross-town rival recently has.

Now the Yankees appear to have outdone the Mets again. Their new radio deal, when completed, will put them on WFAN Radio for the next 10 years for at least $15 million a year, according to an executive briefed on the negotiations but not authorized to comment. WFAN could also carry the New York City Football Club, an expansion Major League Soccer team that is a partnership of the Yankees and Manchester City of England’s Premier League.

By moving to all-sports WFAN from all-news WCBS-AM after this season, the Yankees will bump the Mets from WFAN, ending an association between the team and the station that began with the station’s inception in 1987.

The identity of the Mets’ new radio home is almost as uncertain as the season when they will become winners again.

“What was important for the Mets was WFAN’s signal, 660, the best AM signal in North America, which is a big bonus for the Mets and their network,” said Joel Hollander, a former chief executive of CBS Radio, the owner of WFAN and WCBS-AM, the radio home of the Yankees since 2002. “That was something the Mets liked very much.”

WFAN is also on the FM dial at 101.9.

During a visit to a firehouse Tuesday in Midtown Manhattan, Jeff Wilpon, the Mets’ chief operating officer, said it was “fairly accurate” that the team was leaving WFAN, and he indicated that for a while longer, Mets radio rights would be in limbo.

“We’re still negotiating with numerous parties about what we’re going to do with our radio,” Wilpon said. He said it would probably take about six weeks to complete a deal with a new station.

Michael Harrison, the editor and publisher of Talkers magazine, called the development a “minor blow” to the Mets.

“Ultimately, sports fans will listen to the team they want to hear on any station,” Harrison said. “It doesn’t matter all that much what the station is.”

He said the Mets could be hurt if they moved to a station lacking a signal powerful enough to reach the geographic swath of the New York market.

The Mets could be negotiating with ESPN New York Radio, at 98.7 FM; WOR-AM, at 710, which is owned by Clear Channel Communications; and WABC-AM, at 770. ESPN and WOR showed particular interest in the Yankees’ rights.

Hollander said he doubted the Mets would replace the Yankees at WCBS.

Still, whatever the Mets will be paid, it most likely will not approach what the Yankees are getting.

The price tag of $15 million or more underscores the Yankees’ greater advertiser and audience appeal — and the desire by CBS Radio to keep them from leaving. This year, WCBS is paying the Yankees about $14 million, about double what WFAN is paying the Mets.

“They’re so cash-rich at CBS Radio that they’re letting them do it,” Hollander said. “They didn’t want to lose the brand.”

Lonn Trost, the Yankees’ chief operating officer, declined to give any details of the change, but said, “We’re getting close.”

Yankee games drew a 1.4 rating in 2011 that fell to a 1.0 last season, according to Scarborough, a media research firm.

The Mets’ rating of 0.9 in 2011 decreased to a 0.8 in 2012. This season’s Scarborough rating was unavailable.

The futures of John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman as the Yankees’ radio announcers do not seem in doubt. Ultimately, the Yankees have final approval over the announcers but consult with the station, and the team has shown no unhappiness with them. But over the next 10 years at WFAN, their workload could be reduced to allow the Yankees to introduce a younger voice who might be with the team for next two or three decades. Sterling, in his 25th season with the Yankees, is in his 70s; Waldman, in her ninth season, is 67.

Assuming that they return, they will now call Yankee games on a station devoted to sports, not news.

“Across the country, we’re seeing time and again that when they have the option, teams go to all-sports stations,” said Frank Saxe, managing editor of Inside Radio, an industry publication. “It’s not just baseball, but all leagues realize that if you’re in a sports environment, you have a better opportunity to reach your core fan.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/11/sports/baseball/yankees-moving-to-wfan-bumping-the-mets.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Premier League Coverage Pays Off for NBC

Yankees Appear Headed to WFAN, Bumping Mets

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