Commentary

Did College Football Blow It For ESPN On New Year's Eve?

by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, January 4, 2016

Times are already testy for ESPN, what with a surprising drop in network subscriber numbers -- down some 3.2 million this past year. Now it has the misery of dropoffs in college football playoff viewing numbers.

This past weekend ESPN lost around a third of its viewership for each of the two highly touted college football semifinal games -- down to around 18 million viewers, from around 28 million each of a year ago. Both games weren’t close, with Alabama besting Michigan State and Clemson beating Oklahoma. ESPN will also air the NCAA College football championship on January 11.

ESPN is in the middle of a big 12-year contract with the NCAA -- one that will test its ability to garner big revenue and profits.

Under the second year of ESPN’s 12-year college football playoff deal -- for which it pays about $600 million a year for rights -- key college football semifinal games were moved to New Year’s Eve from the more traditional New Year’s Day.

Why mess with success? The group, called the College Football Playoff, was looking to protect traditional airings of the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl on New Year's Day. But additionally, it was looking to own two days of the New Year's holiday, not one.

Hello, football greed. Who has the hubris to think the exact same level of viewers will watch games a night earlier -- when they might be coming home from work, or celebrating at New Year’s Eve parties?

Though ESPN knew what was coming, it didn’t like the decision; it lobbied to move the games to Saturday, Jan 2. But that was nixed.

TV networks are increasingly looking to live events -- sports, music, drama, and otherwise -- to offer a unique draw for viewers and for national advertisers’ TV commercials that are unlikely to be time-shifted. Marketers continue to seek ever-harder-to-find “premium” TV content that generates a big scale of viewership.

All this may be confusing to the casual sports fan who had to watch the biggest college football games earlier.

For its part, ESPN said streaming of the games hit record levels -- but advertiser don’t pay the same out-of-pocket commercial money for those platforms.

Now TV analysts have some more meat to chew on for the upcoming year -- one where nervous TV executives might have to consider additional traditional TV subscribers losses for the big Disney sports TV network.

College football execs and ESPN may believe generating new viewing behavior will take time. But the clock continues to run.

6 comments about "Did College Football Blow It For ESPN On New Year's Eve? ".

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Tom Siebert from BENEVOLENT PROPAGANDA, January 4, 2016 at 4:30 p.m.
I was at a dinner party last night and a bunch of people were talking about football, the injuries and the lies. One guy was literally like, "I'm at the point where I'm just about to stop watching." Another one was "I've read a couple places where football won't even be around in ten years."

"The clock continues to run," indeed.
Reply

Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, January 4, 2016 at 6:02 p.m.

I don't think that ESPN is on its last legs and is about to fall off a cliff, Wayne. The loss of a few million "subs", who, no doubt, were included in a package deal with some cable systems or other carriers that wasn't renewed, doesn't mean that a climactic decline in viewership is in the offing for ESPN, let alone major defections by advertisers. As for the college bowl games, there were simply too many of them featuring so-so teams. I'm amazed that ESPN did so well in the ratings. Of course, the rights fees to carry many of the sports ESPN offers are rising but that's understood by most advertisers who aren't buying time in these presentations because they get the lowest possible CPMs or marvelous targeting selectivity. There's a lot more to TV sports---mainly imagry and association---than ratings and other data-based metrics.

Michael Kaplan from Blue Sky Creative, January 4, 2016 at 6:04 p.m.

Not sure why ANYONE is surprised at ESPN's subscriber numbers. Lots of folks are cutting the cord, and one of the biggest reasons is the huge fee everyone pays to ESPN, whether or not they care about sports. ESPN should always have been a premium channel, or part of its own sports tier, rather than bundled with all but the most basic tier.
The fact that they're paying billions for sports rights -- with players and owners drowning in the resulting cash -- is part of what is turning many of us off to televised sports. Face it, it's hard to root for a .230 shortstop who's earning $30 million a year.

Chuck Lantz from 2007ac.com, 2017ac.com network, January 4, 2016 at 7:27 p.m.

One of the major attractions to bowl games is tradition. One major yearly tradition in the USA is to watch college football AFTER New Year's Eve, not ON New Year's Eve. Anyone involved in making that change is, simply put, ignorant.

Nicholas Schiavone from Nicholas P. Schiavone, LLC, January 4, 2016 at 10:37 p.m.

Wayne,

The changes in viewer interests and behavior you report
are highly unusual and improbable under the circumstances.
This reader wonders whether the Nielsen's significant change
in measurement techniques that started on Monday 12.28.15

could be the cause of the reported decline.

That's called a methodological artifact.
It is unacceptable in research and business.

Effective last Monday, Nielsen started "modeling" (fabricating)
and STOPPED tabulating (counting) approximately 40%
of it viewing measurement. If Nielsen's model is wrong ...
(Technically, it is not yet accredited by the MRC!),
then it's viewing estimates will also be wrong.
Disney doesn't accept "modeled" Box Office earnings
and ticket sales for "Star Wars."
It should not accept half-baked (60% tabulated) viewing estimates
for ESPN and College Football!
Disney should call for an investigation of the new Nielsen System because there is more at stake here than College Football
on New Year's Eve. Imagine if the estimates are wrong
throughout the entire New Year for all TV Networks, Channels and Stations. This us no way to start 2016.
The TV Business is fraught enough.
Measurement standards, analysis, audits and full public disclosure
are warranted immediately, if not sooner!

Regards,

NPS

Leonard Zachary from T___n__, January 5, 2016 at 1:14 p.m.

Ed in this ESPn case where there is Smo0ke, there is a Big Inferno. Grab the nearest exit on the DIS stock.