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runs wide and deep
Muddy playing field but for golf and NASCAR
By Elizabeth White
It’s been a rough year for NBC Sports.
It could get rougher still.
First there was the Sydney Olympics, which was criticized for using tape delay and fell short of the network’s promised rating.
Then there was the NBA. If you hadn't noticed that the NBA was on NBC, you’re not alone.
So far this season the league is down over 20 percent in ratings from last year and nearly 35 percent from when Michael Jordan retired at the end of the 1998 season.
And most recently, it’s been the XFL, which is looking more and more like the ill-fated Edsel automobile of the 21st century with every passing weekend.
Things don’t look like they’re going to get better anytime soon.
The network’s other major sports properties, golf and NASCAR, are enjoying a popularity surge, but both are too small and niche-oriented to offset the disappointing performances of the Olympics, the NBA and the XFL.
"Golf has a certain audience, and it’s only going to go so far," says Betty Pat McCoy, director of national broadcast at GSD&M. "NASCAR has been doing a decent number but it has an image problem. And we don’t know how long the ratings for NASCAR will hold up."
Most media folks think that NBC won’t have a good opportunity to turn its fortunes around until next year, when the Winter Olympics are in Salt Lake City and the NBA contract expires.
Whether it will happen is another thing.
"It’s very clear to everyone that their diamond is the Olympics. Their commitment and liability to that property through 2008 is very great," says Dean Luplow, vice president and media director at Starcom.
McCoy agrees.
"A lot will be riding on this winter’s Olympics," says McCoy. "[NBC] is going to try to tighten up the Winter Olympics by going back to the actual sports and having less of the emotional stories."
The Sydney Games, long on background stories and devoid of any live contests, averaged only a 13.9 primetime household rating, far short of the 16.1 to 16.5 rating that NBC promised to advertisers.
And that was during a booming ad economy.
NBC now faces a weakening economy as it tries to sell the Salt Lake City games, making the overall outlook still pretty bleak for next year.
"Typically, a domestic Olympics sells itself. But it comes down to the market and whether the ad dollars are there," says Luplow.
"The concern on NBC’s behalf is that we’ve seen a little weakness in the marketplace in Q1, and [NBC] wants to see how that plays out as it gets closer to next February. The economy will have a huge impact on what they can do with the Olympics."
As far as the NBA goes, NBC will get a chance to recoup some of its losses when it renegotiates the league’s television contract next year.
"I think they’ll hopefully be able to right the ship for NBA when they go back to negotiations," says McCoy. "I don’t think anyone thought it would drop this much."
But a better contract with the NBA doesn’t really address the fundamental problem that NBC is facing both this year and next—a declining audience for major sports.
The NBA has averaged only a 3.1 household rating season to date, well below even the XFL’s season to date average.
-Elizabeth White is a staff writer for Media Life.
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