'I think for a lot of people sport has been a vehicle to return to normal life.
The short-term effect was distraction from sport. The mid-term
was probably, on average, positive for sport.' |
but still in the game
Ad sales are off but it's a hot season. Think 2002.
By Carl Bialik
Bad news and more bad news.
In the ongoing TV ad slump, the NFL has not been spared. Ratings are down slightly and ad sales are down sharply.
But there is good news.
As football seasons go, this one is unique in the closeness of the competition, with most teams struggling in the middle. Analysts expect the season’s unparalleled parity to keep viewer interest up through the playoffs and right up to the Super Bowl.
All this, of course, will be great for the game and the league, longer-term.
"If the NFL were a public company, I’d be the first one in line to buy stocks, even in this environment," says Dean Bonham, chairman of the Bonham Group, a sports-consulting firm.
Through seven weeks, NFL ratings on CBS were down 1 percent and viewership for football on Fox was down 7 percent.
Ratings for ABC’s "Monday Night Football" were off 12 percent through the Nov. 12 game, continuing a long downslide. Ad inventory remains unsold on all three networks, even with rate cuts.
But analysts see the slump as short-term, more reflecting the overall weakened economy than the health of pro football as an ad medium.
Year 2002 will see a bounce-back, predicts John Mansell, senior analyst with Kagan World Media, who says he and other analysts believe demand will revive in time for the 2002 upfront market this coming spring.
Working in football's favor is that viewership numbers, while down, have not slid as seriously as those for other TV sports and forms of network programming in the face of audience fragmentation.
Then there is the matter of the attractive on-the-field product.
Unlike so many TV sports, where several teams are clear dominators and playoffs are a foregone conclusion, the NFL has been able to maintain team parity in recent years, thanks to revenue sharing, salary caps and unbalanced scheduling.
This year’s standings have been particularly topsy-turvy. Excluding the dominant Rams, the participants in the last three Super Bowls are a combined 28-25 through week 11.
Twenty-five of the league’s 31 teams are within two games of a playoff spot. And widespread hope means widespread viewer interest and high ratings for the networks’ regional broadcasting scheme.
Parity has also meant that many contests have not been decided until the final whistle.
"There have been lots of exciting games," says Lynn Kahle, professor of sports marketing at the University of Oregon. "The fans in Chicago have to be pleased with how things have been going."
Indeed. The Bears are a surprising 8-2, and earlier this season they won two straight games on interception returns for touchdowns in overtime. Their turnaround rewards loyal fans who have stuck around since the Bears’ last winning season, in 1995.
Major League Baseball, in contrast, has suffered because fans have deserted a number of small-market teams that seem to have no chance at winning. The league owners recently voted to buy back two teams and eliminate them.
"The reason MLB is looking at contraction is not because of a lack of interest in fans in small markets but because in small markets fans never see an opportunity for their team to do well," Kahle says.
According to Bonham, the NFL’s parity is by design, part of the league’s system that he deems worthy of emulation. "The NFL is the model for every sports league in the world," he says.
MLB has not followed this model, and Bonham thinks another work stoppage is all but assured. This would leave millions of baseball fans without the national pastime next year. Baseball's last strike, in 1994, caused a flight of fans from which the game has yet to recover.
Bonham, however, thinks it unlikely that this will benefit football much. He points out that there is only a small overlap between the MLB and NFL seasons.
"I would expect other sports, like Major League Soccer, to be much more of a direct beneficiary of a work stoppage," Bonham says.
Kahle thinks a strike or lockout in the MLB could even damage the NFL.
"Anything that hurts the image of one professional sport hurts the image of all professional sports," he says. "People generalize from saying baseball players are paid too much and complain too much, to saying all professional athletes are paid too much and complain too much. And that hurts everybody."
But, according to Kahle, another surprising factor has combined with the NFL’s underlying strength to bolster the league: Sept. 11.
"I think for a lot of people sport has been a vehicle to return to normal life," he says. "The short-term effect was distraction from sport. The mid-term was probably, on average, positive for sport."
November 26, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
-Carl Bialik is a New York writer and a regular contributor to Media Life.
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