2016 MLS TV Ratings

[TRM]

I hope so. How will they market it and how will they deal with other sports in the same time slot? I can see a lot being streamed online only unless they get a CBC2.

 

[Blackdude]

 

7 hours ago, TRM said:

I hope so. How will they market it and how will they deal with other sports in the same time slot? I can see a lot being streamed online only unless they get a CBC2.

I don't think that CBC would do this alone and a CBC-Sportsnet partnership could work. If they use a Sunday night timeslot. Also, CBC has only one sport that could create problems and it's NHL hockey. If it's a problem, they can put games on a Sunday night. Sure, during the NHL Playoffs, it could create a problem and it could be put in another timeslot, but other than that, I think the CBC would be fine, especially if it's a partnership with Sportsnet because they don't have content on Sunday nights once the playoffs cool down.

It's not like they're getting all 34 Impact, Whitecaps and TFC games. Those 3 clubs can and will negotiate their own separate TV deals for games not on the national deal. My questions about the deal are those 4. 

1) What day is Soccer Night in Canada?
2) How many games is it for?
3) Do you have a deal with another network to sublet some games?
4) What about the French language national TV rights?

 

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

238,000 for the NYC playoff game apparently and even Damian Cox is finally admitting the obvious that TFC are now the 4th biggest sports team in the GTA market ahead of the Argos:

https://www.thestar.com/sports/tfc/2016/10/31/tfc-showing-who-bmos-main-tenants-are-cox.html

So as not to get carried away, let’s be clear; TFC remains no threat to the Big Three in this town, the Maple Leafs, Raptors and Blue Jays, although the 238,000 viewers TFC attracted Sunday night wasn’t far off what the Raps attracted Friday (300,000) against Cleveland. The trend is clearly upwards, the soccer team can fairly say it dominated the front pages of Toronto sport sections on Monday and the commitment of TFC’s fans to their team matches any of the other three franchises.

[Gian-Luca]

Having the playoff game on the main TSN channel seems to have helped with the ratings - both playoff games were against the World Series while one was against the Raptors home opener and the second was against a Leaf game as well, and yet that's a dramatic upswing in the ratings vs. the Union game.

[BuzzAndSting]

On 2016-10-18 at 8:54 PM, TRM said:

Weird question but if someone knows please post. I usually watch most games via my PVR. The Caps games and this weekends TFC vs Impact I both watched live but also PVR'd in case I had to step out or wanted to rewatch some parts.

Question is does that still count in their stats or does that go into the non-counted PVR'd pile?

I believe viewership numbers come from participanting households only and then are extrapolated based on those results. And I believe PVR numbers count. No idea for sure though.

[Free kick]

The most important thing is that the games have to be on the fixed channel and in fixed timeslot.  Thats been the problem.  There has been no habit forming for the viewer.   One week they are on sportsnet 360, the nxt week they are one TSN channel, the following week on another TSN channel and then the fourth week they could be back on Sportnet one.  Over all this time, they could have been played anywhere on an Saturday afternoon to sunday evening or even in mid week.   No program will have good ratings if it keeps getting moved around and viewer have to look for it.  Because if you do that, the only people who will watch are those who will bother to look for it.  The others, which is the vast majority, will just miss the program. 

Plus, with the cord cutting trend, some of of these channels are on higher pymt tier packages with small subscriber bases. 

Whereas with baseball, for example, its on everyday, and Rogers will put it on something like four of their five channels.  On saturday night on CBC at 8Pm, you could put an Arizona versus Florida Panthers game on and it will get eyeballs because everyone knows thats the hockey timeslot and channel.  I am not saying that the MLS has bigger viewership than these other sports but stability and and the willingness by the broadcaster to promote the programming means a hell of a lot. 

 

[1996]

Have to totally agree MLS needs to be on the main TSN or Sportsnet channels not on the obscure ones and they need to have a somewhat consistent timeslot as much as possible, I was at a cousin's of mines place one day who is a very casual soccer fan and while I was there an MLS game was on and he made the comment that, " wow they televise MLS I did not know that", so it just goes to show that most casual fans probably don't even know these MLS games are on never mind going out of there way to find out what channel they are on.

[Keegan]

1 hour ago, 1996 said:

Have to totally agree MLS needs to be on the main TSN or Sportsnet channels not on the obscure ones and they need to have a somewhat consistent timeslot as much as possible, I was at a cousin's of mines place one day who is a very casual soccer fan and while I was there an MLS game was on and he made the comment that, " wow they televise MLS I did not know that", so it just goes to show that most casual fans probably don't even know these MLS games are on never mind going out of there way to find out what channel they are on.

Sounds like a trolling comment to me, no offence.  Anyone who watches TSN has seen ads for MLS games, they are daily in the lead up to games.  They televise everything ffs, there's no way you would be ignorant as to not know MLS was on TV.  There are 3 professional teams with millions of dollars into players, stadiums and infrastructure... pretty sure it's a given they have a TV deal.  

[Free kick]

2 hours ago, Keegan said:

Sounds like a trolling comment to me, no offence.  Anyone who watches TSN has seen ads for MLS games, they are daily in the lead up to games.  They televise everything ffs, there's no way you would be ignorant as to not know MLS was on TV.  There are 3 professional teams with millions of dollars into players, stadiums and infrastructure... pretty sure it's a given they have a TV deal.  

Yes, in that case it was probably a blindsided and disquised jab.  

But still, the vast majority of viewers of any sport are not true devotees of any team or the sport.  The following is causal, there is no emotional attachment and hence, the interest is mostly so as to stay in the loop around the water cooler discussions.  

Therefore, the effect of ads is minimal on the channel carrying the the event.  In the US, everybody knows that there is a football game on sunday night. Monday night football use to have this effect and it was the night that bars did did the most business.   So when that day and time comes around, many will surf to the channel just to see who is playing. Eventually you get used to it and dont bother or ever get hooked on other programming.  I wouldnt be surprised if the Thursday night ratings pale in comparaison to Sunday night.  

[masster]

Didn't make a note a which TSN channels each of the MLS playoff games were on, but here are the ratings for the weekend games so far:
Playoff ratings:  Toronto v NYCFC - 238,000
                          Montreal v RBNY - 112,000
                          NYCFC v Toronto - 221,000
                          RBNY v Montreal - 181,000

https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/blogs/eh-game/the-great-canadian-ratings-report--mls-could-be-on-verge-of-a-new-era-on-tv-165214722-spt.html
https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/the-great-canadian-ratings-report-hockey-trending-up-133525227.html

[TRM]

Wow. Those are some respectable numbers. Even the low end of 112k isn't too bad. Great that both teams won. It will be interesting to see the numbers from the midweek matchup for these 2.

[rob.notenboom]

1 hour ago, TRM said:

Wow. Those are some respectable numbers. Even the low end of 112k isn't too bad. Great that both teams won. It will be interesting to see the numbers from the midweek matchup for these 2.

I suspect they will be quite high. MLS on TSN going out with a bang

[matty]

13 minutes ago, TRM said:

Wow. Those are some respectable numbers. Even the low end of 112k isn't too bad. Great that both teams won. It will be interesting to see the numbers from the midweek matchup for these 2.

It's under tsn's average i think

[Complete Homer]

Is it public how much TSN paid for the broadcast rights? Might put the numbers in perspective 

[-Hammer-]

On 11/13/2016 at 2:49 PM, Complete Homer said:

Is it public how much TSN paid for the broadcast rights? Might put the numbers in perspective 

It's not currently known, but assuming the TSN rights are similar to what ESPN/Fox Sports paid, and that you reduce it to 15% (percentage of teams) around 11 million. That said, I believe that also includes US national team broadcasts, radio rights and a lot of out of market stuff that doesn't really apply to Canada so it's unlikely that number is accurate. Given the number of games, drawing power and scope, I'd guess around 6-8 million for all the Canadian content across both TSN and Sportsnet.

That all said, complete shot in the dark. There doesn't seem to be any public numbers about the deal. The silence on that subject to me indicates that it's probably not impressive. Networks and leagues love to publish "Record breaking television deals" as PR points to prove "big league" legitimacy and growth. When they keep quiet, it's usually because they are trying to conceal the income from players/unions (which wouldn't be the case here given the public publishing of the US numbers) or they want to hide it from the public and not seem bush league. However, reading too much into silence doesn't do anyone much good.

Unless that silence is about the CPL of course

[Blackdude]

392K people watch the match on RDS alone. It peaked at 834K. 

[1996]

Looks like the Montreal Toronto 1st. leg Eastern Conference Final did pretty good something like 595 000 on TSN and and something like 429 000 on RDS. Not bad considering both the NHL's  Montreal Canadians and the Toronto Maple Leafs had games on TV last night as well, that's over a million viewers not bad at all.

[masster]

27 minutes ago, 1996 said:

Looks like the Montreal Toronto 1st. leg Eastern Conference Final did pretty good something like 595 000 on TSN and and something like 429 000 on RDS. Not bad considering both the NHL's  Montreal Canadians and the Toronto Maple Leafs had games on TV last night as well, that's over a million viewers not bad at all.

Here is the official press release.
http://www.bellmedia.ca/pr/press/record-1-million-viewers-watched-last-nights-toronto-fc-montreal-impact-game-on-tsn-and-rds-marking-canadas-most-watched-mls-game-ever/

 

[Gian-Luca]

Time to re-open negotiations for the broadcast rights for next year?

[baulderdash77]

Shows some of the potential of soccer ratings in Canada.  The ratings are always better for Canadian team vs Canadian team and for games that matter it's that much more.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

12 hours ago, Gian-Luca said:

Time to re-open negotiations for the broadcast rights for next year?

Think there is a national broadcast game-of-the-week deal that is separate from coverage of the three individual teams, so they may still have some MLS games next season even if CBC will have the national deal for their Soccer Night in Canada.

[Blackdude]

I wonder if Soccer Night in Canada was for MLS or if it was for 21 Thunder.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/21-thunder-cbc-soccer-drama-1.3837861

[Macksam]

3 hours ago, Blackdude said:

I wonder if Soccer Night in Canada was for MLS or if it was for 21 Thunder.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/21-thunder-cbc-soccer-drama-1.3837861

Very cool. 

The Japanese FA did something similar in the 1990s when they pushed for the manga Captain Tsubasa to become an anime series. Apparently it was apart of the organization's initiative to get kids into the sport. 

This angle is obviously to help build the sport's TV audience for the 18 to 35 demographic so a little different. However, making a show geared towards kids on YTV is also something to consider.

[nolbertos]

That MLS playoff viewership article is making waves across the country.  Even in Vancouver talk shows, they were mentioning that viewership which is bigger than even a Canadian women's televised game.  MLS should be happy with that result while CPL is probably worried if they can make a dent to Those MLS markets, assuming they want to expand there someday.  

[Gian-Luca]

5 hours ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

Think there is a national broadcast game-of-the-week deal that is separate from coverage of the three individual teams, so they may still have some MLS games next season even if CBC will have the national deal for their Soccer Night in Canada.

Yeah, I think so too, but I would imagine that TSN might now be regretting not having the playoff games (as I'm assuming that would be part of the national deal, given that it seems to be the case for the TSN deal).