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ESPN BCS deal: Fan deprivation?  
 
 
ESPN experts say that most sports viewers are hooked up to a cable or satellite service, more so than stats indicate.
 
 
 
One truism associated with big deals involving sports, media and entertainment is that when huge dollars are laid out, the payback is pretty much a sure thing. Pretty much.
 
For example, ESPN investment of $495 million to take BCS games exclusively to cable, while precedent-setting, has been a few years coming.
 
ESPN and BCS officials say the numbers of non cable (or non multichannel) viewers are small enough that they don’t expect a problem.
 
If one were to suppose that this year’s national championship game was carried only by ESPN, then only about 142,000 households in the teams’ home markets of Austin and Birmingham would not be able to watch the game.
 
The national average for multichannel penetration is 91%, but some big markets are lower.  Dallas is at 83% (435,000 homes don’t pay for TV); and Houston is at 82% (383,000 homes don’t have cable or satellite service).
 
 
BCS series ratings for the past three years:
 
2007
national cable and satellite coverage: 87%
viewing from multichannel homes: 90%
 
2008
national cable and satellite coverage: 88%
viewing from multichannel homes: 92%
 
2009
national cable and satellite coverage: 89%
viewing from multichannel homes: 93%
 
 
Said Artie Bulgrin, ESPN’s SVP of research and sales development, “We’re projecting that to hit about 95 percent this year. Typically, viewing of sports events is disproportionately composed of multichannel households. For ESPN, our ratings are much higher in digital cable homes than they are in analog cable homes because sports fans are the ones who buy up these subscriptions. It’s really that simple.”
 
Meanwhile, ESPN has been pitching multiyear, multiplatform seasonlong packages. The “seasonlong” aspect encompasses live games and shoulder programming that leads up to the BCS National Championship game.
 
Unlike Fox four years ago -- with no other college football games on its broadcast schedule -- ESPN is offering its entire college football season.
 
Like we said, the payback is pretty much a sure thing.
 
More later……
 
 

 
 

This 339 word summary – with attendant commentary – was distilled by Clips Editor Nick Infante from two articles totaling 1,587 words:

an 833 word article entitled, “Shift to cable won’t deprive fans” ... by Michael Smith and John Ourand from the 1-4-10 issue of SportsBusiness Journal.  To access the source article click here   NOTE: SBJ is a paid subscription, password-accessed website.


a 754 word article entitled ... “and offers full year of exposure to bowl sponsors” by Michael Smith and John Ourand from the 1-4-10 issue of SportsBusiness Journal.  To access the source article click here NOTE: SBJ is a paid subscription, password-accessed website.
 
 
 
SportsBusiness Journal bills itself as the one and only original source for total sports business coverage, and the discriminating Clips Research Department heartily agrees.   Every week, Street & Smith’s SportsBusiness Journal provides the critical news and information sports industry leaders need to compete, negotiate and succeed.  Every issue features coverage of the deals, trades, contracts and boardroom plays that shape the rapidly changing sports industry. 

For subscription information: click here
 
 
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