For the next month or so, it’s all about the road to the Final Four. While the NCAA Tournament will dominate the sports landscape with its own brand of madness, its popularity may not reach the heights of the NFL. Sports fans just love to watch professional football and the television ratings are proof that the NFL is a lock #1 seed when it comes to sports on TV. Oh, and there aren’t any upsets brewing when it comes to the supremacy of the league.
The NFL enjoyed one of its best regular seasons in a few years. In fact, it’s the highest rated since 2015. Across all games, the regular season averaged 17.9M viewers. That includes the linear and digital platforms. The most-watched game of the season was the Commanders-Cowboys on Thanksgiving Day with more than 40 million viewers tuning in.
According to Deadline, the audience was up 7% year-over-year in terms of total audience. The good news for the NFL is among the under-35 crowd, viewership was the highest it’s been since 2019. The interest from the younger crowd means more advertising dollars and revenue for the teams and league. The salary cap went up nearly $31 million as a result of the increases. That’s not small change.
Why has the NFL been able to capitalize? This past season, there were many games, nearly 7 in 10, that were within one score. Close games draw in fans, especially if there’s an upset brewing or someone is having a big stat day. The NFL is basically an event every week. Your team generally plays one time in a week. Fans gather and watch their team, devoting 3 or so hours to watch a single game.
Streaming has become more and more popular, especially with younger viewers. The NFL turned its Thursday Night Football telecasts to Amazon Prime a couple of seasons ago. Many who have ‘cut the cord’ and separated themselves from cable, don’t have to miss that game anymore. Most have Amazon Prime and the ratings are showing it as well.
According to Sports Business Journal, Prime Video’s numbers in 2023, were a 23% increase over its first season as rights holder. Peacock entered the fray this year with an exclusive telecast in the regular season and in the playoffs. It was the first time the NFL did this. The experiment went well, but to me, as I’ve written before, was more about instant cash and greed, than anything else.
The NFL has mastered the “alternate broadcast” to bring in casual fans and even kids. There are places for you to go and watch even if you aren’t a ‘die-hard’. There’s the ManningCast, allowing you to watch the game alongside Peyton and Eli Manning and their guests. For the youngsters, there’s the NFL’s association with Nickelodeon and their alternate broadcasts. They include cartoon caricatures of the players and of course SLIME! Throw in the Taylor Swift effect and the NFL is cooking with gas in bringing in younger and new viewers to its product.
This should be worrisome for the other major sports leagues and the NCAA Tournament.
Don’t get me wrong, I love March Madness, the emotions and purity of the game come shining through every moment. I’m glued to the television, when I can figure out what channel the game I want to see is on. March Madness streams for free if you are a member on cbssports.com and it always has a unique “boss” button, in case you’re watching at work.
All the games are available either on Tru TV, (which makes a return from hibernation every March), TBS, TNT or CBS, it gets confusing. Plus, for every great game, there’s usually 4 or 5 duds every round which is tough to watch. The other things working against the Tournament, it only lasts a month and its’ not on every day.
To put things into perspective on the NFL v. the NCAA, according to Sportico, last season’s Sunday Night Game featuring the Cowboys and Giants ended in a 40-0 win for Dallas. The game was 26-0 at the half. It still drew nearly 22 million viewers. At the Tourney, last year’s men’s title game between UConn and San Diego State drew only 14.6 million eyes.
A couple of years ago, the NCAA launched a “Red Zone” type of channel, with ‘duck-ins’ to great games and alerts when a game is nearing its completion. It is called Fast Break and is streamed on March Madness Live. Fast Break features whip-around coverage from every game in the tournament all in one channel! It’s also available on mobile devices.
This is a good start, because the channel could in effect, cause a casual fan, to check out a live game because of it. I’m not sure what else the Tournament can do, to attract more viewers.
MLB was the first to discover streaming on MLB.tv, which launched in August of 2002. Technology has been able to catch up to make it a better experience, thanks to broadband and increased speeds and bandwidth.
Even so, the big problem with baseball has always been, there are just too many games. Even with the advent of the pitch clock, there is still that time commitment involved. Plus, MLB.tv still has blackout restrictions. Here’s one of the restrictions:
Home television territory blackout restrictions apply regardless of whether a Club is home or away and regardless of whether or not a game is televised in a Club’s home television territory.
That leaves it up to the RSNs, which are not thriving, to stream direct to consumer at a hefty price as well.
How can baseball catch up? It’s going to be hard, although the sport has seen an increase in interest over the last few years. MLB has introduced the Kay-Rod alternate broadcast of some of the ESPN Sunday Night Games. A great alternative, if you can stomach Alex Rodriguez. They have also had separate broadcasts for the stat-driven fans, with StatCast in mind on a separate channel.
I’ve always been an advocate for players being mic’d up. Maybe try to follow one player on each team during the game, wearing microphones? Have someone on the ‘dump button’ in case a few words are uttered that shouldn’t be heard. “Manager Cam”, or “Bullpen cam” on a separate channel? I’m not sure that the schedule would support either of these ideas.
The NBA is going to have a hard time competing too. Along with the NHL, their seasons are more than 80 games. League Pass from the NBA offers full streaming coverage with some blackout restrictions. It boasts data overlays for its games and multi-view opportunities. I’d be interested to know if it would help if fans were able to just pay attention to several of the stars in the league.
A “Lebron Cam” or “Jokic Cam” that only follows those specific players, even when they are on the bench. Ok maybe a reach, but the league has always been accused of promoting its stars rather than teams, so maybe it would work?
I’m a huge NHL fan, but the sport isn’t popular enough to make a serious dent in the gap. The coverage has gotten better since it moved back to ESPN and also added TNT to the fold. The TNT pregame show is trying to skew more to younger viewers, offering NHL fans an “Inside the NBA” feel to it. Young stars, like Connor Bedard, will help the profile, but mainly in the Chicago market.
The NFL is king and looks to remain that way so we better get used to it. The league owns, Sunday, Monday, and Thursday already, which doesn’t leave too much for the other leagues. It’s going to take some serious outside-the-box thinking by those in charge of broadcasts for the other leagues to make a dent. Hope shouldn’t be lost, but the fight is an uphill one for sure. For 18 weeks, then playoffs, the NFL just looks down from its mountain top, while counting its cash.
Andy Masur is a columnist for BSM and works for WGN Radio as an anchor and play-by-play announcer. He also teaches broadcasting at the Illinois Media School. During his career he has called games for the Chicago Cubs, San Diego Padres and Chicago White Sox. He can be found on Twitter @Andy_Masur1 or you can reach him by email at Andy@Andy-Masur.com.
