They mater because they generate revenue.
They generate jobs.
They generate passion.
Now with the return of the National Football League, National Basketball Association, National Hockey League, and Major League Baseball—all at once it seems—sports will generate billions in advertising revenue. This is exactly what the country needs. And right now.
At the four-month mark where every major professional sports league went on hiatus due to COVID-19, the return of live sports is just what we all need. Live sports signals an important return to normal for the country and spark a television advertising sales marketplace that was left in a disparate place. During the last full season, each sport played, the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL produced nearly $7 billion in ad revenue for networks across the United States. That’s not to mention the billions produced overseas and the remaining parts of North America.
Don’t think that sports matter? Here is exactly how much national ad revenue the big four sports leagues added to the networks’ gross sales during their last full seasons (*according to Kantar Media):
- NFL—Regular Season: $3.3 billion, Playoffs: $1.3 billion
- NBA—Regular Season: $528.2 million, Playoffs: $877.5 million
- MLB—Regular Season: $144.7 million, Playoffs: $338.5 million
- NHL—Regular Season: $35.9 million, Playoffs: $102.2 million
Seth Winter, EVP of sports sales for Fox Sports says that “the reopening of live sports is “a very symbolic and real indicator of the move forward to whatever the TV ad industry’s new normal will be post-pandemic.”
Jo Ann Ross, president and chief advertising revenue officer, ViacomCBS domestic advertising sales says that, “There is a thirst and a hunger for live sports.”
- UFC 251—1.3 million people purchased the event on pay-per-view That’s among the highest in the sport’s history. UFC has generated this many buys only four times previously with the the most recent coming in 2018, when Khabib Nurmagomedov defeated Conor McGregor at UFC 229. That event generated a record 2.4 million buys.
- The Match: Champions for Charity golf tournament, which aired on May 24 and featured Tiger Woods and Peyton Manning vs. Phil Mickelson and Tom Brady drew 5.8 million viewers across TNT, TBS, truTV and HLN. WarnerMedia reported that this telecast was the most-watched golf match in cable TV history. The WarnerMedia’s ad sales team sold every spot a month in advance with the expectation of this type of outcome.
- When NASCAR races resumed on Fox one May 17th, over six million viewers made it the most-watched NASCAR Cup race on any network (outside of the Daytona 500) in 2018.
All of this comes of devastating news that U.S. advertising revenue plummeted 31% in May due to only those few events take place due to the pandemic. What makes this worse is that the Standard Media Index reports that majority of major ad categories reduced their media spends drastically—by 10%-20% or more. Only pharmaceutical manufacturers spent more in May than they did in the same 2019 period.
Two media companies saw ad revenues deteriorate as a direct result of the absence of NBA games when the playoffs take place in May, broadcast by Walt Disney’s ABC and ESPN and WarnerMedia’s TNT. WarnerMedia saw ad revenue decline by 45.5%, while Disney saw it tumble by 39.6% for the month of May.
First up is MLB on July 25th followed by the NHL on August 1st. I can wait to see what advertisers have in store for us...
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| Michael Jordan: The gold standard of sports advertising. |
