(06-12-2018 10:44 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  Great article: https://medium.com/ipg-media-lab/the-unraveling-of-live-sports-tv-ddac5cad0fef

Cliffnotes:
TV ratings for all live sports are down except MLB, NBA, and MLS. Live sports consumption is going down across the board, for 4 reasons:
1) Youth sports participation is down across the board - link to a great article on that
2) Millenials are less interested in sports than Gen Ex or Boomers
3) Millenials are turning to E-sports
4) Cord cutting (this has been described ad nauseam on this forum)
5) The rise of the highlight reel as the primary form of sports consumption

(06-12-2018 12:42 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(06-12-2018 10:44 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  Great article: https://medium.com/ipg-media-lab/the-unraveling-of-live-sports-tv-ddac5cad0fef

Cliffnotes:
TV ratings for all live sports are down except MLB, NBA, and MLS. Live sports consumption is going down across the board, for 4 reasons:
1) Youth sports participation is down across the board - link to a great article on that
2) Millenials are less interested in sports than Gen Ex or Boomers
3) Millenials are turning to E-sports
4) Cord cutting (this has been described ad nauseam on this forum)
5) The rise of the highlight reel as the primary form of sports consumption

So ratings are constant or improving for three sports that have international following and appeal across multiple demographics

NFL is down off incredible highs.

NHL is down for a sport that traditionally is followed by white blue collar fans and international appeal basically doesn't exist outside of northern Europe.

One might think the ratings are simply a reflection of the shifting demographics of the US.

(06-12-2018 01:00 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(06-12-2018 12:42 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(06-12-2018 10:44 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  Great article: https://medium.com/ipg-media-lab/the-unraveling-of-live-sports-tv-ddac5cad0fef

Cliffnotes:
TV ratings for all live sports are down except MLB, NBA, and MLS. Live sports consumption is going down across the board, for 4 reasons:
1) Youth sports participation is down across the board - link to a great article on that
2) Millenials are less interested in sports than Gen Ex or Boomers
3) Millenials are turning to E-sports
4) Cord cutting (this has been described ad nauseam on this forum)
5) The rise of the highlight reel as the primary form of sports consumption

So ratings are constant or improving for three sports that have international following and appeal across multiple demographics

NFL is down off incredible highs.

NHL is down for a sport that traditionally is followed by white blue collar fans and international appeal basically doesn't exist outside of northern Europe.

One might think the ratings are simply a reflection of the shifting demographics of the US.

That's part of it, although my general pet peeve with these types of stories is that they never seem to provide the context that TV ratings for non-sports programs are dropping even faster. This particular article had a fleeting general reference to that as being a long-term trend but didn't provide specifics of the past year. Sports have definitely retained a lot more viewers compared to every other type of program on TV. It used to be that the old ABC Monday Night Football was a top 20-ish TV program every week (highly rated, but substantially behind multiple scripted shows in the ratings), while today's NBC Sunday Night Football is the #1 TV program by far every single week. The *relative* power of sports compared to everything else on TV still stronger than ever.

Now, I do agree that younger generation generally doesn't sit to watch a 3-hour game anymore. Being a "sports fan" in the future is going to be checking your favorite team's highlights and following/liking them on YouTube/Facebook/Twitter/ESPN App as opposed to being a season ticket holder or watching full games on TV. Once again, though, my issue with these types of alarmist articles is that they don't ever put out that the younger generation doesn't sit to watch 3 hours of *anything* anymore. They're getting *everything* (entertainment, news, etc.) in small bites on social media or on-demand viewing on streaming platforms. So, it's important to note that the *relative* power of sports of getting young people to watch a full game is still larger than any other form of content. An NBA Playoff game has received the highest age 18-49 TV rating for virtually every single evening that at least one game has been on since April across *all* of television (whether broadcast or cable), which shows the power of sports. The NFL is even more powerful in that regard.

(06-12-2018 01:00 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(06-12-2018 12:42 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(06-12-2018 10:44 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  Great article: https://medium.com/ipg-media-lab/the-unraveling-of-live-sports-tv-ddac5cad0fef

Cliffnotes:
TV ratings for all live sports are down except MLB, NBA, and MLS. Live sports consumption is going down across the board, for 4 reasons:
1) Youth sports participation is down across the board - link to a great article on that
2) Millenials are less interested in sports than Gen Ex or Boomers
3) Millenials are turning to E-sports
4) Cord cutting (this has been described ad nauseam on this forum)
5) The rise of the highlight reel as the primary form of sports consumption

So ratings are constant or improving for three sports that have international following and appeal across multiple demographics

NFL is down off incredible highs.

NHL is down for a sport that traditionally is followed by white blue collar fans and international appeal basically doesn't exist outside of northern Europe.

One might think the ratings are simply a reflection of the shifting demographics of the US.

That's part of it, although my general pet peeve with these types of stories is that they never seem to provide the context that TV ratings for non-sports programs are dropping even faster. This particular article had a fleeting general reference to that as being a long-term trend but didn't provide specifics of the past year. Sports have definitely retained a lot more viewers compared to every other type of program on TV. It used to be that the old ABC Monday Night Football was a top 20-ish TV program every week (highly rated, but substantially behind multiple scripted shows in the ratings), while today's NBC Sunday Night Football is the #1 TV program by far every single week. The *relative* power of sports compared to everything else on TV still stronger than ever.

Now, I do agree that younger generation generally doesn't sit to watch a 3-hour game anymore. Being a "sports fan" in the future is going to be checking your favorite team's highlights and following/liking them on YouTube/Facebook/Twitter/ESPN App as opposed to being a season ticket holder or watching full games on TV. Once again, though, my issue with these types of alarmist articles is that they don't ever put out that the younger generation doesn't sit to watch 3 hours of *anything* anymore. They're getting *everything* (entertainment, news, etc.) in small bites on social media or on-demand viewing on streaming platforms. So, it's important to note that the *relative* power of sports of getting young people to watch a full game is still larger than any other form of content. An NBA Playoff game has received the highest age 18-49 TV rating for virtually every single evening that at least one game has been on since April across *all* of television (whether broadcast or cable), which shows the power of sports. The NFL is even more powerful in that regard.

(06-12-2018 01:47 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(06-12-2018 01:00 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(06-12-2018 12:42 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(06-12-2018 10:44 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  Great article: https://medium.com/ipg-media-lab/the-unraveling-of-live-sports-tv-ddac5cad0fef

Cliffnotes:
TV ratings for all live sports are down except MLB, NBA, and MLS. Live sports consumption is going down across the board, for 4 reasons:
1) Youth sports participation is down across the board - link to a great article on that
2) Millenials are less interested in sports than Gen Ex or Boomers
3) Millenials are turning to E-sports
4) Cord cutting (this has been described ad nauseam on this forum)
5) The rise of the highlight reel as the primary form of sports consumption

So ratings are constant or improving for three sports that have international following and appeal across multiple demographics

NFL is down off incredible highs.

NHL is down for a sport that traditionally is followed by white blue collar fans and international appeal basically doesn't exist outside of northern Europe.

One might think the ratings are simply a reflection of the shifting demographics of the US.

That's part of it, although my general pet peeve with these types of stories is that they never seem to provide the context that TV ratings for non-sports programs are dropping even faster. This particular article had a fleeting general reference to that as being a long-term trend but didn't provide specifics of the past year. Sports have definitely retained a lot more viewers compared to every other type of program on TV. It used to be that the old ABC Monday Night Football was a top 20-ish TV program every week (highly rated, but substantially behind multiple scripted shows in the ratings), while today's NBC Sunday Night Football is the #1 TV program by far every single week. The *relative* power of sports compared to everything else on TV still stronger than ever.

Now, I do agree that younger generation generally doesn't sit to watch a 3-hour game anymore. Being a "sports fan" in the future is going to be checking your favorite team's highlights and following/liking them on YouTube/Facebook/Twitter/ESPN App as opposed to being a season ticket holder or watching full games on TV. Once again, though, my issue with these types of alarmist articles is that they don't ever put out that the younger generation doesn't sit to watch 3 hours of *anything* anymore. They're getting *everything* (entertainment, news, etc.) in small bites on social media or on-demand viewing on streaming platforms. So, it's important to note that the *relative* power of sports of getting young people to watch a full game is still larger than any other form of content. An NBA Playoff game has received the highest age 18-49 TV rating for virtually every single evening that at least one game has been on since April across *all* of television (whether broadcast or cable), which shows the power of sports. The NFL is even more powerful in that regard.

I'm not so sure attending games is as doomed as people think.

If you ever get bored, search ebay or image search google for old ticket stubs for major games then input the ticket price into an inflation calculator. It's staggering.

We went from X dollars is the price whether you are on the 50 near the field or upper end zone corner. Donations determined which at many schools or just I ordered season tickets before you did.

Now we have crazy prices that vary by location and amenity but what we haven't seen much of is prices for that non-donor end zone or corner seat coming back in line with what they were 30 or 40 years ago.

One place where affordability still exists is not the NFL but in MLS and depending on the market, there are really affordable deals in NBA, NHL, and MLB. If I had been so inclined, I could have gone to the Grizzlies - Suns last season for less than an AState home game. I went to a Dallas Stars game and could have been in the building for less than promotion admission to A-State football.

Quite a few MLS teams have end zone sections reserved for the louder and younger fans at a cheap price. Nearly every Sporting KC home game I see people scrounging trying to find extras in the cheap section.

That's the future. The person sitting center ice or midcourt or behind home plate really isn't going to walk away from their high priced ticket because someone can get in the building for $7 and sit in the upper deck or the outfield.

What MOST lost sight was the price point that maximizes revenue today, isn't the price point that maximizes revenue for 2033 when you are replacing many of your current season ticket holders.

(06-12-2018 02:14 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(06-12-2018 01:47 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(06-12-2018 01:00 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(06-12-2018 12:42 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(06-12-2018 10:44 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  Great article: https://medium.com/ipg-media-lab/the-unraveling-of-live-sports-tv-ddac5cad0fef

Cliffnotes:
TV ratings for all live sports are down except MLB, NBA, and MLS. Live sports consumption is going down across the board, for 4 reasons:
1) Youth sports participation is down across the board - link to a great article on that
2) Millenials are less interested in sports than Gen Ex or Boomers
3) Millenials are turning to E-sports
4) Cord cutting (this has been described ad nauseam on this forum)
5) The rise of the highlight reel as the primary form of sports consumption

So ratings are constant or improving for three sports that have international following and appeal across multiple demographics

NFL is down off incredible highs.

NHL is down for a sport that traditionally is followed by white blue collar fans and international appeal basically doesn't exist outside of northern Europe.

One might think the ratings are simply a reflection of the shifting demographics of the US.

That's part of it, although my general pet peeve with these types of stories is that they never seem to provide the context that TV ratings for non-sports programs are dropping even faster. This particular article had a fleeting general reference to that as being a long-term trend but didn't provide specifics of the past year. Sports have definitely retained a lot more viewers compared to every other type of program on TV. It used to be that the old ABC Monday Night Football was a top 20-ish TV program every week (highly rated, but substantially behind multiple scripted shows in the ratings), while today's NBC Sunday Night Football is the #1 TV program by far every single week. The *relative* power of sports compared to everything else on TV still stronger than ever.

Now, I do agree that younger generation generally doesn't sit to watch a 3-hour game anymore. Being a "sports fan" in the future is going to be checking your favorite team's highlights and following/liking them on YouTube/Facebook/Twitter/ESPN App as opposed to being a season ticket holder or watching full games on TV. Once again, though, my issue with these types of alarmist articles is that they don't ever put out that the younger generation doesn't sit to watch 3 hours of *anything* anymore. They're getting *everything* (entertainment, news, etc.) in small bites on social media or on-demand viewing on streaming platforms. So, it's important to note that the *relative* power of sports of getting young people to watch a full game is still larger than any other form of content. An NBA Playoff game has received the highest age 18-49 TV rating for virtually every single evening that at least one game has been on since April across *all* of television (whether broadcast or cable), which shows the power of sports. The NFL is even more powerful in that regard.

I'm not so sure attending games is as doomed as people think.

If you ever get bored, search ebay or image search google for old ticket stubs for major games then input the ticket price into an inflation calculator. It's staggering.

We went from X dollars is the price whether you are on the 50 near the field or upper end zone corner. Donations determined which at many schools or just I ordered season tickets before you did.

Now we have crazy prices that vary by location and amenity but what we haven't seen much of is prices for that non-donor end zone or corner seat coming back in line with what they were 30 or 40 years ago.

One place where affordability still exists is not the NFL but in MLS and depending on the market, there are really affordable deals in NBA, NHL, and MLB. If I had been so inclined, I could have gone to the Grizzlies - Suns last season for less than an AState home game. I went to a Dallas Stars game and could have been in the building for less than promotion admission to A-State football.

Quite a few MLS teams have end zone sections reserved for the louder and younger fans at a cheap price. Nearly every Sporting KC home game I see people scrounging trying to find extras in the cheap section.

That's the future. The person sitting center ice or midcourt or behind home plate really isn't going to walk away from their high priced ticket because someone can get in the building for $7 and sit in the upper deck or the outfield.

What MOST lost sight was the price point that maximizes revenue today, isn't the price point that maximizes revenue for 2033 when you are replacing many of your current season ticket holders.

I don't think going to live games is doomed, but I also live in a market (Chicago) where ticket prices for the Bears, Bulls, Cubs and Blackhawks remain very high in the secondary market. The White Sox are the team that actually should be selling $7 tickets for the upper deck, yet they still artificially make their face value ticket prices much higher than they ought to be (which may be a function of being a team in a large market).

I can just speak anecdotally about myself (as someone that is a little too old to be a Millennial but also on the very youngest side of Generation X): I used to want to go to as many games in person as possible for the least expensive price possible, but now I'd rather splurge for good seats for a small handful of games every year. I've reached the point where "time is money" for me, so if I'm spending an entire day going to and from a game, I want to make it worth it. That actually seems to be more of the Millennial mentality from my observations: paying a premium for fewer but more intense experiences (which goes for restaurants, vacations and other activities on top of sporting events) as opposed paying lower amounts for more frequent bulk experiences.

(06-12-2018 10:44 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  Great article: https://medium.com/ipg-media-lab/the-unraveling-of-live-sports-tv-ddac5cad0fef

Cliffnotes:
TV ratings for all live sports are down except MLB, NBA, and MLS. Live sports consumption is going down across the board, for 4 reasons:
1) Youth sports participation is down across the board - link to a great article on that
2) Millenials are less interested in sports than Gen Ex or Boomers
3) Millenials are turning to E-sports
4) Cord cutting (this has been described ad nauseam on this forum)
5) The rise of the highlight reel as the primary form of sports consumption

I think #5 is the most intriguing.

From the article: "The truth is, a lot of sports content can be easily condensed into highlight clips of goals, near-misses, VIP plays, and other key moments, all packaged nicely without the interruption of commercial breaks. Watching highlights grants you enough cultural capital to talk about the game without having to sit through a whole game. For example, there is RedZone, a premium subscription cable channel owned and operated by NFL that offers ad-free, “whip-around” coverage of live highlights across multiple games on Sundays, essentially providing viewers with a collage of the day’s most exciting NFL moments. In addition, YouTube saw an 80% lift in time spent watching sports highlight videos on its site during the last year.... Sports publication Bleacher Report operates “House of Highlights,” an Instagram account that delivers ad-free highlight clips of popular sports to its over 8.2 million followers, sometimes even during the games. Similarly, ESPN and NBC Sports have started working with Snapchat to disseminate highlight clips via Discover. In fact, 35 million people watched highlights from the Rio Olympics on Snapchat two years ago. Similarly, there are apps like Scorestream and Overtime that are geared towards sharing user-generated clips from sports events, especially local high-school and collegiate games. Some may argue that the immediacy of live coverage still matters when it comes to sports, but that is evidently less significant for casual fans that are largely content with watching the highlights."

(06-12-2018 01:33 PM)Kittonhead Wrote:  -They aren't on a serious professional track (medicine, engineering, law)

(06-12-2018 04:58 PM)Wedge Wrote:  LOL.

Is there anything for which old people don't blame "millennials"? What a lazy take.

(06-12-2018 01:33 PM)Kittonhead Wrote:  We have to define what a pure millennial is.

-Born after 1980 at the very least.
-They aren't on a serious professional track (medicine, engineering, law)
-They do no commute over an hour to work (urban living)
-They do not own a house greater than 2500 sq.ft.
-They shop in a mall less than once a month.

Once you've removed all the traditional and baby boomer influences then you have your pure millennial.

-Dog walking, either walking their own dog or somebody else's for money.
-Experimenting in the kitchen three hours a night like a TV chef.
-Taking a $35 dollar uber ride across town.
-Making snarky social comments over a social media app.
-Phone video games (women play a word puzzle game to say they don't play games)

How are they able to make a strategic investment in a spectator sport when they can't make a strategic investment in themselves?

These people in the past would have started up a young family (providing a source for the next generation of athlete), commuted long hours for a big house and flipped on the boob tube with the remaining energy they have, becoming a die hard fan of whatever was shown to them on TV.

(06-12-2018 05:42 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:  

(06-12-2018 01:33 PM)Kittonhead Wrote:  We have to define what a pure millennial is.

-Born after 1980 at the very least.
-They aren't on a serious professional track (medicine, engineering, law)
-They do no commute over an hour to work (urban living)
-They do not own a house greater than 2500 sq.ft.
-They shop in a mall less than once a month.

Once you've removed all the traditional and baby boomer influences then you have your pure millennial.

-Dog walking, either walking their own dog or somebody else's for money.
-Experimenting in the kitchen three hours a night like a TV chef.
-Taking a $35 dollar uber ride across town.
-Making snarky social comments over a social media app.
-Phone video games (women play a word puzzle game to say they don't play games)

How are they able to make a strategic investment in a spectator sport when they can't make a strategic investment in themselves?

These people in the past would have started up a young family (providing a source for the next generation of athlete), commuted long hours for a big house and flipped on the boob tube with the remaining energy they have, becoming a die hard fan of whatever was shown to them on TV.

You left out the biggest description: They still live in their parents house avoiding reality.

(06-12-2018 04:57 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  

(06-12-2018 01:33 PM)Kittonhead Wrote:  -They aren't on a serious professional track (medicine, engineering, law)

Those are the only serious professional tracks.

(06-12-2018 01:33 PM)Kittonhead Wrote:  We have to define what a pure millennial is.

-Born after 1980 at the very least.
-They aren't on a serious professional track (medicine, engineering, law)
-They do no commute over an hour to work (urban living)
-They do not own a house greater than 2500 sq.ft.
-They shop in a mall less than once a month.

Once you've removed all the traditional and baby boomer influences then you have your pure millennial.

-Dog walking, either walking their own dog or somebody else's for money.
-Experimenting in the kitchen three hours a night like a TV chef.
-Taking a $35 dollar uber ride across town.
-Making snarky social comments over a social media app.
-Phone video games (women play a word puzzle game to say they don't play games)

How are they able to make a strategic investment in a spectator sport when they can't make a strategic investment in themselves?

These people in the past would have started up a young family (providing a source for the next generation of athlete), commuted long hours for a big house and flipped on the boob tube with the remaining energy they have, becoming a die hard fan of whatever was shown to them on TV.