TV Networks Can’t Drop The Ball On Live Sports

Bottom line: As cord-cutting increases, the importance of sports to the TV ecosystem has never been greater.

Wow: In 2019 (non-election year), sports accounted for 89 of the 100 most viewed TV shows and 37% of all ad impressions!

Ad impressions for Emmy-nominated series (% change) according to Fox Sports:
1) 1998 – 438M
2) 2018 – 31M (↓ 93%)

Ad impressions for premium sports event (% change):
1) 1998 – 467M
2) 2018 – 329M (↓ 30%)

Average viewership in 2020 according to Sportico:
1) NFL game (regular season) – 17.2M
2) Combined primetime (ABC/CBS/NBC/Fox) – 5.1M

Why this matters: Sports has become the only event that can consistently deliver large audiences TV advertisers crave.

Top NFL/NBA/MLB/NHL advertisers in 2020 according to Sportico:
1) Amazon
2) Apple
3) Berkshire Hathaway (Geico)
4) Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile)
5) Progressive
6) State Farm
7) Verizon

By the way: These advertisers devoted ≈ 45% of their TV ad budgets to sports in 2020. What may be even crazier is ≈ 28% of their overall marketing budgets went to sports on TV.

Quote from Geetha Ranganathan – Media Analyst @ Bloomberg Intelligence:

“Sports [are] kind of the last bastion of the linear television model.”

NFL ad load (30s spots) per game (YoY growth):
1) 2019 – 69
2) 2020 – 73 (↑ 6%)

More: Is sports TV viewership turning the corner? Here’s what the experts think

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