This article from NYTimes.com
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Sports are watched differently than they were during the era of the three-network
universe. The bonds of loyalty to a nationally televised sport can be broken more
easily because there is so much else to do and perhaps less patience. If Sampras is
not playing Andre Agassi, viewers may flip to Sex and the City.
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The Decline and Fall of Sports Ratings
September 10, 2003
By RICHARD SANDOMIR
Down. That is where the ratings of most major sports events
went in the past year. Whether it was the World Series, the
N.B.A. finals, all four Grand Slam golf tournaments or the
recently completed United States Open, network ratings
tumbled.
The declines, in some cases, were huge and led to record
ratings lows, and they could lead to networks' slowing the
growth in payments for future deals.
With the National Basketball Association gone from NBC,
ratings for the finals on ABC this year dropped by more
than a third. Shaun Micheel's victory at the P.G.A.
Championship in August sent CBS's rating down 38 percent,
after ratings for Jim Furyk's triumph at the United States
Open fell by almost half on NBC.
The prime-time United States Open women's tennis final,
created in 2001 as a Venus and Serena Williams perennial,
dropped 52 percent to a 2.5 for CBS last Saturday when one
Belgian, Justine Henin-Hardenne, defeated another, Kim
Clijsters. (Each rating point equals 1.07 million TV
households.)
It has been a weird year; a confluence of factors put a
larger-than-usual dent in the viewership of major sports.
The war in Iraq drew viewers away in the spring, especially
from the N.C.A.A. men's basketball tournament (the
championship game rating fell 16 percent). Rain shortened
the Daytona 500 and caused days' worth of delays at the
United States Open, which also suffered from Pete Sampras's
retirement and injuries to the Williams sisters. Tiger
Woods was a factor in only one of golf's majors, and the
ratings drop-off ranged from 7 percent (the British Open)
to 44 percent (the United States Open).
The N.B.A.'s decision to shift the bulk of its games to
cable, on ESPN and TNT, meant lower ratings for ABC, which
did not build the type of audience NBC had because it
carried far fewer games.
The oases of strength in sports broadcasting continue to be
the National Football League (ABC's Buccaneers-Eagles game
was the highest-rated Monday night game in two years) and
Nascar, which has benefited greatly from moving its main
races from cable to NBC and Fox. When rain curtailed the
Daytona 500 last February, Fox said it was on its way to
posting its highest rating in years.
Still, the overall direction of sports ratings is clear.
If you look at sports ratings over the past decade,
they've declined in general, said Ken Schanzer, the
president of NBC Sports. The question is whether the
amount of the decline this year is the start of a trend.
Artie Bulgrin, ESPN's senior vice president for research,
said this year's declines were accelerated by a key segment
of viewers focused on the war in Iraq.
The audience that paid closest attention to the news,
post-9/11, was males 18 to 34, and they were affected for a
period that forced sports to take a back seat, he said.
He added: It's misleading to look at ratings for selected
events and conclude that a negative trend is happening.
Sports have never been healthier.
Still, sports ratings are not immune to the erosion
throughout broadcast television, a trend linked to cable
and satellite TV, the Internet, home video and other
options.
Ten years ago, the World Series had a 17.3 rating; last
year it fell to 11.9. The N.C.A.A. championship game
produced a 22.2 rating 10 years ago; this year it dipped to
12.6.
Only eight years ago, the leading prime-time network
program, Seinfeld, averaged a 20.4 rating; this past
season the top show, C.S.I., generated a 16.3
Ratings are smaller than ever, and the sports world is the
exaggerated tip of it, said Peter Gardiner, chief media
officer of the advertising agency Deutsch Inc.
Sports are watched differently than they were during the
era of the three-network universe. The bonds of loyalty to
a nationally televised sport can be broken more easily
because there is so much else to do and perhaps less
patience. If Sampras is not playing Andre Agassi, viewers
may flip to Sex and the City.
There are different ways to view the decline in ratings for
virtually everything but the Super Bowl. Bulgrin said that
from 1996 to 2001, Nielsen Media Research figured that the
average rating for nationally televised sports fell 10
percent, a bigger drop than for any other segment of the TV
audience. On the other hand, for the year ended in
