Baltimore Ravens Owner Has Ingenious Solution For NFL Ratings Drop: Stop Annoying Fans With Too Many Ads
from the evolve-or-pay-the-price dept
For a long time, the narrative du jour in cable and broadcast circles was that sports would save cable TV from the unholy threat of cord cutting and the associated ratings drop. Live sports and sports analysis was, the argument usually went, the one true piece of bedrock in the cable and broadcast empire that could protect the industry from sagging ratings and defecting customers. But as we've see by the NFL's 2016 ratings dip and ESPN's stumbling face-plant, sports simply isn't the panacea industry executives pretended it was. Of course, the industry likes to attack any messenger that points this out, but it doesn't make the underlying reality any less true.
With sports ratings in decline, the obvious question then becomes what to do about it. Most of the proposals being circulated by the industry have been relatively comical, like the NFL's decision earlier this year to simply shuffle the Titanic deck chairs a little and consider the subject closed:
"According to people familiar with the plan, the one-week test will reduce the number of commercial breaks from the standard five per quarter to four, while retaining the usual spot load. In other words, while football fans will have fewer opportunities to make kitchen runs and bathroom breaks, the ad pods that do air will eat up more clock."
So the industry's ingenious solution to complaints that there are too many ads? Keep the same overall ad load, but just shuffle the delivery up a little bit. That's kind of on par with the ingenious solutions the cable and broadcast industry has been using for years. When they're not responding to consumer annoyance by just increasing ad load, they've focused on editing or speeding up shows to fit in more ads. Obviously none of this is going to address the fact that streaming video has changed the entire game, and traditional television has to adapt or perish, even if this means initially losing revenue.
Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti this week had a novel idea; how about the NFL stop shoving so many ads down the gullets of already frustrated users, most of whom pay an arm and a leg for cable?
"It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that nobody wants to see two minutes of commercials, come back, kick the ball and then go to a minute-and-a-half of commercials,” Bisciotti said Tuesday. “I’ve thought that was absurd since I was 20 years old."
You mean, fining teams for sharing video clips isn't going to fix things? Bisciotti goes on to note that yes, this will certainly result in a drop in initial revenue, but hey -- it won't hurt billionaire owners any, really:
What a novel idea. Actually changing your behavior instead of crucifying anybody that suggests you should adapt? Examining aggressive and creative solutions to the ongoing ratings and cord cutting slide, instead of burying your head deeply in the sand? Traditional cable providers and broadcasters are going to lose money in the face of increased competition and more consumer choice. The question then becomes, do these companies want to have at least some kind of direct control over this trajectory and evolution of their industry, or are they just going to do nothing, and stand there with dumb looks on their faces as customers flock to less expensive, more flexible, and ultimately less annoying entertainment alternatives?“We’ve got to figure that out,” Bisciotti said. “Again, if you change that, it could mean a reduction in income, but that’s going to hit the players more significantly than it’s going to hit the owners. I still don’t know any owner that’s in this business because of the money.
“Everything is on the table, and if we have to go to ABC and NBC and say that we’ve got to cut some commercials out and give some money back and half of that money doesn’t go into the player pool, maybe that’s what we’re going to have to do. But our expenses would be adjusted accordingly too. So, I’d like to see some things cleaned up.”
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Filed Under: ads, football, ratings, steve bisciotti, tv
Companies: nfl
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What, I just described ESPN? Never heard of it.
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not gettin enough of the pie?
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The proper use
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Re: The proper use
Search Results
in·gen·ious
inˈjēnyəs/
adjective
adjective: ingenious
(of a person) clever, original, and inventive.
"he was ingenious enough to overcome the limited budget"
synonyms: inventive, creative, imaginative, original, innovative, pioneering, resourceful, enterprising, inspired; More
clever, intelligent, smart, brilliant, masterly, talented, gifted, skillful;
astute, sharp-witted, quick-witted, shrewd;
elaborate, sophisticated
"an ingenious economist"
(of a machine or idea) cleverly and originally devised and well suited to its purpose.
https://www.google.com/search?q=ingenious&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
genuine
Search Results
gen·u·ine
ˈjenyo͞oən/
adjective
adjective: genuine
truly what something is said to be; authentic.
"each book is bound in genuine leather"
synonyms: authentic, real, actual, original, bona fide, true, veritable; More
attested, undisputed;
informalthe real McCoy, honest-to-goodness, honest-to-God, the real thing, kosher
"a genuine Picasso"
antonyms: bogus
(of a person, emotion, or action) sincere.
"she had no doubts as to whether Tom was genuine"
synonyms: sincere, honest, truthful, straightforward, direct, frank, candid, open; More
artless, natural, unaffected;
informalstraight, upfront, on the level, on the up and up
"a genuine person"
antonyms: insincere
https://www.google.com/search?q=ingenious&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=genuine
disi ngenuous
Search Resultsdis·in·gen·u·ous
ˌdisənˈjenyo͞oəs/
adjective
adjective: disingenuous
not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does.
synonyms: insincere, dishonest, untruthful, false, deceitful, duplicitous, lying, mendacious; hypocritical
"that innocent, teary-eyed look is just part of a disingenuous act"
https://www.google.com/search?q=ingenious&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=disingenuous
Please learn to use a dictionary.
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And if you don't viewers and income will continue to decline. Welcome to catch 22.
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How ever could they possibly get by with anything lower than 7 billion??
http://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2015/7/20/9006401/nfl-teams-revenue-tv-deal-7-billion
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Who is old enough
When the Corps ran TV with their OWN SHOWS...
HOW about when what was SAID on TV, was mostly truth..
When we could BUY something and it LASTED, at least 10 years..
When Utilities were run by the States and Gov, rather then CORPS that need to up the prices every year..PROFIT.
A nation where PROFIT wasnt the MOST important thing..a GOOD product was.
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Re: Who is old enough
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Re: Re: Who is old enough
Every advert you see, on TV, RADIO, WALL SIGNS, BILLBOARDS, CARS, TRUCKS, uniforms...all of it..
WE PAY FOR..in the price of the Goods..
Go ahead, and advert on a MAJOR sport event, and it will COST the customer MORE..
SUPER BOWL..
you really think the money comes out of THEIR POCKET??
NOPE.
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2 minute warning
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2 minute warning
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I grew up in Minnesota and once you got to the State level of high school competition where you are televised, there were "media timeouts". In basketball, the coaches almost never had to call a timeout except right at the end of the game or if the game was really going off the rails because sooner or later an out-of-bounds would result in a blown whistle and a stop for commercials. Same thing was true of varsity Football and Hockey (I don't remember any other sports but probably others as well). This was back in the mid-90s, so it can only have gotten worse since.
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1 - Yeah, the ads. Way too many. Like Bisciotti said, commercials, kick the ball, more commercials. Ridiculous. It surprised me to learn they only have 5 spots per quarter.
2 - The game announcers. These guys can be so hard to listen to. It seems that actually talking about the plays happening on the field is not top priority.
3 - And I might be in the minority here, but I'm tired of the dancing and other for-the-cameras displays. Sure, when they make the big plays you expect and can even enjoy the celebration, but to me it's mostly become play acting now.
I, like Chris, have started watching soccer, and one day I might actually understand what off sides means. It's 45+ minutes at a time of solid game play before half-time commercials, and the announcers actually call the game.
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Re: use Tivo!
Snap the ball, watch the play til it ends, hit the button to skip 30 seconds and bam! they're snapping the ball again. Cuts out all the crap. And if I miss something, back it up 6 seconds and I'm all set.
Commercials come on, skip skip skip, and I'm back in the game. Simply awesome!
Want to watch a play over and over again? In slow-mo? Pause the game to go get some food? Need a bathroom break? Need to put a kid to bed? Pause it! It will be there when you come back!
I don't care about the realtime games too much.
And even for the superbowl, I'll probably just skip most of the ads even though they're supposed to be interesting and fun. Why can't they be interesting and fun all year long? Would be alot cheaper to produce for sure...
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Believe me, it can get worse. They start inserting augmented reality ads in the middle of the game superimposing the audio or the announcers themselves 'announce' the advertisers. Still, it's better than NFL it seems.
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keep on cutting commercials out of sports TV
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Advertisers will still pay, because it is a heck of a lot of people to get their beer commercial to. (and maybe the commercials will be better than what we get now) Fans will come back because the ads numbers are no worse than whatever else is on TV. And players might take a hit, but it's smaller than it was going to be with the proposed cuts.
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I hope he's reminded of that next time he's looking for handouts from the city for stadium improvements because his hobby business isn't making enough money.
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Sounds like they are in a bit of a death spiral to me, and alternative facts aren't going to get them out of it.
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Be careful what we wish for
It'll then decide that "commercials" only mean 30 second or 1-monute spots... but that ads shown along the bottom or over the action aren't "commercials".
I can easily see a game turning into this:
And here's the coin toss, sponsored by Bank of America. When you need money, go to Bank of America.
The quarterback takes the ball, sponsored by Toyota, the official truck company of the NFL. Visit their website at...
And he throws the ball, This throw sponsored by Tide. When something has to be clean, use Tide.
And he catches the ball and calls a time out. This time out sponsored by Rolex.
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Re: Be careful what we wish for
They already do a lot of near-real time video modification (Line of scrimage, first down lines, player highlights).
What if, instead of a football, they simply replace the football with, say, a can of Coors Light trailing a silver line (so you can see the trajectory). Or replace all the linemen with images of pick-up trucks, the QB as a Tesla, and the receivers as Cadillacs. Catching cans of Coors. With a ticker sponsored by MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) on the bottom of the page.
the who field can be replaced with a Verizon/TMo/whoever network map, showing how well mobile connections can be established from point A to B.
The possibilities are nearly limitless.
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From Merriam-Webster:
render: to treat so as to convert into industrial fats and oils or fertilizer
Yep!
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The Learning Curve
>
NFL: It's against the laws of nature! Income **always** goes up!
Results: Wait! What!!!!!!????????
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