Turner President David Levy said the net’s ongoing partnership with CBS Sports for March Madness continues to exceed expectations from both a ratings and revenue perspective. Speaking this morning at the Leaders' Sport Business Summit in N.Y., Levy touted NCAA men’s basketball tournament ratings that have generated double-digit percentage boosts from last year across most platforms and time windows. “Ratings are phenomenal right now. They’re up everywhere,” Levy said. “They’re up on TV, they’re up on digital, they’re up on social, and not just up 2, 3 percent, but more like 20, 30 percent.” Levy credited a variety of factors for the overall tournament lift, including several popular teams reaching the Sweet 16, a series of close games and strong matchups, as well as a good geographic split among the remaining teams. “I predict ratings will continue to be up,” he said.
SO THAT EXPLAINS IT: The series of close games thus far in the NCAA Tournament also informed Levy’s theory to help explain declines in regular-season NFL ratings last fall. While citing factors such as the presidential election, Levy said a long series of blowouts for the NFL in primetime was particularly corrosive. “I don’t think the NFL is any trouble. I’d love to have their ratings, even down 8, 9 percent,” he said. “But blowouts are an issue everywhere. Today’s consumer has so many different touchpoints, so many options for their time that a 20-point blowout may lead to them going elsewhere.”
Quick Hits:
* On the complexity of media rights contracts in today’s mushrooming, multi-platform world: “Our contracts used to be 14 pages long. ... But contracts today are probably 250, 300 pages long,” Levy said. “You’re getting into mobile rights, windowing, so many other variables now.” Like many other recent media rights deals, the Turner-CBS Sports extension for March Madness to '32 includes content rights for platforms not yet invented.”
* On the rise of digital companies such as Facebook and Twitter acquiring media rights: “They’ve all been small deals so far. But the bigger question is with the leagues themselves. What is the next generation of fans? And they have to figure out where they want to put their content for the next generation,” Levy said.
* On measuring viewing audiences amid the rise of over-the-top and on-demand platforms: “The current research currency, Nielsen, hasn’t caught up with technology. They haven’t figured out how to capture all of the audience. Live, same-day viewing they can handle, which is good for sports, but there are still issues elsewhere.
* On the rise of Turner’s eLeague in partnership with WME-IMG: “(E-sports) is a global phenomenon, and one we knew we needed to get into. This is something that isn’t going away.”
