Buoyed by increased NASCAR ratings last season, Fox’s sales team has sold 90 percent of its inventory for the Daytona 500 and expects to sell out this week.

The amount of inventory sold mirrors what Fox sold prior to last year’s Daytona 500, but Neil Mulcahy, Fox Sports executive vice president of advertising sales, said that the network was able to increase the price of ads by 4 percent to 6 percent on average. He declined to say what an average spot was selling for during the race.

Mulcahy credited NASCAR’s ratings rebound in 2011 for the network’s sales momentum this season, especially among the important 18- to 34-year-old demographic. For the first time since NASCAR TV viewership peaked in 2005, the sport saw a year-over-year increase in viewers. Over the course of 33 races across three networks — Fox, TNT and ESPN/ABC — NASCAR attracted an average of 6.5 million viewers, an 8 percent increase over 34 races in 2010. The sport saw a 24 percent decline among young male viewers in 2010, but the group came back strong in 2011, with a 17 percent increase among men ages 18 to 34.

Ad sales for the rest of the network’s 13-race schedule also are pacing ahead of last year’s levels.

“The talk last year was stemming the tide of losing business to writing new business,” Mulcahy said. “We’ve definitely turned the corner. While we’ve lost some business [since last year], we have written a lot more. NASCAR is starting to turn in the right direction.”

Fox’s sales team saw strong demand in several categories for Sunday’s race, including insurance, quick-service restaurants, retail, soft drinks and automotive. There also will be heavy film studio advertising during Sunday’s race. Pizza Hut, Sprint and GoDaddy are among the returning advertisers for the 500.

The network saw strong demand in the market for its double-box advertising pods, which will see a box of commercials run alongside live coverage of the race during the last hour of the broadcast. The double-box advertising pods are priced the same as traditional advertising pods. Fox plans to offer the option throughout the season.

“That worked well for us [last year] and advertisers seemed to like it, so we’re going to go the last half of the race without leaving the action,” Mulcahy said.

Fox is hoping to get a strong boost in viewership during this weekend’s 500 from Danica Patrick, who will compete in the race for the first time.

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The first edition of NBC Sports Network’s “Costas Tonight” was exactly what the network’s executives wanted: NBC Sports’ biggest on-air star, Bob Costas, interviewing a who’s-who list of top sports personalities from the Super Bowl.
Only 108,000 viewers watched it live.

One of the first shows to appear on the newly rebranded channel was a documentary called “Cold War on Ice.” Again, it was exactly the type of show NBC Sports covets for its all-sports cable channel: a high-quality documentary from one of the best producers in the business, former HBO Sports President Ross Greenburg.

“Costas Tonight” debuted from the Super Bowl with high-profile guests but drew modest numbers. Photo by: BEN COHEN / NBC

It drew only 167,000 viewers for its Jan. 2 premiere.

To put these numbers in perspective, the least viewed show on ESPN last month still drew 108,000 viewers: a repeat episode of “World Series of Poker” that ran opposite the thrilling ending of the Giants-49ers NFC Championship game on Saturday, Jan. 22 (9:30-10 p.m.).

A month into NBC Sports Network’s rebrand, and more than a year after the Peacock’s sports division took over Versus, the channel has seen viewership levels drop considerably.

Despite heavy promotion on the NBC broadcast network and a focus on higher-quality shows, viewership for NBC Sports Network is down 21 percent on a total-day basis from January 2011 to January 2012. In January 2011, Versus averaged 78,000 viewers. In January 2012, the first month of NBC Sports Network, that figure dropped to 62,000.

“We knew coming into this that if we were going to change this network and create, basically, a new sports network from scratch, we’re going to have some short-term issues ratings-wise,” said Jon Miller, president of programming at NBC Sports and NBC Sports Network. “But understand at the end of the day, it’s a long race. And slow-and-steady wins it.”

What makes the ratings drop so surprising is the fact that the channel’s live event programming has performed well over the past year. The channel’s NHL telecasts are up 7 percent so far this season to average 333,000 viewers per game. IndyCar viewership for the 2011 season was up 11 percent with an average of 402,000 viewers per race.

In fact, NBC Sports says the channel’s overall prime-time viewership for the year ending Jan. 28, 2012, is up 5 percent compared with the previous year. That increase comes on the back of its live events.

So the live-event strategy seems to be working, a direction spearheaded by new NBC Sports Chairman Mark Lazarus. But it is NBC Sports Network’s new higher-quality shows that have not found an audience yet. In fact, its new shows are pulling in lower audiences than programming from Versus, which was much cheaper to produce.

For example, the channel’s daily news show, “NBC SportsTalk,” has averaged 27,000 viewers since it launched in September. By comparison, Versus’ much-mocked daily news show “The Daily Line” nearly doubled that audience, averaging 53,000 viewers during its run.

NBC Sports Network’s much-praised show “NFL Turning Point” averaged 105,000 viewers last season. That’s roughly the same number of viewers who tuned into Versus’ widely panned NFL-themed shows “Sports Jobs with Junior Seau” (101,000 viewers) and “The T.Ocho Show” (100,000 viewers).

The low TV numbers are being closely monitored in sports TV circles, where rival networks, leagues, media buyers and cable operators are keeping close tabs on the five-year programming plan that Lazarus put into place earlier this year coinciding with the channel’s rebrand. To that end, NBC Sports held an exclusive invite-only “upfront” event for about 250 guests in Indianapolis on the Saturday before the Super Bowl to lay out the NBC Sports Group’s vision. The event attracted elite sports industry executives, including advertisers, media buyers and league commissioners like the NHL’s Gary Bettman and MLS’s Don Garber, as well as IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard.

After taking over as head of Versus’ programming, Miller canceled several shows, including “Sports Jobs with Junior Seau” and “The T.Ocho Show.” He called them off-brand and said it was hard to get advertisers to support them.

Miller pointed to “Costas Tonight” as the type of high-quality show for which he wants NBC Sports Network to be known. Despite the low viewership of its premiere episode, NBC signed Chevrolet to a significant sponsorship around the show.

“We had a lot of what I call empty rating points on our air,” Miller said. “That means there are programs that delivered big audiences, but you couldn’t monetize them. You couldn’t sell them.”

Miller pointed to the UFC as an example of an off-brand show that NBC had trouble getting advertisers to support.

The UFC, though, also illustrates the troubles NBC Sports Network is having with TV ratings. In January 2011, UFC programming averaged 124,000 viewers on Versus, a number that doubled the channel’s total day average at the time. The network’s viewership took a hit when it lost UFC programming to Fox in August.

Ad sales executives who spoke to SportsBusiness Journal on condition of anonymity because they do business with NBC said they want NBC Sports Network to succeed and become a competitor with ESPN, but they said the early low viewership is a concern.

Another challenge NBC Sports Network faces comes with outdoors programming. In January, seven of the 10 most viewed shows on NBC Sports Network were from the outdoors genre — shows like “NAPA’s North to Alaska” and “Bill Dance Outdoors.” This type of programming owes its roots to the historical foundation of the network, which launched in 1997 as the Outdoor Life Network. NBC executives have made no secret of the fact that they want to de-emphasize that programming genre, which, in turn, means de-emphasizing some of the channel’s most viewed, and most profitable, programming.

“Outdoor programming is a challenge for us,” Miller said. “It’s been in the fabric of the channel since it was OLN and Versus. We think there’s a place for it on NBC Sports Network, but certainly not at the level that it’s been.”

Miller says he plans to be patient with his channel’s new shows, saying that it takes time for viewers to find the channel. He’s more focused on acquiring rights to live events, which he said is the surest way for the network to grow. In the past month, NBC Sports has made relatively small acquisitions for the Breeders’ Cup and the Colonial Athletic Association conference. The channel will start its relationship with Major League Soccer next month. It expects to be aggressive as the rights to Major League Baseball, NASCAR and the Big East Conference are negotiated later this year.

“You grow by acquisition. You grow by bringing on more strong properties,” Miller said. “We’ve shown that we’re willing to step up to the plate and take a big swing.”

Executives at the leagues, however, told SportsBusiness Journal that the channel’s low ratings swing the negotiating advantage toward the leagues. “I hesitate to put it this way, but we know that they need us more than we need them,” one said.

In other areas, NBC Sports Network has seen some gains. Its distribution increased by 1 million homes in the past 12 months to 76.3 million homes, according to Nielsen. Cable operators pay an average of about 31 cents per subscriber per month for the channel, according to figures from SNL Kagan.

Miller is confident that the channel will start to see ratings gains. NBC-owned Golf Channel, for example, has seen its total day audience increase by 1 percent from January 2011 to January 2012 due, in large part, to being closely tied with NBC branding over the past year.

“We’ve done two things,” Miller said. “We’ve probably turned off that audience that was watching us. They’re going someplace else to get their mixed martial arts and programming like that. Now it’s incumbent upon us to start to build the audience up from scratch. Every day, we’re starting to see little victories that get us there.”

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Sitting in a makeshift office on the 10th floor of Indianapolis’ Pan American Plaza three days before the Super Bowl, ESPN executives Norby Williamson and John Wildhack used virtually the same talking points when discussing the next few months at ESPN:

• Nothing’s going to change.

• Williamson and Wildhack’s direct reports will ensure that continuity.

• The programming and production departments will continue to work closely together.

But for much of Bristol’s rank-and-file, the changes that new president John Skipper put in place last month are significant.

After overseeing production for seven years, Williamson now will oversee programming, essentially trading talent negotiations for media rights ones. During that time, Wildhack had been overseeing programming. He now will take over the production department.

The differences when you first meet the two executives are stark. Born and bred in Connecticut, Williamson’s outgoing personality has him always quick with a quip. Wildhack is from upstate New York and is much more reserved, playing his cards close to his vest.

Both are ESPN lifers. Wildhack started in 1980 as a production assistant; Williamson started five years later, he too as a production assistant.

At the end of last month, Skipper decided the two should switch roles and continue reporting to him.

In their first interviews since taking on their new responsibilities, both Williamson and Wildhack told SportsBusiness Journal that any changes will be minor and imperceptible to the home viewer.

“We work closely together anyway,” Williamson said of the programming and production departments. “It will be different, but it won’t be that much different.”

For ESPN viewers, Wildhack is taking on the more public job. He will help shape ESPN’s schedule and negotiate with on-air talent.

But Wildhack, who had been part of the programming department since 1994, said he’s not going to change a thing. The move marks a return to production for the executive, where he spent the first 14 years of his ESPN career.

“The amount of content and the quality of content that Norby and his team produce on a daily basis is unparalleled in the industry,” he said.

Specifically, Wildhack said that he will be “patient” with ESPN2’s afternoon programming block, which includes shows like “NFL 32” and “Dan Le Batard Is Highly Questionable.”

“We’ve seen some growth there,” he said. “If you believe in a show, then you’ve got to give that show every chance to succeed.”

Under Williamson’s reign, ESPN appeared to move away from a star-driven system. Gone were the days when Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick developed into stars on “SportsCenter.” Instead, ESPN’s on-air talent has seemed increasingly interchangeable.

But Williamson disagreed with that notion, pointing to Mike Greenberg, Mike Golic, Jeff Van Gundy and Jon Gruden as examples of home-grown stars that ESPN wants to keep.

“It used to be that ESPN and the networks had more bells and whistles than anything else, so their product on the screen looked better. It’s not the case anymore,” Williamson said. “Look at SNY. When you watch that stuff, Curt Gowdy’s producing that and, man, it looks good. There’s not all that much of a gap anymore.”

The only way to stand out today, Williamson said, is with on-air talent.

“Look at what we’re doing with Le Batard and his father,” he said, referring to Le Batard frequently including his father as a guest on his show. “That vision is star-driven. Whether it succeeds or not is a different discussion, but that is a personality-driven attempt to create a show.”

Williamson said he’s heard the criticism before and understands where it comes from. “There aren’t just two ‘SportsCenter’ anchors. There are 22,” he said.

But he said ESPN has committed to building its talent pool and creating stars, which is an initiative that Wildhack plans to continue to support.

Ever since Skipper was announced as George Bodenheimer’s successor, I’ve been told not to expect any changes. After talking with Wildhack and Williamson, I’m more convinced than ever that the ESPN of tomorrow will look a lot like the ESPN of today.

John Ourand can be reached at jourand@sportsbusinessjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @Ourand_SBJ.

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