Sports Media 2013: Charting the Landscape Over the Next Five Years

Thursday, March 13, 2008 | 3:22 p.m. | By Patrick Kinmartin | Comments | Print

Day two of the World Congress of Sports opened with a look into the immediate future of the media market, which by all accounts will be an interesting ride. Fox’s Ed Goren, HBO’s Ross Greenburg, NBA Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver, ESPN’s John Skipper and Turner Sports’ David Levy formed the panel that took center stage for the discussion at the main ballroom at The St. Regis Resort in a discussion of various topics confronting the industry.

The issue: Should league officials openly criticize their partner networks?

View A Slide Show From The Reception

The reason: NBA Commissioner David Stern recently lashed out at ESPN The Magazine for an article about his league's reputation, titled "Perception is Not Reality," that ran the week of the annual All-Star Game.

The skinny: Silver defended Stern's remarks, saying, "I don't know why there's the connotation that the broadcasters and commentators can be critical of the league, and we can't give them the same type of feedback."

Greenburg welcomed such a back-and-forth between the leagues and networks, admitting, "We have to be that vibrant in this industry or the industry will crash."

Greatest hit: Skipper offered ESPN's side and dismissed any notion that this was the first time the two entities have butted heads. "David has given me his thoughts before," Skipper said.

The issue: With networks utilizing multimedia technology like never before, how will television ratings be affected?

The reason: Cell phone text messaging, broadband streaming and many other avenues of advanced communication have become prominent features of live sports coverage.

The skinny: What was clearly the most involved conversation of the session had the panelists offering very different perspectives. Levy was thrilled with the boost that the components to TNT's live broadcast of All-Star Saturday seemed to provide: "We had streaming, we had text participation with the audience voting and we ended up with our highest ratings ever for the slam dunk contest."

Skipper backed Levy's suggestion that Nielsen should establish an aggregate ratings system in which advertisers are able gauge the number of viewers tuned in across different media platforms. "We have to get some type of metric system for that," he said.
Silver was more concerned that too many mediums of coverage might wear TV viewership thin, saying, "Trends show ratings are generally down. (The NBA believes that) by going long on TV, all the other platforms will follow and lead consumers back to their sets."

Greatest hit: Goren has been baffled with NASCAR viewers' fascination with his network's "gopher cam" inside racing vehicles. "We must have had 2 million votes come in when we asked what they wanted to name this stupid camera," he said. "People don't seem to have time to do anything anymore, but they have time to vote on how we should refer to this damn camera."

The issue: Where will the many channels being established by niche sports fit into the market?

The reason: Just about every sport these days, from Tennis Channel to Fuel TV for X Games-type enthusiasts, has its own piece of the cable realm.

The skinny: Skipper said, "I dislike the term niche. I think there's room for everybody."
Levy said, "How the niche networks survive will be the key. With college sports that are smaller, it might come down to being subscription-based and dependent on broadband streaming, where a mother in Seattle can watch her daughter play in North Carolina."

Greatest hit: Greenburg, talking about how the potential rise of sports such as mixed martial arts could lead to a strong presence on cable, said organizations such as UFC have poential, but added, "It's a little premature to predict by 2013 the MMA is going to sweep the Big Four."

The issue: Will a potential economic recession affect viewership?

The reason: During the first panel of the conference, a group of sports industry leaders had generally agreed that the business has become "recession-proof."

The skinny: Goren said, "Financial analysts are on television predicting a lot of doom and gloom, but I've never seen our sales guys smile wider. We're on track for our biggest fiscal year ever." Silver said, "Our season-ticket renewal period is coming up and we're real interested to see how we'll do with all the reports (about a recession) out there."

Greatest hit: Skipper summed up the vibe of the panel, saying "I think sports is recession-resistant. I prefer we get through this recession as quickly as possible, because I don't want to see how resistant we are or aren't."