Though advertisers and agencies have "confidently
assume[d] that sports would bring them the kinds of
consumers they so ardently desired" for decades, TV sports
coverage "has been delivering more air balls and fumbles
than slam dunks and touchdowns," according to Stuart Elliott
of the N.Y. TIMES, who writes that the media could lose
"millions of dollars ... if fading interest requires them to
lower their advertising rates." David Verklin, CEO of Carat
North America, a unit of ad buyer Aegis Group: "Sports as an
advertising and marketing vehicle is going through a midlife
crisis. Ad people have so fallen in love with sports that
they assume no matter what you buy, it will be fantastic.
But sports does not have unlimited viewer loyalty, unlimited
program capacity or unlimited price elasticity." Bob Igiel,
Exec VP & Dir of U.S. Broadcast for Young & Rubicam's Media
Edge unit: "Sports has held up better than most programming,
but it's now suffering some of the same erosion of
viewership that everything else on television has." SFM
Media President Jerry Solomon: "We're not abandoning sports,
but we may be buying it less." Solomon added that ad buyers
have "gone to much more cable TV this year," including nets
like the History Channel and the Discovery Channel, which
draw "high numbers of men." Solomon: "Young people have
other things to do [besides watching sports on TV]. So
sports will continue to decline as they grow up without
being committed sports fans" (N.Y. TIMES, 10/26).
