The Arena Football League hit its midseason mark with a dip inaverage attendance and overall fewer viewers watching their games, but theleague cites its new relationship with ESPN as the key for future growth bothon cable television and at the gate.
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Both ESPN and AFL officials say ratings are
on pace with what was expected. |
Through eight games of a 16-game regular season, the AFL onESPN2 has generated a 0.3 cable rating (245,000 households). The league’sopening game on ABC on March 4 generated a 1.0 network rating (1,092,000 HHs).Last year on NBC, the AFL averaged a 0.8 network rating (880,000 HHs) for itsentire slate of 15 telecasts.
Total viewership is down given the league’s heavy migration tocable compared with last year’s network deal with NBC. But two months intotheir five-year agreement, both ESPN and AFL officials said ratings are wherethey expected considering that both sides had just 75 days after signing thedeal in mid-December before airing the first 2007 regular-season game on ABC inearly March. The remaining seven games have been broadcast on ESPN2, with aregular Monday night schedule now in place.
ESPN officials said that their ratings on Mondays for the AFLgames are up 8 percent during the comparable time slots on ESPN2 last year,which featured assorted taped programming.
“The ratings are where we’d thought they’d be,” said MarcLowitz, president of AFL Network. “We continue to work with ESPN for otheropportunities and we expect that we’ll see steady but modest growth.”
The AFL has 16 regular-season windows on ESPN2, with oneregular-season game on ABC. ESPN and ESPN2 will broadcast 10 postseason games,with the ArenaBowl to be aired on ABC.
“We are on par but we are looking for growth,” said LeahLaPlaca, vice president of programming and acquisitions for ESPN. “We are ableto have AFL content on all our platforms, which is big for us. And next yearwill be the real launch on ESPN because we will have a lot more time and a lotmore learning to put into place as we go forward.”
In addition to live games on ESPN2, the AFL is also airinggames from previous seasons on ESPN Classic. The AFL is also promoted acrossall other ESPN platforms. Officials said that 90 percent of its AFL advertisinginventory is sold. ESPN sells the ad inventory, and to boost sales the leagueand ESPN will add four playoff preview shows.
Despite the low viewer numbers, AFL officials point out thatthere is more AFL programming on TV. The AFL last year had 670 hours ofprogramming. This year, it will have 723 hours of programming.
“The collective goal is to get as many people to touch theproduct as possible and we’ve exceeded expectations that we had going into therelationship,” Lowitz said.
Through April 30, the AFL is averaging 12,187 fans per game,down 2.7 percent compared with last year’s 12,517 average gate to date. The NewOrleans VooDoo lead the AFL in attendance with an average of 16,606 fans pergame at New Orleans Arena. The Las Vegas Gladiators are last in leagueattendance with a 5,637 average.
Overall ticket revenue this year is up mainly because theleague and its teams have cut back on complimentary tickets, though leagueofficials did not disclose specific revenue figures.
