When the home team plays, candidates pay

Before Peyton Manning arrived in Denver in 2012, the Broncos had gone three seasons without being showcased on NBC’s “Sunday Night Football.”

Since then they’ve been on eight times, with at least one more date scheduled for later this year.

When “Sunday Night Football” (top) and “Thursday Night Football” come to town, candidates and PACs pay more in the local market than when out-of-market teams are featured. Photo by: HUNTLEY PATON

For NBC affiliate KUSA in Denver, the economic swing of that scheduling shift is as striking as the contrast between Manning and predecessor Tim Tebow.

When congressional incumbent Mike Coffman bought a run of 30-second spots on the station during “Sunday Night Football,” he paid $13,680 each for placement in the Eagles-Giants and Steelers-Ravens games, the lowest rate made available to any advertiser in the game, as required by Federal Communications Commission regulations. For the Broncos’ “SNF” appearance against the 49ers on Oct. 19 he also paid the lowest rate, but it nearly tripled to $36,000.

Photo by: AP IMAGES

That was quite a bargain, considering what political action committees, which receive no such discount, have paid to crack into Broncos telecasts in Denver during the last two months.

The conservative group Crossroads GPS, which has taken aim at incumbent Sen. Mark Udall, paid $85,000 for a 30-second spot during the Broncos’ game against the Chargers on CBS’s “Thursday Night Football” on Oct. 23. The National Republican Senatorial Committee placed a $125,000 order for a 30-second spot in Denver during the Broncos-Patriots game Sunday, two days ahead of Tuesday’s election.

“When the [“Sunday Night Football”] schedule comes out and your local team is featured on it, you’re very happy,” said Mark Cornetta, president and general manager of Gannett-owned KUSA. “When they’re featured three times, you’re extremely happy. And if it happens to be during the election and you’ve got two or three games in the window, that’s almost like a Super Bowl.”

The numbers played out similarly during telecasts in other NFL markets, with candidates and PACs advertising during “SNF” on NBC and Thursday night games on CBS typically paying anywhere from 50 percent more to nine times more when a local team was featured in the national game.

Candidates and PACs have spent more than $14.5 million for spots during sports programming in the 15 states that have yielded the most heated races of this election cycle, based on a SportsBusiness Journal analysis of more than 6,600 documents filed with the FCC by 87 network affiliates since March.

Campaigns are drawn to sports for some of the same reasons as brewers and car dealers. Viewers are less likely to fast forward through commercials while watching live programming, a key factor in markets where campaign ads have dominated the airwaves for the last month. Sports audiences also are easy to categorize. Two-thirds of sports viewers are male. Advertising in sports can be a relatively efficient way to reach male voters.

The more revealing observations come when using the data as a window into the often cloaked world of TV ad rates.

In Denver, the 10 campaign spots that ran during “SNF” games that did not feature the Broncos sold for an average of $11,742. The two that aired when the Broncos played on “SNF” went for an average of $33,000, or nearly three times as much.

While all NBC affiliates see a bump when the local team plays on Sunday night, KUSA gets an even greater benefit because it airs Broncos shoulder programming, including a Sunday pregame show and a weekly Wednesday night show, along with preseason games. An “SNF” slot gives the station more valuable inventory to offer to the sponsors of those shows.

CBS affiliates are seeing similar bumps when local teams appear on the network’s new “Thursday Night Football” package. The NRSC spent $26,0000 for a spot on Charlotte CBS affiliate WBTV when the Panthers made their Thursday night appearance last week. Eight spots on other “TNF” games went for an average of $12,256 in Charlotte.

The Rauner campaign for governor spent $113K in the Chicago market during Bears-Panthers. Photo by: GETTY IMAGES

The difference Packers games make for the NBC affiliates in their home market is even more striking. In Milwaukee, four spots sold during “SNF” when the Packers weren’t playing brought in an average of $4,000. Three sold when the Packers appeared on “SNF” for an average of $18,667. In Green Bay, spots in Packers games were on average priced almost 10 times higher than the rest: $20,000 to $2,400.

“It’s fairly logical that if you can get a local team on in your package anywhere, whether it’s on prime time or on a Sunday afternoon, that’s a boon for you,” said Mark Strachota, general manager of CBS affiliate WDJT in Milwaukee, who previously headed Time Warner Cable Sports Channel in the market and before that was general manager of the local NBC affiliate. “And it’s a boon for you especially if that team is the Packers.

“I hate to sound like Captain Obvious, but you can’t overstate it. This is a good football market, so those other games will do a nice rating. But you’d rather have a Packers game than anything you can get.”