SBJ Media: Will Owners' Meeting Address Sunday Ticket?

I’ll be in Manhattan tomorrow for SBJ’s Sports Marketing Symposium. On Wednesday, I am moderating a panel on sports rights at the NAB Show. Hope to see some of you there.

SUNDAY TICKET COULD BE PART OF NFL OWNERS' MEETING AGENDA

• Media topics don’t appear to be top of mind at this week’s NFL owners’ meetings in Ft. Lauderdale. The agenda includes an update on TV renewals, but all signs suggest that nothing of significance will be discussed (every media company wants the rights and the league is staring at a huge rights fee increase). SBJ’s Ben Fischer will be on site and will report back if anything breaks.
  
  
• Owners will get a ratings update, which should be positive given the league’s increase in viewership through the first quarter of the season. One area where there could be some discussion: the NFL Sunday Ticket package. AT&T/DirecTV had significant problems with the online feed during yesterday's games, leading to a lot of vitriol on social media. Just before 5:00pm ET, DirecTV tweeted that the glitch that affected the out-of-market package’s streams had been fixed. The problems did not appear to affect the linear TV feed for Sunday Ticket.
  
  
• Owners could be more focused on that glitch following comments from AT&T COO John Stankey to the Wall Street Journal last month, when he said Sunday Ticket was not as valuable to DirecTV. “There’s less profitability to support the decision” to offer Sunday Ticket, he told the paper. “It becomes less critical over time.” DirecTV pays $1.5 billion per year as part of a deal that runs through the 2022 season. NFL owners had to be peeved at Stankey for questioning the value of their content. Media execs tend to be much more complimentary in their public remarks, particularly when it comes to the NFL.

MLB POSTSEASON VIEWERSHIP LOWER THIS SEASON

• TV ratings headlines from the MLB postseason have not been kind so far. The League Division Series across TBS, FS1 and MLB Network posted its lowest viewership in at least a decade (3.04 million). Last year, those same networks averaged more viewers (3.2 million) with fewer games (14 games last year; 18 this year). Here’s the spin: Ratings may be down, but the numbers show how important live sports is to TV networks. Including its Wild Card game, TBS has won the night across cable TV three times with MLB playoff games, which is significant.
  
  
• There are plenty of reasons why the numbers are down: early start times, blowouts, bad comps. The biggest reason for the downturn is that this year’s LDS numbers are being compared to last year when the Red Sox played the Yankees, a matchup that usually produces big viewership numbers. TBS was hurt by Braves-Cardinals Game 5 this year, which was expected to produce big viewership numbers. But blowouts hurt ratings. When the Cards scored 10 first-inning runs, the audience numbers took a hit. Earlier start times also hurt ratings, and six of the 10 NLDS telecasts started at 6:30pm ET (compared to three last year). One source even pointed to “Joker,” which set October box office records, as a potential reason why viewership is down.
  
  
• Here in D.C. is a good example of MLB’s ratings conundrum. The nation's capital seems to be all-in on the Nationals, judging by the amount of curly W’s spotted around town. But ratings aren’t necessarily following suit. The team’s thrilling Game 2 win on Saturday afternoon posted an 8.7 local rating. By contrast, a dreadful Sunday afternoon NFL contest between the winless Redskins and the Dolphins posted a 14.2 local rating.

SPEED READS

• Last night was the series finale for “Ballers". The NFL-themed show, which counted former player Rashard Mendenhall as a lead writer, ran on HBO for five years and took the mantle from “Entourage” for athlete cameos. Among those making appearances over the years were Stephen Curry, Melvin Gordon, Alvin Kamara, Von Miller, Malcolm Jenkins, Terrell Suggs, Odell Beckham Jr., Mark Schlereth, DeAndre Hopkins, Randy Couture, Desmond Howard, Marcellus Wiley, Rodney Peete, Jared Goff, Ronnie Lott, Larry Csonka, Kemba Walker and Cris Carter. The show also has been giving viewers some of the first looks inside the bowl at SoFi Stadium, as later seasons had a plotline around the Rams. “Ballers” has even been in the spotlight recently with presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren professing her love of the show. 
  
  
• MSG Network, the first RSN in the country, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this week, complete with classic games and special programming. MSG Senior VP Kevin Marotta told me the network is using the milestone as a "moment to propel forward."
  
  
• USA Today published a fun list ranking the NFL’s top 50 broadcasters of all time. It’s top five were John Facenda, Pat Summerall, John Madden, Howard Cosell and Dan Meredith. Lists are designed to provoke arguments, and I have some quibbles about this one, which was published a couple of weeks ago. Any list of the top broadcasters has to start with Madden, the best TV analyst ever to put on a headset. Al Michaels is the only current broadcaster in the top 10. I have Jim Nantz and Joe Buck in my top 10. The paper ranks Buck 34th, which is absurdly low. USA Today ranks Tony Romo at 45; he has been good enough in his two-plus years to crack my top 20.
  
  
• I’m incredibly happy for my friend Tripp Mickle, who has a book deal with William Morrow. Tripp, who left SBJ for the Wall Street Journal in 2014, will pen a book on longtime Apple Chief Design Officer Jony Ive. How did he go from being an SBJ intern to getting a book deal? “Nothing prepared me better for writing a book than transcribing interviews for you and having Terry Lefton red-line articles on every sponsorship deal story I wrote,” he said.

Mickle (l) and I covered the 2012 London Olympics for SBJ. This picture is from the Opening Ceremony.

Enjoying this newsletter? We've got more! Check out SBJ College with Michael Smith on Tuesdays and Thursdays for insights into all the latest news around the world of college sports. Also check out SBJ Football with Ben Fischer on Friday afternoons.

Something on the Media beat catch your eye? Tell us about it. Reach out to either me (jourand@sportsbusinessjournal.com) or Austin Karp (akarp@sportsbusinessjournal.com) and we'll share the best of it. Also contributing to this newsletter is Thomas Leary (tleary@sportsbusinessdaily.com).