NIELSEN SPORTS INSIGHTS

Transcription

1 October 2012 NIELSEN SPORTS INSIGHTS The London 2012 Olympic Games won multiple gold medals with American viewers this summer as the Games demonstrated the incredible drawing power of sports content. The NBC primetime broadcast of the Olympics averaged 31.1 million viewers across the 17 days of coverage and became the most-watched event in U.S. television history. Ryan Lochte, Missy Franklin and Gabby Douglas became breakout stars and Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt continued to build upon their status as Olympic legends with their gold medal performances in London. Hope Solo, Abby Wambach, Alex Morgan and the rest of the U.S. Women s Soccer team extracted some revenge from their heartbreaking World Cup loss to Japan last summer with a win in the Gold Medal game which was watched by 4.4 million viewers on average, and became the mostwatched event ever on the NBC Sports Network. As the Summer Games wound down, both college football and the NFL got off to strong starts. Two of the college game s most storied programs in Alabama and Michigan squared off over Labor Day weekend in the Cowboys Classic and close to 8 million viewers tuned in, on average. The NFL got a nice boost from the return of Peyton Manning as his debut with his new Denver Broncos team delivered a record 44.6 household rating in Denver in the season premiere of Sunday Night Football. As you will see throughout this edition of the newsletter, Nielsen's "FANALYTICS" platform is committed to tracking fan engagement with sports content and media consumption across every screen. Inside this issue: 2012 Olympics Cover Olympics (Cont) 2-3 MLB 4 NCAA Football 5 NFL 5-6 UFC 6 Nielsen Sports Extra 7 We hope you enjoy these highlights from across Nielsen's wealth of consumer and media insights as we strive to give you a deeper understanding of the sports fan. Sincerely, Stephen Master Senior Vice President of Sports, Nielsen Stephen.Master@nielsen.com 2012 Summer Olympics Wins Gold! LONDON 2012 OLYMPIC GAMES In the U.S., more than 179 million people tuned in to at least six minutes of the London 2012 Olympic Games in primetime on NBC. With all this interest, we asked viewers just how much attention did they really pay to the Opening Ceremony compared to other big events in sports. The Opening Ceremony was the single most engaging major sports event of the last 12 months among viewers aged Women were especially captivated by the Opening night, with their attention the strongest when compared to championship games for other sports. Men showed equal interest in the Opening Ceremonies and Super Bowl XLVI as 65 percent of men engaged with each event. Source: Nielsen Brand Effect: Program Engagement = % of show content questions on average viewers were able to recall within 24-hours of being exposed; *2011 World Series, 2012 Masters, 2012 BCS Championship, 2012 Stanley Cup, 2012 Daytona 500, March Madness, 2012 NBA Finals

2 London 2012 Olympic Games (Continued) Teens Glued To The TV For The Games, And We re Not Talking Video Games With all the digital-social-mobile hype surrounding the London 2012 Olympic Games, teens still watched the Olympics through their TV screen. Among the 17 Olympic primetime telecasts on NBC, about 795,000 female teenagers tuned in on average, which was up 47 percent from Overall, teen viewership was up 22 percent from Beijing. Source: Galaxy Explorer: 2012 Dates: July 27th through August 12th 2012; 2008 Dates: August 8th through August 24th It s all About The Apps In The U.K. In general, about 28 percent of mobile users around the globe reported watching video on their mobile device daily. For the London 2012 Olympic Games, we decided to take a look at how UK residents were engaging with their mobile phones during the events. Looking at time spent, the average time spent in app per person jumped from 10 minutes per person/week to 21 minutes per person/week during the first week of The Olympic Games. Overall, engagement with the official London 2012 properties was high, and apps were the primary way that people stayed current with the games on their mobile devices as 96 percent of time spent happened in-app.

3 London 2012 Olympic Games (Continued) Who Doesn t Like a Three-Peat ; Americans Adore Misty May and Her 3 Golds Between her second and third Olympics, Misty May was elevated to Superstar status* as her awareness grew threefold. Moreover, men found her to be more confident and more energetic during this Olympics than in Beijing. * * Source: Nielsen/E-Poll: N-Score; Awareness is % of respondents who recognize sports figure by image or name; Appeal is % of those who recognize sports figure and likes, likes somewhat or likes a lot * Bring in the Medals, Bring in the Buzz The social media conversation heated up for men earning gold at the Games. Bolt, Lochte and Phelps garnered a large share of the conversation. Congratulations, spoiler alerts and world record references were among the topics discussed. Through social media researcher NM Incite -a Nielsen/McKinsey company-, we took a look at the daily buzz trend for these athletes from the start of the London 2012 Olympic games stretching through one week after the closing Congrats to Michael Phelps for breaking the all-time Olympic medal record. You ve made your country proud. -bo Ryan Lochte wins first US gold medal, Michael Phelps finishes 4th Congratulations Ryan Lochte for getting silver in the 200m Usain Bolt wins gold medal in men's 100m final setting new Olympic record in race Jamaica's Usain Bolt becomes the 1st man to defend the Olympic 200m men's title Source: NMncite: Dates: July 27, 2012 through August 19, 2012; Buzz Volume represents individual posts online that mention selected keywords/names on Blogs, Message Boards/ Groups, public post on Twitter and Facebook, Video and Images sites and news websites

4 MLB On The Rise In Mobile And In The Mid-Atlantic MLB Fans Really Go Mobile In 2012 During the MLB regular season, more fans actively engaged with baseball on their mobile devices than ever before. In July, more than 5 million smartphone users visited MLB.com on their phone, which is up 130 percent from the previous year. Source: Mobile NetView: P18+ In The Mid-Atlantic, Winning and Ratings Go Hand-in-Hand While Stephen Strasburg sat out the last month of the regular season, Washington DC households stayed tuned in as the Nationals made their late season playoff run. A look at Washington Nationals viewership during the regular season showed record ratings among households. The 2.2 household rating is the highest average rating for the Nationals since they moved from Montreal in Looking at a year-over-year analysis (through October 3rd, 2012), households tuning in for Nationals games in the Washington, DC designated market area (DMA) doubled. In addition, tuning for Nats games has increased 33 percent from June 1st to the end of the regular season. In the greater Baltimore-Washington DC metropolitan area, although the Nationals gained 57 percent more viewers than last season, the Baltimore Orioles are still king with an average of 40,000 viewers per game this season. GAMES Source: Arianna: For the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area, ratings for each club are the result of aggregating both the Baltimore and Washington DC market ratings.

5 College Football Owns Saturday Night More college football games are being picked up in primetime than ever before. Ten years ago there were four games total airing in primetime on broadcast networks during the regular season. In 2012, through Saturday, October 6th, 13 games have already been featured in primetime across 4 major broadcast networks. Through the first 5 weeks of the regular season, college football won Saturday night four out of five times. How long can NCAA football keep the number one rating streak for Saturday night alive? Top 2 Full Programs Through The First 5 Weeks Of The Regular Season Spotlight: Birmingham On September 1st, 85% of all households watching primetime TV in the Birmingham DMA tuned into college football. Source: Arianna: Games include Michigan/ Alabama on WBMA, Auburn/Clemson on ESPN, Hawaii/USC on WBRC) Source: Galaxy Explorer: Saturday Prime Ranker P2+ (Live+SD) The NFL Season Is Off To Another Great Start! In its opening week, million viewers watched at least six minutes of the seven NFL telecasts. The Super Bowl Champion New York Giants kicked off the NFL season at home on Wednesday, September 5th -- the same night as the second day of the Democratic National Convention. The Giants opener was against the Cowboys and although this match-up is always a compelling story, this year the bigger match-up was the Giants/Cowboys vs. Bubba (Bill Clinton) as he delivered the keynote speech that evening at the DNC just as the second half of the game was kicking off. Although the NFL barely lost the showdown to Clinton it still averaged 23.9 million viewers, which was up a whopping 77 percent when compared to the 2008 kick-off game, where 13.5 million viewers tuned in on average to watch the Giants vs. Redskins, which was the same night of the RNC featuring John McCain. Source: National TV Toolbox/Arianna; The 7 telecasts for the Opening Weekend includes the NBC NFL KICKOFF GAME (9/5), CBS NFL SINGLE GAMES (9/9), FOX NFL REGIONAL GAMES (9/9), FOX NFL NATIONAL GAMES (9/9), NBC SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL (9/9), ESPN MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL (9/10 - CIN/BAL) and ESPN MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL (9/10 - SD/ OAK); COPYRIGHT 2012 NIELSEN MEDIA RESEARCH LIVE+SD; DNC aired on 7 networks from 10:00-11:30pm EST. TV methodology--sum of average audience across the networks that aired common, live coverage from 10:00pm - 11:30pm (ABC, CBS, CNN, Current TV, FOX News, MSNBC and PBS).

6 The NFL (Continued) TV Ads Score in the NFL Kick-Off Game: NFL Viewers Remember And Like What They See While the start of the NFL regular season always generates excitement, the ads airing in this year s kick-off game on NBC between the Giants and Cowboys scored well, too. On average, this year s ads scored five points higher in likeability than those that ran in last year s opening face-off between the Saints and Packers. Source: Nielsen Brand Effect: Likeability Linkage = % of viewers who recalled the ad + brand + liked the ad a lot or somewhat UFC On FOX...And It s Evans/Davis By Submission! Since joining the Fox family, the overall average viewership of UFC live broadcasts increased 36 percent over last year. In terms of ad effectiveness, the event on August 4, featuring Shogun vs. Vera, had the highest general recall among viewers with 53 percent recalling the ads. However, during the broadcast that featured Evans vs. Davis, 79 percent correctly associated the brands with the advertisers, with 5- Hour Energy and Harley Davidson claiming the most recall. Source: Nielsen Brand Effect: General Recall = % who remembered the ad (also referred to as breakthrough or ad recall); Brand Recall = % who remembered the ad AND attributed it to correct advertiser (brand); Brand Linkage = Among viewers recalling ad, % who correctly associated with Advertisers Fun Facts In addition to following their favorite MMA Fighter, people who visit UFC.com are also 11 percent more likely to go jogging for physical fitness, 11 percent more likely to powerlift and 10 percent more likely to participate to play basketball than the general population over the age of 17. Might there be future Olympic medal hopefuls among these fans? Release

7 Nielsen Sports Extra Check out other insight reports from around Nielsen: African-Americans: Still Vital, Still Growing 2012 Report: reports-downloads/2012/african-american-consumers--still-vital--still-growing-2012-repo.html State of the Media: Cross-Platform Report 2Q 2012: Introducing Boomers: Marketing s Most Valuable Generation: For more information contact: Stephen Master Senior Vice President of Sports, Nielsen (646) Stephen.Master@nielsen.com