By Paul Kennedy
As mentioned before, lead-insare hugely important for MLS national broadcasts.
MLS’s two biggest television audiences of 2013 happen to have both been on ESPN — the largest network for sports programming — but theyboth also aired directly after Confederations Cup broadcasts.
Sunday’s Philadelphia-New York game that followed the Spain-Nigeria Confederations Cup match averaged 323,000 viewers, upfrom 262,000 for the Portland-FC Dallas game on June 15.
Lead-ins during Euro 2012 and the 2012 Olympics — events with much larger viewerships than the Confederations Cup — accountedfor some exceptionally large regular-season audiences for MLS games in 2012 that will make it almost impossible for 2013 MLS average viewerships to match last year’s final average viewerships.
The Portland-Seattle game on ESPN averaged 888,000 viewers after the Italy-England Euro 2012 quarterfinal went to overtime and then penalty kicks and spilled over into the start time of the MLSmatch.
Five MLS broadcasts took place during the London Olympics when NBC Sports Network drew record audiences. Benefiting from the lead-ins of Olympic coverage, the five MLS gamesaveraged 286,000 viewers. If you throw out those five games, the MLS average for 2012 would have been 99,000 viewers on NBCSN.
The two most recent NBCSN broadcasts drew average viewers of149,000 (Seattle-Vancouver) and 133,000 (Portland-Colorado) — the second and third largest of the year on NBCSN — and pushed the season average up to 97,000, still down from the 110,000 averageafter 17 games in 2012.
The great unknown on NBCSN in 2013 is how its coverage of the English Premier League, beginning in August, will impact MLS audiences immediately following or laterin the day.
MLS English-Language Viewers:
+/1 NETWORK (2013 AVG.)
-31% ESPN2 178,000 (8 games)
-12% NBCSN 97,000(17 games)
Note: Percentage change is the increase or decrease over the network’s average viewers after the same number of regular-season games in2012.
CONFEDS CUP TRIPLE-DIGIT INCREASE. The Confederations Cup averaged 1.4 million viewers on Univision networks through the end of the group stage– up 145 percent from coverage of the 2009 event (when Mexico was not entered). The final Mexico match — a 2-1 win over Japan — averaged 2.1 million viewers on Univision.
FOX Soccer will televise one game per week over the final six weeks of the regular season. All three playoff matches, including the final, will air ona FOX network to be determined.
2013 NWSL TV Schedule:
July 14 — Seattle vs. Washington. 8:30p.m. FOX Soccer
July 21 — Western NY vs. Sky Blue FC. 1:30 p.m. FOX Soccer
July 28 — Portland vs. Chicago.7 p.m. FOX Soccer
Aug. 4 — Portland vs. FC Kansas City. 8:30 p.m. FOX Soccer
Aug. 10 — Washingtonvs. Seattle. 7 p.m. FOX Soccer
Aug. 17 — Western NY vs. Boston. 8 p.m. FOX Soccer
Aug. 24 —Semifinal 2 p.m. TBD
Aug. 24 — Semifinal 8 p.m. TBD
Aug. 31 — Championship, 8 p.m. TBD
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Nice, but the NYRB/Union contest had nothing special except that the RB squad’s mediocrity continues from game one.