PDA

View Full Version : Denver media cash in on Broncos football, a weekly ratings bonanza



Colorado Media Newsroom
November 4th, 2013, 06:04 AM
From The Denver Post:

300

Every media outlet wants a piece of the Denver Broncos, especially in a (so far) winning season. But the stakes are high in the weekly ratings bonanza, and the rules are complicated.

KUSA Channel 9 pays millions of dollars to declare itself "the home of the Broncos," with extra access to game footage, exclusive pre- and post-game interviews, and use of the Broncos logo to promote itself.

It's a gambit that stands to pay off in substantial ad revenues. And it's just the beginning of a multimedia, multi-billion dollar story.

KMGH Channel 7, if not the "home of the Broncos," is nonetheless the home of Broncos coach John Fox's show. As "an official proud partner" of the team since 2012, they can use the team logos and trademarks within that half-hour and in "Mile High Living," the female-friendly feature show.


The highly anticipated Broncos-Colts game on Oct. 20 set a Sunday Night Football record, making Denver the top-rated market in the country for the night with a 71 share. Locally, it was the highest-rated game since at least 2002. (AAron Ontiveroz, Denver Post file)
The days of exclusivity in media deals are gone. The Broncos are in ad-revenue-sharing deals with both KUSA and KMGH.

But viewers go where the games are: KCNC Channel 4 has rights to 10 regular-season games, KOA Radio claims radio rights. And nationally, Fox, ESPN, DirecTV and Verizon also have chunks of the extremely profitable broadcasting and live-stream turf.

It's a dizzying web. Every media outlet wants to cash in on the NFL team's reflected glory — and there is a great deal of cash at stake — but they face strict limitations from the Denver Broncos on how they can do so.

For example: Unless a Broncos-related show is part of a deal with the team, "neither the program title nor the set decoration ... may use the Broncos name or any of the club's trademarks, service marks, logos or other proprietary rights," per a team spokesman. Violators lose credentials and access.

And while everyday fans may paint their faces blue and orange, when a Denver car dealership dressed sales personnel in Broncos jerseys, KUSA and the team's legal experts quickly issued a cease and desist order. Unauthorized use of the logo for "ambush marketing" is rigorously policed.

Record TV ratings

To get a handle on the dollar value of Broncomania, start with the ratings. In an increasingly competitive and fragmented media marketplace, live sports — and particularly the NFL — are the only sure TV ratings drivers. And football's core audience is advertising's most coveted: young, committed and brand-aware.

Take the Oct. 20 Broncos-Colts matchup. The highly anticipated game set a Sunday Night Football record, making Denver the top-rated market in the country for the night with a 71 share (percent of the viewing audience). Locally, it was the highest-rated game (regular season or playoff) since at least 2002. Some 781,000 households watched Peyton Manning's return to Indianapolis.

And that's just one game. Broncos outings rank as four of the top six most-watched TV programs nationally since Labor Day (through week 7, excluding the Redskins game).

In terms of station revenues, "it's close to a Super Bowl every week," one local TV executive said.

The weekly windfall makes the substantial stadium receipts look paltry. Seats aren't cheap, but ticket sales are a minute fraction of the staggering broadcast revenue stream.

Four national networks, NBC, CBS, Fox and ESPN, reportedly pay a combined total of $20.4 billion for the current broadcast rights to NFL games; they'll pay $40 billion for the contract covering 2014-2022. TV rights tend to double with each negotiation. They spend money to make (more) money.

A local station may pay the team $2 million a year (half cash, half in commercial time) to be the exclusive "home of." And local advertisers pay roughly $30,000 per 30-second spot in regular-season games — of which at least half goes to the team.

Why are the prices so high? Reliability and loyalty: The audience is always there. Broncos fans don't give up. Whereas the Avs lose two-thirds of the television audience if they're not winning, the Broncos lose only one-tenth of the audience when they fall behind.

"Clearly," KUSA boss Mark Cornetta said, "Denver and Colorado love their Denver Broncos."

Rights holders

• KUSA is the official TV "Home of the Denver Broncos" for the third consecutive year. Channel 9 aired three preseason games (including on KTVD), and three regular-season Broncos games, carried nationally on NBC. KUSA also has "Broncos Huddle," "Broncos Tonight," "Broncos Sideline Stories with Jim Saccomano" and "Broncos Game Day Live"; four quarterly specials; pregame specials; exclusive postgame locker-room access (the station gets 10 minutes in the locker room before other local media); weekly exclusive one-on-one sitdown interviews with coaches and players. And one-hour "special edition" shows for big games.

• KMGH has "The John Fox Show" and "Mile High Living" and can promote itself as "Official Proud Partner of the Denver Broncos."

• CBS4, the previous Broncos flagship station, has nine games on CBS plus local rights to one NFL Network game.

• KDVR, Fox31, has two games.

• KOA radio has English-language radio rights.

• Entravision Communications has the radio rights for Spanish broadcasts of the games on Denver's KMXA-AM (1090) and KJMN-FM (92.1). Entravision also broadcasts a highlights show Saturday nights on Univision affiliate KCEC-TV.

• Verizon commands broadband rights: Unlike other sports, the NFL's live streaming rights, which will only become more important, are negotiated separately. A mobile app with Verizon, allowing fans to watch home games on their phones, is reportedly worth $1 billion over four years.

more (http://www.denverpost.com/entertainment/ci_24429463/denver-media-cash-broncos-football-weekly-ratings-bonanza)