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View Full Version : TFC Got Smoked in the ratings



ensco
06-10-2008, 09:51 AM
I guess this is no surprise, but it was so ugly that I thought I'd post it as a separate thread (as opposed to the daily news section) - I guess it's a pair to the closed thread on the Ultras story about trying to get this game on TV...

Sunday night we got only 20,000 (per the stupid Neilson ratings which systematically under-reports viewership by young men and coverage in bars, etc). This was against the NBA Finals (which got 280,000), a Cubs-Dodgers game that got 98,000 (this one stings) and the Germany-Poland rebroadcast (I'm not sure what they got, the Globe reports 227,000 but this is probably for the afternoon live broadcast).

It was a very competitive night, but, with hockey done....the trend has to be a bit disconcerting to MLSE.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080610.wspttruth10/BNStory/GlobeSportsSoccer/

werewolf
06-10-2008, 09:54 AM
thats not good at all. Even worse when its a low-quality away broadcast. Have there been any TFC commercials during the Euro games on sportsnet? I didn't get a chance to watch fully the other day, but that would be a good time.

MG42
06-10-2008, 09:56 AM
20,000...ouch...maybe viewers realize TFC blows away from BMO...you have to admit it was really tough to make it trhough watching that game :(

SilverSamurai
06-10-2008, 09:59 AM
Maybe it's the fact that the Score should be doing their own broadcasting (also NBA finals) lol

I found that CBC wanting to get their own sportsnetwork a good idea. Will help for the World Cup coverage.

Billy the kid
06-10-2008, 10:03 AM
Maybe if Montreal or Vancouver get a team, it will help with ratings on a nation wide basis. I'm not sure that outside of the GTA, there is very much interest.

olegunnar
06-10-2008, 10:05 AM
It's hard to blame the channel it was shown on when those channels have far better ratings for other programming.

The Score's crappy picture quality, and obligated tickers doesn't seem to hurt its wrestling ratings.

Ladies Love Julius James
06-10-2008, 10:05 AM
I know the NBA finals were on but 20k is just downright nasty.

stugautz
06-10-2008, 10:09 AM
I think this is the best argument AGAINST expansion at BMO. As long as we're getting ratings like this, there won't be a need for it. And the MLSE execs know this as well. 20,000 sold out, or 22,000 in a 25,000 seat venue. Seems like the non-hardcore fans (you can use whatever words you want for them) don't care about watching the team on TV, only live games.

olegunnar
06-10-2008, 10:13 AM
I think this is the best argument AGAINST expansion at BMO. As long as we're getting ratings like this, there won't be a need for it. And the MLSE execs know this as well. 20,000 sold out, or 22,000 in a 25,000 seat venue. Seems like the non-hardcore fans (you can use whatever words you want for them) don't care about watching the team on TV, only live games.

I'd argue the opposite. It's a good argument in favour of expansion.

To me the ratings show that TFC is like a private party. The people that have tickets are involved and are hooked. Those on the outside looking in have no connection to the team and no opportunity to create a connection.

It's a bait and switch...draw them in with the hype of the home games...and hope they become soccer fans.

Soccer fans watch road games. Party people only go to the live games.

Ossington Mental Youth
06-10-2008, 10:14 AM
Id argue that most people were soccer'd out by that time in the evening, then again there are more games playing during the regular season so that might not be an excuse...

Damien
06-10-2008, 10:22 AM
I'm always dissappointed with camera work and commentators on the score regardless of the feed.

Barbarez
06-10-2008, 10:35 AM
LOL @ people blaming the picture on the score for the low ratings now...

Like gunner said, maybe the people on the outside just don't give a shit? Maybe it's just a 'thing to do' for the 15000 other people that come to the game? 20, 000...little mosque on the prarie used to get more viewers FFS

Shaughno
06-10-2008, 10:37 AM
^^ Fact of the matter is, TFC and soccer in general still is a little fish in a big sports pond here. Top EPL/Champs League games don't even get 'high' viewer ratings.

werewolf
06-10-2008, 10:40 AM
maybe this is why the game isn't shown at Boston Pizza :lol:

The team is still young in the city, hopefully it will grow. There are clearly enough soccer fans in the city, as proved by the Euro ratings.

Roogsy
06-10-2008, 10:41 AM
Honestly, if I didn't have my PVR recording ALL Major League Soccer game, I wouldn't even have known WHERE the game was.

I like the Score, at least the work that the footy podcast guys do. But in marketing? They truly do suck. I am surprised more than 5 people figured out where the game was. They did zero promotion for it. Do they expect people to turn on the TV Sunday night and hope something good is on The Score?

Barbarez
06-10-2008, 10:44 AM
maybe this is why the game isn't shown at Boston Pizza :lol:

The team is still young in the city, hopefully it will grow. There are clearly enough soccer fans in the city, as proved by the Euro ratings.

Or anywhere else in the Scarb area...

Ladies Love Julius James
06-10-2008, 10:45 AM
The ratings havent been great on other stations as well. 60-80k is the norm and I think Sunday nights have to do plenty with only having 20k. People rather watch Simpsons, Family Guy,, NBA Finals, Sunday night baseball instead. Still nearly impossible to justify such a small number as 20k. Pathetic.

Barbarez
06-10-2008, 10:48 AM
The ratings havent been great on other stations as well. 60-80k is the norm and I think Sunday nights have to do plenty with only having 20k. People rather watch Simpsons, Family Guy,, NBA Finals, Sunday night baseball instead. Still nearly impossible to justify such a small number as 20k. Pathetic.

Exactly. Why should rest. franchises and other locals air the game when TFC fans at home are not even tuning in...football is a big joke in North America.

Parkdale
06-10-2008, 10:49 AM
It's a shame it's that low, but it will probably never beat out the NBA Finals in this country.

rocker
06-10-2008, 10:50 AM
be careful tho -- ratings are not an exact science ... actually, they are quite biased.
the people who get the ratings books or systems are generally upper middle class, white, and live in good neighbourhoods. the companies that do the ratings perform some statistical "magic" on the numbers to try to make it seem "real" but it's not an actual count of how many people watched. So it's not a fact that "20000 people watched the TFC game". 70000 people could have watched, but if 50000 aren't in the demographic that gets the books or ratings machines, then they aren't counted. It's like how with political polling, they have problems now whereby people are self-selecting by choosing NOT to answer the phone when the polling company calls.

Basically the advertisers are looking for a certain demographic (not just the 18-49 thing they always spout) to sell to, and the ratings companies find them that demographic and then figure out how many people of THAT group (potential buyers) watched the games. Naturally this skews towards certain audiences and more traditional sports.

CretanBull
06-10-2008, 11:20 AM
I think there's a lot of problems, one of them being after watching incredibly high-quality Euro games watching the MLS is a bit of a let down for casual fans and Euro-snobs. The Germany/Poland game was going to steal most of the soccer viewers - a lot of people work, go to church, spend family time together, BBQ, do work around the house etc. on a Sunday. Also, keep in mind that the game was originally scheduled for Saturday night - anyone with an older schedule would have expected to see the game on Saturday, not Sunday. We had people show up at Mansion for our regular viewing party on Saturday night so it wasn't just casual fans who were fooled. So all round, the conditions weren't great for high viewership.

In addition to those problems, personally I'm finding it increasingly difficult to watch games when we pick up the feed from the home team's broadcast. A few weeks ago when we played DC on the Wednesday night I was sick and had to give my tickets to a friend. I watched the game from home and it was a painfull experience...the non-stop chatter of the announcers was really too much to take and I ended up turning the volume off the TV for most of the second half. Honestly, if that broadcast was my first experience with a MLS game I wouldn't ever have a second experience with the league - it was that bad.

If local channels want better ratings, they need to invest in their own broadcast teams...but they won't invest in local broadcast teams unless the ratings justify it.

bee dubya
06-10-2008, 12:35 PM
The broadcast on Sunday was terrible. I could hardly tell who was who on the field because the signal was so compressed and the camera angle was too far back. I really wish that TFC would talk to The Score and force them to produce the game themselves instead of just picking up "local 55" or whatever feed they can find.

The Score's overall footy coverage has fallen off considerably since their shake-up a couple of months ago.

BeachRed
06-10-2008, 01:00 PM
...football is a big joke in North America.

That's funny, that's exactly what baseball owners said in 1970 when the NFL signed a deal with last-place ABC to air games on Monday night.

How's that working out?

ilikemusic
06-10-2008, 01:38 PM
Considering the quality of the game, they should consider themselves lucky so few people tuned in.

Parkdale
06-10-2008, 01:56 PM
here's two interesting stats.

The World Cup Final is THE highest rated program on TV worldwide.

The Superbowl is the highest rated program worldwide in years that don't have a Worldcup, Eurocup or the Olympics.

what I take from that, is that the rest of the world watches the Superbowl, even though the WC isn't very popular in the states.

footyfan
06-10-2008, 01:58 PM
20,000...ouch...maybe viewers realize TFC blows away from BMO...you have to admit it was really tough to make it trhough watching that game :(



Or maybe it is a dose of reality that Toronto is like every other MLS market when it comes to "watching soccer on TV"?

But damn, 20,000 that blows, DC United typically gets 2-4 times that amount for broadcasts on CSN.

footyfan
06-10-2008, 02:00 PM
here's two interesting stats.

The World Cup Final is THE highest rated program on TV worldwide.

The Superbowl is the highest rated program worldwide in years that don't have a Worldcup, Eurocup or the Olympics.

what I take from that, is that the rest of the world watches the Superbowl, even though the WC isn't very popular in the states.

Wrong. The World Cup's popularity is as high or higher than that of Canada.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/sports/july-dec06/worldcup_07-10.html
More people in the USA watched the 2006 World Cup than every game of the 2006 World Series, the NBA finals of the same year and the NHL final.

werewolf
06-10-2008, 02:03 PM
being rescheduled to later sunday evening, with an away broadcast might have contributed a little as well.

trane
06-10-2008, 02:07 PM
Or maybe it is a dose of reality that Toronto is like every other MLS market when it comes to "watching soccer on TV"?

But damn, 20,000 that blows, DC United typically gets 2-4 times that amount for broadcasts on CSN.


Fuck of already. No Toronto is not like the rest of the MLS in any way shape or form. The Euro's are on and for the next month the majority of the fans attention will be on that. The problem is that the fucking Americans, play on a different scheduale then the rest of FIFA. The entire footy world is watching the Euro's why would Toronto be any different? Please stay of our fucking boards. Parky, can you please ban this guy.

VoxPopuliCosmicum
06-10-2008, 02:21 PM
Fuck of already. No Toronto is not like the rest of the MLS in any way shape or form. The Euro's are on and for the next month the majority of the fans attention will be on that. The problem is that the fucking Americans, play on a different scheduale then the rest of FIFA. The entire footy world is watching the Euro's why would Toronto be any different? Please stay of our fucking boards. Parky, can you please ban this guy.

Kinda harsh, no? Yes, his posts are occasionally unrelated to TFC, but he(?) brings a different and mostly rational viewpoint. More than anything, he probably wishes he was one of us.

Despite the abuse he suffers, I've never seen him reciprocate.

Oldtimer
06-10-2008, 02:21 PM
Or maybe it is a dose of reality that Toronto is like every other MLS market when it comes to "watching soccer on TV"?

But damn, 20,000 that blows, DC United typically gets 2-4 times that amount for broadcasts on CSN.

TFC gets more like 80-100,000 when it's on a Saturday afternoon on CBC.

trane
06-10-2008, 02:31 PM
Kinda harsh, no? Yes, his posts are occasionally unrelated to TFC, but he(?) brings a different and mostly rational viewpoint. More than anything, he probably wishes he was one of us.

Despite the abuse he suffers, I've never seen him reciprocate.


It is harsh, but this is a TFC supporters , specifically RPB board, every comment he makes is about who DC is better then TFC, again what would he expect?

Roogsy
06-10-2008, 02:34 PM
Probably he expect some grief, but not a banning. This is an OPEN thread and he is more tolerable than some supposed TFC fans. He hasn't broken any rules...hence he won't be banned. Let us know if he does.

BeachRed
06-10-2008, 03:08 PM
Probably he expect some grief, but not a banning. This is an OPEN thread and he is more tolerable than some supposed TFC fans. He hasn't broken any rules...hence he won't be banned. Let us know if he does.

Yes, it's good to keep the board open. Footyfan brings some good perspective on the history of MLS and how far its come - sometimes we sound as if there was no league before we joined, instead of just no league worth talking about.:)

As far as the SuperBowl's international TV numbers go, that's a really one-off 'event.' It doesn't really show any interest in other NFL games. Kind of like all those billions of people who tune into the Academy Awards but have no intention of seeing any of the movies nominated.

The NFL has done all it can to get the rest of the world interested in their sport and it just isn't working.

brad
06-10-2008, 03:43 PM
Honestly, if I didn't have my PVR recording ALL Major League Soccer game, I wouldn't even have known WHERE the game was.


The answer lies here (for people like us who are actively looking for this info, not for the casual)

http://www.livesoccertv.com/

brad
06-10-2008, 03:55 PM
TFC gets more like 80-100,000 when it's on a Saturday afternoon on CBC.

It will be interesting to see what the ratings are this Saturday with 2 Euro games happening in the day.

What I do know is that I have friends that normally watch TFC games that didn't tune in on Sunday because they'd had enough football with two Euro matches.

There are more actual matches to distract you during the course of the season, but right now there are two matches a day that most every serious football fan is going to watch.

mighty_torontofc_2008
06-10-2008, 05:24 PM
Maybe it's the fact that the Score should be doing their own broadcasting (also NBA finals) lol

I found that CBC wanting to get their own sportsnetwork a good idea. Will help for the World Cup coverage.

nah, they will just more hockey on it then anything else, oh don't forget that other dim sport curling? TFC and MLSE need a TFC channel where
TFC and other MLS gmaes could be shown.

Bobo
06-10-2008, 05:27 PM
thats not good at all. Even worse when its a low-quality away broadcast. Have there been any TFC commercials during the Euro games on sportsnet? I didn't get a chance to watch fully the other day, but that would be a good time.

NONE! It's been driving me nuts. Something about TFC or the CMNT...

Cambridge_Red
06-10-2008, 05:32 PM
People are interested in my area but still don't know who TFC is... scary

TFC07
06-10-2008, 05:42 PM
be careful tho -- ratings are not an exact science ... actually, they are quite biased.
the people who get the ratings books or systems are generally upper middle class, white, and live in good neighbourhoods. the companies that do the ratings perform some statistical "magic" on the numbers to try to make it seem "real" but it's not an actual count of how many people watched. So it's not a fact that "20000 people watched the TFC game". 70000 people could have watched, but if 50000 aren't in the demographic that gets the books or ratings machines, then they aren't counted. It's like how with political polling, they have problems now whereby people are self-selecting by choosing NOT to answer the phone when the polling company calls.

Basically the advertisers are looking for a certain demographic (not just the 18-49 thing they always spout) to sell to, and the ratings companies find them that demographic and then figure out how many people of THAT group (potential buyers) watched the games. Naturally this skews towards certain audiences and more traditional sports.

Thank you!!! TV ratings in Canada are very biased. Toronto Raptors don't get a high rating either, but yet we got one of highest numbers of STH in the NBA. Strange, eh?

For the record, only 5 million Canadians have theScore channel.

jimiv
06-10-2008, 06:09 PM
It's not hard to believe that the ratings were so poor. Although we watched the game there were alot of times that I was temped to turn it off.

Besides the play on the field, the annoucers were terrible and as a TFC fan I don't wanna hear someone else's broadcast team any more then a Dynamo fan would want to hear ours.

Also the production was VERY bad, here are my observations...

Sound quality: the announcer's sounded like they were in a tin can and then when a goal was scored the shots of the crowd was annoying, and some how the audio appeared.
Picture Quality: The game looked like 4th generation video, I've seen CNN video from a warzone that was clearer.
Packaging: it's nice that the broadcast can generate revenue, but not everything needed to be sponsored, every other sentance was this _____ was brought to you by _____.

The best solution to bring up the ratings of these away games would to have local production. If they get the raw video feed it wouldn't cost much to have our announcers call the game locally. It works for the Leafs, and it could work for TFC.

That being said, if there was a radio outlet that also ran the games we could turn off the bad audio and listen to the radio, but then the games would have to air at the same time, preferably live.

I believe we deserve a better away game broadcast.

trane
06-10-2008, 06:40 PM
Probably he expect some grief, but not a banning. This is an OPEN thread and he is more tolerable than some supposed TFC fans. He hasn't broken any rules...hence he won't be banned. Let us know if he does.


I was not serious. I just get annoyed every time I see him post.

Bombonera
06-12-2008, 11:35 AM
Comparing TFC and DCU viewership is nonsence. I agree with TRANE. Let's focus on the big picture. THe EUORS are where it is at re:TV, and frankly an 8:30PM game graced by terrible TV coverage can't compete and we all know it.

having watcvhed the game, I really wish I was the first guy that made the wise decision to do something more productive and/or satisfying with that time...

BTW - it might be posed in here somewhere, but do we have stats on ratings for home games vs. Away games? ENSCO, GIVE US ALL THE FACTS AND HOLD NOTHING BACK!