It has been a very entertaining NFL season, and the day isn’t over yet which means we may get to see Norv Turner grimacing another 50 times in high definition (though I hope the Chargers end up winning).
Other than the Broncos and Chargers, the playoffs are set. The bad news from a ratings perspective is that neither the Dallas Cowboys, New York Jets nor New England Patriots will be involved. Although a potential Tennessee Titans vs. Carolina Panthers Super Bowl is a possibility, the playoff picture is not a complete disaster for the networks.
That Titans/Panthers matchup would make Jeff Zucker and Ben Silverman at NBC quiver, as NBC is the network of the Super Bowl this year, the New York Giants, Pittsburgh Steelers and Peyton Manning led Indianapolis Colts all have more than a little bit of national appeal.
Love them or hate them (mark me down for “hate them”), the Dallas Cowboys are truly America’s team as evidenced by the ratings. But the Cowboys haven’t actually won a playoff game since the 1990s (December 1996), so the networks should be used to it.
I suppose if I am NBC, I’m rooting for a Giants vs. Colts Super Bowl for the Manning vs. Manning drama. Eli and Peyton each have one Super Bowl, and the quest for Manning supremacy would be a good storyline. NBC would probably be very happy to have a Giants vs. Steelers matchup as well. Pittsburgh isn’t a large market, but there are a lot of Steelers fans nationwide.
But if I’m Kevin Reilly over at Fox who has no love for his former employer NBC (or for Ben Silverman for that matter) I’m rooting for an NFC championship game where the Panthers of Carolina squeak by the New York Giants in double overtime to make it to the NBC aired Super Bowl.
In a day of much entertainment including the Detroit Lions completing a perfect(ly awful) season, and for a while Bill Belichick’s and the New England Patriots’ playoff hopes rode on the shoulders of Belichick protégé and nemesis Eric Mangini’s New York Jets. As soon as the Patriots’ fate was in the Jets’ hands you had to wonder if the Jets would lose just for spite. But the Jets have looked so convincingly bad lately, just not being very good seems the more likely reason. It also seems likely we have finally seen Brett Favre play his last game. Of course regardless of what he says, we won’t know for sure until next summer.
Meanwhile, the Miami Dolphins rebound from a 1-15 season last year to win the division and head to the playoffs. A nice little story for Chad Pennington who was snubbed by the Jets as soon as they acquired Favre. But the story there for me is that Dallas Cowboy owner Jerry Jones really should’ve left Bill Parcels alone to run the team while he was at Dallas. He’s heading up football operations for the Dolphins now, and the Dolphins’ head coach Tony Sparano was previously one of the offensive masterminds at Dallas.
For me, the more entertaining question than how this year’s ratings will be is how long will it take Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones to fire Wade Phillips (and staff) even though he said repeatedly over the last few days that he wouldn’t fire him even if Dallas didn’t make the playoffs.
Let the Bill Cowher in Dallas rumors begin!
Great summary and what ifs of a very entertaining Sunday
What if Tamp got in over Atlanta, the Giants didn’t make it, and Pittsburg lost out to baltimore.
That’d be hell for the NFL!
Great to see the Dallas Cows get pounded into the ground like a tent stake 44-6 by the Philly Iggles! LOL!
Maybe Dallas could lure BUM PHILLIPS out of retirement? He is only 85. That might help.
Maybe Dallas fans can blame yet another failed season on The Curse of Jessica Simpson?
Yeah the Cowboys are a draw, but this is the playoffs. People will watch just to see what happens. Look at the ratings for college basketball, no one watches until March Madness, & they fill out their brackets. I’m not even a big football fan, but i’m already invited to 3 different Big Game/S.B. parties. If my team’s involved, great, if not, oh well i’ll have fun. It wouldn’t shock me if Jerry Jones keeps his coach but gets rid of Garrett. Even Romo through him under the bus after yesterdays game…hahaha.
NBC wouldn’t lose out at all if it is a low-rated Superbowl. It would of course hurt the total audience exposure to NBC promos, but CBS actually has the most at stake from a Nielsen perspective. Just like NBC rode the record ratings of Giants-Pats on FOX last year to record ad revenue this year.
why would fox not put the giants in its 8 pm saturday game for the next round? a potential giants/eagles matchup would be better for primetime than falcons/panthers, i would think.
the game sells itself. if its pitt vs giants, carolina vs colts…….heck atlanta vs tenn. Those two words: SUPER BOWL. Enough said!!!!! STill be hightest rated program of the year….
Kayarn, I had the same thought. Maybe the league has guidelines about not scheduling the 8pm games in cold weather cities and Fox had no say?
JP, if a Carolina vs. Tennessee matchup drew 20% less than Giants/Colts or Giants/Steelers you’d still be correct, and that would be the only consolation NBC had.
Alex, great point about Super Bowl ratings mattering more for promotion and setting *next year’s* pricing, though it still also heavily impacts NBC’s season-to-date numbers.
rob last year the patriots hosted that primetime saturday game, so i really dont know.
im too lazy to look this up but maybe there is an event going on at giants stadium or whatever field carolina plays in that locks them into the timeslots.
thats what happened to the falcons/cardinals, with the fiesta bowl set for monday, nbc had to take the less marketable of the two nfc matchups so there are more than 24 hours between the cardinals game and the college game.
fox always puts their best game on sunday as it gets a higher rating than saturday nite….thats why the giants are sunday.
Dave is exactly right. I know we all have a tendency to think primetime is always the “better” time slot, but that is not the case at all for Saturday night vs sun afternoon (or even sat afternoon). The HUT levels (hh using tv) are significantly higher for the weekend afternoons vs sat nite, particularly in the dead of winter. So Fox does recognize that the giants will butter their bread, hence the afternoon scheduled start.
And robert superbowls really are immune to big year to year swings. The nfl has shown they don’t need a marquee team or big market to generate huge numbers. Just look at the 10 year rating trend. You wouldn’t even notice that the jan 03 game was a blowout that featured two small-mkt and largely non descript teams (oak raiders/tampa bucs). Sure the pats/giants set records earlier this year, but that was more story driven than market driven. If the kc chiefs were going for 19-0 against the bills in sp 43, the numbers would also be through the roof.
Sunday afternoon being better than Saturday night in terms of Hut/Put definitely makes sense.
Alex, I completely agree that last year was story driven — and although you couldn’t see a KC Chiefs vs. Buffalo Bills matchup in the super bowl (both in the same conference), if the Ravens were going for 19-0 vs. the Panthers, the story would still drive the numbers. But the Ravens aren’t undefeated so a Ravens/Panthers matchup would be a measurable swing from last year’s 97.4 million, but would it be far off the years prior to last year?
Because of national holiday saturation, Super Bowl ratings seem fairly flat. But the last time NBC had the Super Bowl (Jan 25, 1998) a Green Bay/Denver contest did 90 million. The next year the Atlanta/Denver contest on Fox averaged 83.7 million. I’d call that a big year to year swing that wasn’t story driven, but perhaps we have different opinions about “big”.
p.s. the only data table I could find on our site lacks last year’s info (97.4 million) but here is the data for Super Bowls 21-41:
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2008/01/21/super-bowl-is-it-really-still-super/2430
Good Stuff Rob. I see your point — I guess “big” is all relative here. You can get an up or down-tick of 8 million for the SB, which is A LOT of viewers by any standard — but even with those changes the most you’d be looking at is a 7-8% fluctuation year-to-year. These are my top non-giant 5 Nielsen SB match-ups for this year — that is the games I think would bring in the most total viewers excluding the G Men. The NFL isn’t working with much in the NFC besides Philly and the Giants.
1. Colts/Eagles
2. Steelers/Eagles
3. Chargers/Eagles
4. Dolphins/Eagles
5. Titans/Eagles
4.
Looking at the early to mid 90s during the four year Buffalo losing streak where Redskins and Giants vs. Buffalo both pulled about the same, and then consecutive Dallas victories over Buffalo each scored 10+ million more than Redskins and Giants (with increases of over 14%)…
TV households have grown since then which makes the Dallas/Buffalo numbers (as well as Dallas/Steelers) from the 1990s all the more impressive. The table in the link in my comment above tells a tale where much like baseball and the world series, nationwide appeal of the teams in the Super Bowl is much more important than the size of the local markets of the teams playing. Generally, local market size and nationwide appeal correlate well. But the Cowboys are a much, much larger nationwide draw than the Eagles even though Dallas is the 5th largest local market and Philadelphia is the fourth.
CBS is surely already crossing its fingers for a Dallas vs. Pittsburgh Steelers match for next year. And Pittsburgh is the #23 market (Indianapolis #25). Here is the list of the 210 largest markets this year according to Nielsen.
Both Chicago (#3) and Dallas (#5) absences really hurt the NFC slate. It would seem that both of those teams have broader nationwide appeal than the Giants, even though NY is the #1 market, let alone Philly. Of course, the NFL has rocked on as the dominant television spectacle that it is while being completely absent from the #2 market (LA) for years.
My guess is that ratings for this year’s Super Bowl are more dependent on Pittsburgh or Indy getting in than who the NFC representative is. Pittsburgh seems to have more national appeal, though I think the Manning vs. Manning angle would generate a lot of interest should it come to pass. Though I’m not sold on Tennessee being ready, based on the regular season, a Carolina vs. Tennessee contest is definitely a very real possibility and one that might draw fewer than 85 million.
The speculation is of course completely worthless at this point, but fun nonetheless!
on jan 11 that pittsburg game vs whomever on cbs will kill the opening hour of the golden globes on NBC…….I Mean KILL!!!!!!!!!!!! Out side of the cowboys, the steelers are very popular.
JP, Steelers game on 1/11 is scheduled to start at 4:45pm. Unless it’s an overtime game, it seems like it wouldn’t creep into the 8pm hour very much. It’s not possible for me to do any comparisons to last year’s Golden Globes since due to the strike they merely “read” the winners for an hour at 9pm. but the Steelers game would definitely thrash it if they competed directly. Even if the game only runs over by 10 minutes, it seems like Overrun would win the hour.
last year Fox had the late game that Sunday — I’m not sure when it started, but it ran almost to 8pm and the 7p-8p hour averaged over 37 million in the overnights (Giants vs. Cowboys).
I’ll be watching. I love the idea of NO New England Patriots, or Cowboys or Packers…I don’t care about TV ratings, at least in my household I will enjoy the games for once.
Now if Carolina and Baltimore can lose, I’ll be one happy camper
What Denver and Green Bay did have storyline.
It was can Elway finally win one and can Green bay win a second in a row.