LOCAL FOOTBALL ATTRACTION NFL Fans Have Passion For Their Local Home Team

By Michael LaSardo | VP TV Station Solutions | Katz Media Group

YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE A FACE PAINTER TO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT

If you find yourself at a Patriots game at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts, the passion that fans have for their home team would be unmistakable. Same deal if you visit Chicago for a Bears game at Soldier Field. And most certainly in Seattle at the Seahawks’ CenturyLink Field. The fans in Seattle are affectionately dubbed the “” because their vocal support of their team can be such a game changer.

This passion for local teams translates into ratings for local television audiences. And it’s not limited to the home markets that these teams represent. NFL teams have local fan bases that expand beyond the invisible DMA lines.

When broadcast and cable air the exact same game, it’s broadcast stations with the HH audience advantage.

Your instincts might tell you that an NFL team’s fans would most likely reside in the market in which the team plays. Well, our findings reinforce that hunch.

Katz Television Group assigned each of the 32 NFL teams to a “home” DMA that’s measured using a Nielsen meter (Local People Meter or HH Set Meter). These 32 teams call 29 markets home. Three markets - New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco-Oakland - each have 2 local teams.

This metered assignment of teams allows us to look at Nielsen Live+SD HH Ratings for all NFL games across the entire 2018-19 regular season. We focused our initial analysis on the games that were broadcast on CBS, FOX and NBC affiliates. Separately, we looked at games that were simulcast on both broadcast and cable.

Not surprisingly, 29 of the 32 teams saw an advantage in their local home market vs. all other non-local NFL games in the same market. Also not surprising, were the 3 teams that didn’t showed little or no local boost: The Jets in New York, the Chargers in Los Angeles and the Raiders in Oakland. All three teams are competing with a more dominant fan base in these markets (the N.Y. Giants, the L.A. Rams and the S.F. 49ers, respectively).

On average, we see regular season NFL games with a local team in a home market average a HH rating that’s more than double that of games that don’t feature a local team. So, for example, in the Buffalo

DMA we averaged the HH audience of all 2018-19 games on broadcast and compared that to the season’s remaining non-Bills games within the market. We performed this same type of analysis on all 32 teams across the 29 markets. We found that local team games averaged a 25.0 HH Rating while non-local team games averaged a 9.8 HH Rating. A quick plug into the calculator translates into an index of 254 or +154% over delivery. Your instincts were right!

LET’S DRILL DOWN LOCALLY!

The New England Patriots took home the 2019 Vince Lombardi Trophy after winning Super Bowl LIII. They also took home our award for “Local Love”. Bostonian HHs viewed Patriot games at a rate of more than 4.5X that of non-Patriot games.

Now let’s take a 500+ mile trip west to Steel City where we see HH viewership of the Pittsburgh Steelers scoring more than 4X the HH audience of non-Steelers games. Team after team saw similar results in home market DMAs.

468 Top 10 HH Rating Index The 10 teams that 433 Local Teams vs. Non-Local experienced the Teams largest gap when 365 363 comparing local 331 329 325 316 314 appeal HH Rating 300 to non-local appeal HH Rating in each market. →

Source: Nielsen overnights Live+SD HH Rating; Thursdays & Sundays 9/6-12/30/18.

BROADCAST > CABLE

Each NFL team plays 16 regular season games. CBS, FOX and NBC share the broadcast rights to air games on their affiliates. ESPN and NFL Network also have NFL rights. In the case where a local team is playing in one of these cable exclusive games, a local broadcast affiliate can purchase the rights to simulcast that game. We focused our next analysis on the 10 teams & markets highlighted above, to see how each team performed on broadcast versus cable. This is a market-by-market, head-to-head, broadcast vs. cable, comparison of simulcast games.

Nielsen Live+SD HH Ratings averages in these 10 markets, show that the simulcast on broadcast overpowers the cable delivery of the same game. In these markets, broadcast commanded no less than 66% total HH Ratings for the games. NFL viewers are fans of their local teams and fans of their local broadcast station!

Source: Nielsen Live+SD HH Rating. Boston 10/29/18 WCVB & ESPN. Pittsburgh 9/24/18 WTAE & ESPN. Milwaukee 10/15/18 WISN & ESPN. Seattle 9/17 & 12/10/18 KIRO & ESPN. Cleveland 9/20 & 12/15/18 WOIO & NFLN. Kansas City 10/1 & 11/19/18 KMBC & ESPN. Buffalo 10/29/18 WKBW & ESPN. Minneapolis 10/15/18 WCCO+ & ESPN. Chicago 9/17/18 WLS & ESPN. Detroit 9/10/18 WXYZ & ESPN.

THE LOCAL RIPPLE OF APPEAL

Local appeal of NFL is not limited to the home market. There’s a ripple of appeal that’s evident in nearby markets. For this part of our analysis, we focused on our same 10 “local loving” teams and markets from earlier. We identified 10 nearby DMAs that are within a two-hour drive from the home team stadium.

DRIVING DISTANCE FROM STADIUM TEAM STADIUM NEARBY DMA TO NEARBY DMA LARGEST CITY New England Patriots Gillette Stadium Portland-Auburn 140 miles Pittsburgh Steelers Heinz Field Erie 128 miles Lambeau Field Madison 135 miles Seattle Seahawks CenturyLink Field Yakima 142 miles Cleveland Brown FirstEnergy Stadium Youngstown 74 miles Kansas City Chiefs Arrowhead Stadium St. Joseph 66 miles Buffalo Bills New Era Field Rochester, NY 78 miles Minnesota Vikings U.S. Bank Stadium Mankato 81 miles Soldier Field Rockford 86 miles Detroit Lions Ford Field Flint 67 miles

For this part of our analysis, we took a dive into Comscore Local Live+SD HH Ratings for all regular season NFL on CBS, FOX and NBC affiliates in these nearby markets. Just as we did with our earlier analysis, we compared how the local team performed relative to the remaining non-local games in the market.

Nearby DMA HH Rating

Local Teams vs. Non-Local 347 Teams 319  Local allegiance to NFL teams 290 clearly stands out in these 277 256 261 nearby markets. However, the over- deliverance was not as 216 221 202 substantial as we saw in the 184 home markets.

Source: Comscore Local Live+SD Thursdays & Sundays 9/6-12/30/18.

WELCOME TO THE SOCIAL CLUB

If you’re on social media there’s a good chance you use it to connect to your favorite NFL team or teams. It’s a great way to engage with your team and keep up with all the happenings. As you’d expect, all 32 teams have a presence on 3 of the largest social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Our social analysis is not an exact science but was fun to look at nonetheless.

Over the course of 3 days, we jumped from team to team and tallied up all the Facebook “Likes”, Twitter “Followers” and Instagram “Followers”.

NFL teams had an astonishing 185 million likes/follows across 32 teams.

We also added up “Likes” and “Followers”, on the same social media platforms, for each of the Big 4 affiliates (ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC), in the 29 Nielsen markets NFL teams call home.

Big 4 local affiliates had an impressive 119 million likes/follows in 29 NFL markets.

What makes the local affiliate count so impressive is that the pool of potential “likes” and “follows” are more likely to be concentrated in the 29 markets. While the social appeal of NFL teams spans the entire U.S. and possibly beyond.

Sum of all 32 NFL Teams “Likes” on Facebook + Followers on Twitter & Instagram. Sum of ABC, CBS, FOX & NBC affiliates “Likes” on Facebook + Followers on Twitter & Instagram in the 29 Nielsen metered markets with home NFL teams. All counts gathered between 6/25-6/27/19.

HEY, WATCH IT!

Most local NFL games are broadcast over the air for free. The preferred method of viewing these games is on the traditional television. The NFL does offer the convenience of streaming games on mobile devices. This can be done at no extra cost through a viewer’s cable or satellite provider. Viewers do have other options that come at a price, such as CBS All Access or DirecTV’s Sunday Ticket package. It’s important to note that some streaming options are mobile only; meaning you can’t stream it on a TV. The ability to stream to a mobile device offers the convenience for when you must attend your nephew’s birthday party on a Sunday afternoon! Personally, I’d rather watch my team on the 55-inch screen in my living room.

Amazon Prime members can stream 11 Thursday night games, but these are the same ones being simulcast on FOX and the NFL Network.

If navigating the cornucopia of NFL viewing options is as daunting as having a 300+ pound linebacker barreling toward you then check out this article on how to watch NFL football.

As viewing habits continue to evolve, so too will the platforms to view NFL games. In fact, earlier this year there were rumors of a schedule shakeup.

While we don’t know what future media contracts will look like, we do know that fans are passionately rooting on their local football team on their local broadcast television stations!

Reach out to Katz Television Group to see how we can connect you with a local NFL team audience.