MLB 2014 season thread

I wonder because whenever I bring up radio, or mention ads I hear on the radio, everyone in the newsroom — including people older than me, in their 50s — say I'm a dinosaur and they never listen to broadcast stations anymore. They plug their gadgets in.

Friends outside of work all rave about XM, Sirius, etc.

I wonder about the baseball broadcasts because I'm a huge fan of broadcast radio, doing my part to pull down the average age of those "shut ins" Michael Gee mentions.

Those folks stuck in their cars are probably listening to satellite radio or their iPod. Just weirdos like us listening to Giants and Mariners games, LTL ...

 

Part of the reason that baseball broadcast contracts (TV & radio) have become so lucrative for the teams is that it is guaranteed programming for six months out of the year. That's valuable at any price.

 

A's are about to sign a 10-year lease to stay at Oakland Coliseum.

http://www.insidebayarea.com/news/ci_25895916/close-signing-10-year-lease-remain-oakland

The cheap-ass ownership has said it will spend some money to improve the stadium experience (specifically updating the Pong-grade video board) if it gets a long-term lease. We'll see.

This could also lead the Raiders, who want to build a new stadium there, to give up on those plans. So, really, a win-win for Oakland.

 

At any given time during every game played in every city that has a team there are thousands of cars on the road. It might be different for passengers with their smart phones, but any driver who wants to follow the game can't be watching on some device. The radio works just fine for thousands and thousands.

 

Also, Sirius/XM has expanded the listenership because now if you're a Cubs fan in Montana, you can turn on your radio or smartphone and get the hometown broadcast.

Jimmy DeCastro was on WGN-AM today eviscerating the Cubs deal -- this is WGN walking away from the Cubs, not the other way around. As Feder reported in the link above, the deal Sam Zell (his influence with TribCo will never die) was costing WGN Radio $6 million a year.

http://wgnradio.com/2014/06/04/chicago-cubs-and-wgn-jimmy-decastro-explains-the-cubs-departure-from-wgn-radio/

DeCastro said he offered other, more creative arrangements (such as WGN has with the Blackhawks) that weren't straight cash deals, but that's what the Cubs wanted. Simply, in a familiar tale, WGN is finding it hard to support this on nothing but advertising.

 

Most radio stations that broadcast baseball are now also sports talk radio stations. It IS six months guaranteed programming for them. Same with the other sports. One station here has the Red Sox, the other has the Pats, Bruins and Celtics (sister station for overlap there). But here on the East Coast, rush hour is pretty much over when the first pitch is thrown at 7:07 p.m., so I wonder about audience size. I especially wonder about audience size for Pats games on Sunday afternoons or late on Sunday nights. I know they make money, but it's not through audience size.

 

The new Cubs station(s) in Chicago are CBS-owned properties with WBBM -- an all-news station -- as a hub. Apparently the Cubs could move to all-sports WSCR if it lost the White Sox, though I'm not sensing there's going to be a huge bidding war for them. Perhaps ESPN-affiliated WMVP might take the Sox back, but it's a pretty limited number of stations available that would be interested.

WBBM also has the Bears radio rights. Interesting model there -- the station, which generally gets high ratings, must figure that as long as it has news in drive-time, it can fill evenings and weekends with live play-by-play and do just as well, or better.

The one thing about baseball on the radio, at least for me, is that I'm more likely to have it on the background than others sports, namely because the sport's slowness, a liability on television, actually works in its favor for radio.

 

Yes, Bob, I was wondering how much impact that had on the viability of broadcast baseball. I know that I love having Scully or Miller on the radio for the drive home late at night in the east.

 

NFL on the radio has much more "turn us on, turn down your TV" listeners ... in fact, I think that was a Bears radio marketing slogan at one point. People do it out here too, with the Seahawks radio broadcasters (Warren Moon!) because the FOX TV guys are so lousy.

I'm with you regarding putting baseball games on the radio while doing chores or whatever else. Works very well in the background.

 

From what DeCastro said, it sounds like it helps the team, but any local radio station doing a straight-cash deal with a team isn't getting squat from it. I would suspect you can't get any premium selling advertising against it because you're usually going after a local audience. I know when I listen in Chicago to Indiana Pacers games on Sirius, which it's lovely to hear about local grocers, car dealers and HVAC salespeople, my ears are wasted dollars.

 

OOP GETS TO MASTURBATE!

Tim Williams @timwilliamsP2 · 1h
SOURCES: Gregory Polanco to be Promoted on Friday - http://atp2.co/1oXb92P #Pirates

 

It's a ton of programming at a time of day when almost no one would be listening otherwise.

Depending on who is selling the time (either the team or the station) there are other benefits as well. The station will have access to advertisers who might otherwise not be interested in buying on the station. And the station (or group of stations) is going to sell them a package across all fay parts in order to be included in the game broadcast.

They're also going to have radio sponsorships to sell. Live reads, promotions, etc. They will have hospitality opportunities. They'll be able to give out stupid shit like a first pitch, and they'll interview the marketing VP as part of some promotion, and let him promote something.

If the team is selling the radio time, it will be included in a larger sponsorship. And, they likely won't break out the value of the radio portion of the deal. The team will provide a list of benefits, and will put an overall price on it.

The other benefit the stations see is that if you listened to the game on the way home, you will have their morning show on -- and not their competitor -- when you turn your car on in the morning. They hope/think you might stay with them, and will probably have some promotion where you have to listed at 8:20 for the play of the game from last night to have a chance to win a prize.

Now, I'm not saying all of this is true, and that the cost/benefit is worth it. (I largely do not believe this, and it's a big reason why I got out of the business. I couldn't justify buying or selling most sponsorship deals, and I did both.) I'm just saying these are the arguments you would here from those in the business.