Courtesy Media Week

(July 15, 2008) Ratings for Major League Baseball on Fox and ESPN are down season to date, while TBS’ first season of Sunday afternoon national baseball has drawn relatively small audiences. Still, advertisers are flocking to the games, with all three networks sold out or close to sold out for the remainder of the regular season.

Fox’s 70 in-game avails for the July 15 All-Star Game telecast from New York’s Yankee Stadium are all sold, with :30s going for between $450,000 and $550,000, said sources in the know. Among national advertisers are Chevrolet, Pepsi, Taco Bell, Bank of America, Anheuser-Busch, MasterCard and Sharp.

Chevrolet will sponsor an hour-long, pre-All-Star game show in prime time, with footage from a parade earlier that day featuring All-Star players and Hall of Fame members. Pepsi will also heavily advertise during the show, as will assorted movie companies.

Fox’s regular-season, Saturday p.m. MLB national telecasts are averaging a 2.1 household rating and 3.1 million viewers, down 16 percent from last season’s 2.5 and 3.6 million viewers.

But, said Fox Sports senior vp, communications Lou D’Ermilio, “The schedule is back-loaded and we expect to make up most, if not all, of the deficit by the end of the season.” He cited the recent split national telecast featuring the New York Yankees vs. Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs vs. St. Louis Cardinals, which drew a combined 3.0 household rating (4.5 million viewers), up 20 percent over the comparable weekend telecast last year.

ESPN, through 37 prime-time telecasts, has averaged a 1.4 rating (down 7 percent) and 1.7 million viewers (down 5 percent) per telecast. ESPN2, through 12 telecasts, is averaging a 0.7, down 30 percent from a 1.0 last year. There are mitigating factors. Last year, ESPN televised only three Yankees/Red Sox or Yankees/Mets games so far this season, compared to seven last season. And ESPN2 aired the always highly rated season opening-night game; this year, ESPN carried it. That game accounts for a sizable portion of ESPN2’s ratings decline.

ESPN, like Fox, has sold out its spot load for its telecast of the MLB Home Run Derby, which will air on July 14 in prime time.

TBS is averaging a 0.5 household rating in its first season, but Sal Petruzzi, senior vp, public relations for Turner, said the network is in audience-building mode, as fans get accustomed to TBS as the home of a national weekly Sunday game.

Network sales executives give credit to MLB officials for motivating official sponsors to not only brand themselves via stadiums and print ads but also to support the telecasts. Neil Mulcahy, executive vp, Fox Sports sales, cited the partnership with MLB on the All-Star parade as well as Chevy’s participation in that show. (Players will ride in Chevy Silverados.)
Next, the networks will turn their attention to post-season telecasts, with TBS airing both the Divisional Playoff Series and American League Championship Series and Fox airing the National League Championship Series and the World Series.

Petruzzi said it is still early, noting that which teams face off in the playoffs will motivate many advertisers to jump in. But, he added, “We are pacing well ahead of last year with healthy cost-per-thousand increases for our post-season coverage.”

Mulcahy said Fox has signed up a few new advertisers for its post-season baseball coverage, stopping short of identifying them. He agreed that team lineups in the playoffs will determine the level of advertiser interest.

Reps of Fox and Turner would not talk about their favorites. But they must be rooting for major-market teams like the Red Sox, the Yankees or the Chicago Cubs (who haven’t won the World Series in a century).