Pressbox

The shortened off-season staple of the NFL, the NFL draft, produced mixed results for the two companies broadcasting the event, ESPN and NFL Network.

A truncated opening day, due to a shorter amount of time between picks, saw TV critics praising the move, which prevented the affair from becoming a marathon. Fans in attendance clearly loved the brisk pace of the program.

From a broadcast standpoint, however, the first round of the draft produced a small thump from a business point of view. With the draft moved from noon to 3 p.m. to take advantage of higher audiences later in the day, and teams given only 10 minutes to make their first-round pick in the interest of speeding up the proceedings, the reduced commercial inventory was a drawback to the revised draft.

From a ratings perspective on Saturday, ESPN’s draft rating was down 6% compared with 2007, scoring a 3.4 rating/8 share vs. a 3.6/10. In the demos, the outlet saw losses among men 18-49 and men 25-54, but it was up sharply among men 18-34. Ratings for the NFL Network were flat at a 0.3/1, although the league-owned channel showed growth among men 25-54.

On Sunday, where the league moved round three of the selection process and subsequently made the day more interesting, ESPN was up 7% from 2007, with growth in all three key demographics. NFL Network held even again at a 0.2 and rated higher among men 18-49 and men 25-54.

Great matchups featuring tight scores, intense rivalries and high-profile teams have boosted ratings for the cable outlets featuring NBA and NHL playoffs.

The NBA in particular is off to a hot start on both its broadcast and cable partners, according to final Nielsen results. ABC's two games pulled a nice 27% bump year-to-year with a 3.3 rating/8 share compared to last year’s 2.6/7. Demos also are rising sharply, with men 18-34 growing 36% and men 18-49 up 35%.

On ESPN, the outlet’s first three playoff matchups earned a 2.0/5, a 43% jump over 2007; men 18-34 were up by more than a rating point for a 79% rise to a 2.5.

TNT also is benefiting from the revived interest in National Basketball Association games, with a ratings drive that features a 16% ratings increase (2.1 U.S. rating) over the prior year. Through nine games, the network also experienced a swell in households, delivering an 18% increase, as well as significant key demo growth in men 18-34 (31%) and men 18-49 (30%).

“Audiences are rediscovering the game again,” said Doug White, ESPN senior director of programming. “The quality of play on the floor is the highest I’ve seen in my lifetime in terms of overall perspective, because there are so many great players who are all playing the game at an extremely high level. Fans and viewers appreciate that.”

In fact, every single game that aired on ESPN on Saturday showed ratings spikes.

NBA PLAYOFFS: OPENING GAMES ON ESPN: COVERAGE RATINGS

DATE DAY TIME GAME RATING CHANGE VS. 2007
4/19 Sat. 12:30 p.m. Wizards-Cavaliers 2.1 50.0%
4/19 Sat. 7 p.m. Mavericks-Hornets 2.4 60.0%
4/19 Sat. 9:30 p.m. Jazz-Rockets 2.5 38.9%

Mr. White said ESPN Web traffic also is benefiting from the renaissance, with ESPN.com’s NBA page scoring 10 million hits on the Friday before the games.

“A lot of people don’t want to be left out of the conversation as these games are providing water-cooler talk around the country,” said Mr. White. “We’ve seen this trend all season, and it’s great to see it only get better during the playoffs.”

The NHL, meanwhile, helped boost cable network Versus to record ratings for the sport, with Game 7 of the Flyers-Capitals series on April 22 earning a 0.7 HH rating and 631,040 total viewers. It was the highest-rated NHL Quarterfinals telecast ever on the network, and the most-watched NHL Quarterfinals telecast ever on the network among homes, men 18-49, men 25-54 and total viewers.

Overall, the network saw significant increases in ratings, total viewership and viewership across all key male demos compared with year-ago figures from the first post-season round.

Never does the reading of a list of names draw the kind of ad dollars and media attention as the NFL Draft. America is hooked as once again both ESPN and NFL Network will be on hand for round-by-round action from Radio City Music Hall on April 26 and 27, given the later start time for the picks (3 p.m.).

NFL Network is on deck to offer fans more than 44 hours of programming over the next two weeks leading up to the event, including a live four-hour “NFL Total Access” pre-Draft preview show on Saturday, April 26, at 11:00 a.m. ET. Sprint is the presenting sponsor of channel’s 2008 NFL Draft coverage.

“We’ve had a four month pre-show for the 2008 NFL Draft. It started with the Senior Bowl, followed by exclusive Combine coverage and we’ve continued evaluating the pool of talent and team needs on a daily basis,” said Eric Weinberger, executive producer, NFL Network. “The addition of Brian Billick and Charley Casserly rounds out the deepest roster of talent we’ve ever had on the Draft, solidifying that NFL Network continues to offer fans everything they want and need leading up to and throughout Draft weekend.”

Joining the team as talent will be former Baltimore Ravens head coach Brian Billick and longtime NFL general manager Charley Casserly. Rich Eisen hosts and will be joined by NFL Network’s year-round college football experts Mike Mayock and Charles Davis. NFL Network will also feature a pair of former first-round picks on location at Radio City Music Hall: Marshall Faulk and Deion Sanders. Faulk is joined by fellow analysts Steve Mariucci and Jamie Dukes; Sanders contributes live draftee interview segments plus commentary, while Adam Schefter provides live reports from the Draft floor.

This year, for the first time, NFL Network will also have a pre-show prior to Rounds 3-7 on Sunday, April 27, at 9 a,m. ET. Peppered throughout Sunday’s coverage, there will be interviews with general managers and head coaches as well as debates between media personalities from various NFL markets regarding their team’s performance over the previous days.

On NFL.com, the draft will be carried live, with an up-to-the-minute Draft tracker, individual team pages analyzing current needs as well as breakdowns of each pick as it happens and a newly redesigned information panel featuring a real-time clock and up-to-the-minute selections. Additionally, exclusive video interviews from various team facilities will be available throughout the weekend as well as behind-the-scenes access from Radio City Music Hall in New York City.

ESPN, meanwhile, will once again feature Chris Berman and Mel Kiper Jr. leading a team of analysts and reporters for ESPN’s 29th year of covering the NFL Draft. The channel will have 16 hours of live coverage over two days supplemented by Draft-related content on multiple ESPN platforms throughout the weekend, including ESPN Radio, ESPNEWS and ESPN.com.

Mr. Berman and Mr. Kiper will team with analysts Keyshawn Johnson and Steve Young, as well as Chris Mortensen at Radio City Music Hall in New York on Day 1 of the picks. In addition, “Monday Night Football’s” Mike Tirico and Ron Jaworski will also be joined by “College GameDay’s” Kirk Herbstreit to provide on-site commentary, while reporter Suzy Kolber will conduct “green room” interviews with all the top prospects invited to the Draft.

Here’s the ESPN lineup for the two days of festivities.

ESPN – Day 1:

Radio City Music Hall in New York City --

Set #1: Chris Berman, Keyshawn Johnson, Mel Kiper Jr., Steve Young and Chris Mortensen

Set #2: Mike Tirico, Ron Jaworski and Kirk Herbstreit

Reporter: Suzy Kolber

Bristol, Conn.: SportsCenter Special: On the Clock (11 a.m.-3 p.m.) --

Trey Wingo, Cris Carter, Mike Ditka, Tom Jackson, Merril Hoge, Todd McShay and Michael Smith.

NFL Team Sites --

Hank Goldberg (at Miami Dolphins), Rachel Nichols (Atlanta Falcons), Sal Paolantonio (New York Giants) and Ed Werder (Dallas Cowboys).

ESPN – Day 2:

Radio City Music Hall: Wingo, Kiper, Carter, Jaworski and Mortensen

Bristol: Tony Reali, Jeffri Chadiha, Smith, Charean Williams and Steve Wyche

ESPN Radio:

Colin Cowherd will host Day 1 coverage from Radio City Music Hall with ESPN.com NFL senior writer John Clayton, who will also provide updates from site on Day 2.

ESPNEWS (Bristol, Conn.) – Day 1:

Stan Verrett and Mike Hill will host “On the Clock” previews with McShay, Jeremy Green, Pat Forde, Chadiha, Qadry Ismail, Floyd Reese and Bob Davie beginning at 7 a.m.

Rece Davis will host Draft-related segments featuring McShay, Hoge, Marcellus Wiley and Robert Smith beginning at 3 p.m.

ESPN.com:

ESPN.com will cover the Draft with an unprecedented number of writers and bloggers, including Matt Mosley (New York), Pat Yasinskas (Tampa), Mike Sando (Seattle), James Walker (Baltimore), Bill Williamson (location TBD) and Chadiha (New York), in addition to Clayton and Len Pasquarelli at Radio City Music Hall. The Scouts Inc. team of Green, McShay, Keith Kidd, Steve Muench and Kevin Weidl will also provide pick-by-pick analysis. Mr. Kiper will provide final draft grades on Sunday night.

With hockey ratings continuing to track up, both on national and local platforms, Versus will team with Comcast Sports Net (Comcast owns Versus) to maximize the audience surge for the sport. While the sport’s ratings are up nationally on both Versus and broadcaster NBC, local audiences are also enjoying the surge.

Versus found a 50% ratings increase over the course of the season, with a .3 rating, while Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic channel averaged a .7, a 75% ratings rise. Versus was up 47% (averaging a 2.2) on Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia.

The outlets will now team up to offer hockey fans even more insight for the sport heading into the 2008 Stanley Cup Playoffs in a unique coverage collaboration that leverages both Versus’s national NHL experience with the local presence of Comcast SportsNet.

The launch of the partnership will find Comcast SportsNet viewers in Philadelphia and the Washington/Baltimore region receiving exclusive Versus national playoffs previews, highlights and wrap-ups from the network’s team of NHL studio experts including: Bill Patrick, Keith Jones and Brian Engblom during the Capitals-Flyers quarterfinal series.

The two teams will face each other in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference quarterfinals beginning on Friday, April 11.

According to Versus, “Each night that Comcast SportsNet carries the Flyers-Capitals series, Comcast SportsNet’s pre-game coverage will include a five-minute VERSUS national playoff preview live at 5:30 p.m. ET, alternating between Comcast SportsNet’s Mid-Atlantic and Philadelphia networks. VERSUS will also produce a daily national playoff wrap-up, including highlights and studio analysis, airing during Comcast SportsNet’s locally produced ‘SportsRise’ morning news programs.”

Meanwhile, Comcast SportsNet will provide VERSUS viewers with supplemental post-game reaction from Washington and Philadelphia, including player comments from the locker room and coaches’ post game press conference remarks. Versus will also utilize Comcast SportsNet’s in-depth library of regular-season Capitals and Flyers coverage, including specials, features and player profiles about each team to enhance VERSUS’ national coverage of the series.

Beckham? Check.

Major television outlets? Check.

Promotion? Check.

With a full season under its belt as part of the ESPN family, Major League Soccer appears to have the wind at its back heading into its 13th season as a league.

ESPN’s $64 million investment in the sport, in an eight-year deal, features a regular Thursday night time slot and a multiplatform promotional machine feeding audiences with the sport.

Needless to say, there are no more excuses as the world’s most popular sport continues to seek traction with American audiences.

“MLS is one of a number of soccer properties that ESPN is now covering, which includes the World Cup,” said JP Dellacamera, who will be calling play-by-play action for the sport on ABC and ESPN. “I’m encouraged by the way ESPN is talking about covering MLS this year and like the dedication they seem to have for not just the MLS but for soccer as a whole.”

Dellacamera noted that with both the players on the field and the stadiums improving all around the league, it made the overall presentation more impressive for audiences and more likely to draw new fans to the sport.

And then there’s L.A. Galaxy star David Beckham, who should be healthy enough to play this season.

“MLS was growing at a very good rate prior to David Beckham, but anyone who doesn’t think David accelerated the growth of the sport doesn’t understand soccer,” Dellacamera said. “Beckham transcends the sport much like Tiger Woods does for golf and Michael Jordan did for basketball. I think he’s the reason more players want to come here and why more wealthy individuals want to own MLS franchises.”

From a ratings point of view, ESPN earned a 0.2 cable rating/202,000 homes for its 14 MLS games before Beckham joined the Galaxy last year. The night he debuted with the team, ESPN scored a record 1.0 rating and was watched by about 1.468 million people.

Here’s a look at ESPN’s broadcast plans for the league this year.

The company’s high-definition coverage of its 13th Major League Soccer season will kick off with a double-header Thursday, April 3, with the New England Revolution visiting the Chicago Fire at 8 p.m. ET, followed by the San Jose Earthquakes visiting the Beckham-led Los Angeles Galaxy at 10:30 p.m. on ESPN2.

For the first time, ESPN Deportes, ESPN’s domestic Spanish-language network, will feature a companion telecast of all MLS prime-time Thursday matches, with separate booth commentators. The MLS series will be branded “Jueves por la Noche” for the network’s core Hispanic soccer audience.

The first U.S. over-the-air television network soccer double-header, on ABC and ABC HD on June 29, will feature Beckham and the L.A. Galaxy visiting DC United at noon, followed by the network’s presentation of the UEFA European Football Championship 2008 (Euro 2008) title match from Vienna at 2:30 p.m.

ABC and ABC HD will broadcast the MLS Cup 2008 at 3:30 p.m. Nov. 23 from the Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif.

The debut of ESPN’s two-part, four-hour film “Black Magic” this week is the first production of new division ESPN Films, the latest initiative from the company to bolster its array of programming features into the next decade.

Fancy talk from the sports channel or a creative outlet for filmmakers?

Judging by the powerful story told in “Black Magic,” the answer lies in the strong grassroots connection that lies between sports and society.

“The division was part of [Executive VP of Content] John Skipper’s vision for the whole group,” said Keith Clinkscales, senior VP of content and enterprises for ESPN, who noted the new division has two mandates: develop for theatrical releases and develop for the channel. “He felt that there were stories to be told that weren’t just great sports stories but also awesome American stories. ‘Black Magic’ is an example of that.”

The film examines the experiences of players and coaches at historically black colleges and universities from the civil rights era to the present day. The film’s creators sifted through more than 200 hours of footage of classic moments.

“It begins with a great story and examines how sports transposes the entire world of civil rights and what the entire country was going through at the time,” said Mr. Clinkscales. “The discussions of integration and segregation made for a really rich and deep story.”

“Black Magic” marks the first of 10 ESPN Films-branded projects set to air in 2008. Other previously announced titles include “The Zen of Bobby V,” about Major League Baseball player and manager Bobby Valentine; “Hellfighters,” about an against-all-odds Harlem high school football team; “Bud Greenspan: At the Heart of the Games,” about the documentary filmmaker; and “The Streak,” which chronicles the 2007-08 season of the Brandon High School wrestlers and their 34-year win streak. Each of the titles will be televised this spring.

In addition, ESPN Films announced a celebration of the last three decades of sports timed to coincide with ESPN’s 30th anniversary in September 2009. In a project dubbed “30/30,” the company invited 30 filmmakers to each tell a sports-themed story. The one-hour films will begin airing Tuesday nights on ESPN in September 2009 and be televised through 2010. The filmmaker roster will be announced in the coming weeks and will include industry veterans as well as celebrities who share a passion for sports.

“Every sports event is storytelling in real time,” Dick Cook, chairman of the Walt Disney Studios, said when the project was announced. “There’s drama in every encounter, as millions witnessed so vividly during this year’s Super Bowl. So it’s no surprise that sports lend themselves especially well to the stories we tell on the screen, in such hit films as ‘The Mighty Ducks,’ ‘Remember the Titans’ and ‘The Rookie.’ I’m thrilled that sports-themed films will now have their own label at Disney and ESPN. We believe this represents a big score for sports fans and moviegoers alike.”

The second day of IMG’s World Congress of Sports featured two recent champions with connections to the entertainment industry addressing the crowd—New York Giants co-owner Steve Tisch and Boston Red Sox Chairman Tom Werner—but it was the meeting of the minds between arch-rivals that took the day.

The annual conference featured a panel projecting the state of sports media in 2013. Taking part in the discussion were Ed Goren, president of Fox Sports; Ross Greenburg, president of HBO Sports; David Levy, president of Turner Sports; Adam Silver, deputy commissioner of the NBA; and John Skipper, executive VP of content for ESPN.

Both Turner and ESPN invest heavily in exclusive matches online via their respective outlets PlayOn and ESPN360. Executives from both companies acknowledge that while there is a loyal, sizable audience for the sports that air on the broadband channels, they still are fine-tuning the most appropriate business model for those outlets and television will continue to dominate the spectrum.

Looking forward to 2013, the executives noted they’re bracing for a free-for-all as rights for nearly every single major sport, with the exception of the NBA, will expire in that timeframe. At the same time, they urged caution on “spiraling” rights costs.

While Turner, Fox and ESPN all likely will play major roles in the bidding process for those sports, ESPN’s Mr. Skipper noted that the company would not bid for any of those sports unless it came packaged with broadband content the company could use for its other outlets.

As for sports poised to grow and/or explode in the next five years, soccer and women’s softball were among those the executives thought would be in the best position to grow audiences and brands into the next decade.

The movers and shakers who drive the sports industry took center stage Wednesday at the seventh annual IMG World Congress of Sports in Dana Point, Calif.

The two-day event features CEOs, chief marketing officers and chairmen addressing trends in the business.

The event opened with a roundtable of executives addressing the hot topics of the day before shifting to a one-on-one interview with Chase Carey, president and CEO of DirecTV.

Mr. Carey was quick to acknowledge that while his company was among the first to pick up sports channels such as the NFL Network and the Big Ten Network, the outlets are publicly battling cable companies over carriage fees.

DirecTV has benefited from the cable lockout of some of the sports channels, he said, with its subscriber growth jumping in those regions.

However, he said DirecTV's economics are similar to cable's and that the company is not "immune" to the costs of carrying the channels, noting that retransmission rights and sports costs were among the two biggest challenges for DirecTV.

Mr. Carey also said DirecTV is looking to be more active in acquiring broadcast rights for future sports events as well as sports with more international appeal, such as cricket and soccer.

Don’t look now, but the NBA seems poised to score its first year-to-year ratings gains in more than a decade.

With major-market teams such as the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers relevant again, and any one of nine or 10 clubs poised to go for the NBA title this season, professional basketball is unquestionably hot right now. (Of course, sports in general are on fire, in case you didn’t read my article last week.)

That said, a flurry of high-profile moves late in the season has every single national broadcaster that’s carrying the sport moving upward on the ratings charts. On ABC, NBA coverage on ABC is earning a 2.5 rating, up 9% in households from 2007, and it’s up 20% in share. On cable partners ESPN and TNT, the NBA has grown 10% year-to-year in rating, earning a 1.1 rating on both channels.

“When we decided to sign up for another eight years of the NBA, we felt as if we were about to catch a wave, and now hopefully it will continue,” said David Levy, president of Turner Sports, which carries NBA games on TNT. “We are extremely happy with the ratings growth we’ve seen from the sport, and remember, that’s with New York not even fielding a contender.”

Another key category that bodes well for the sport is the double-digit growth on all three outlets among men 18-34, where spikes as high as 33% promise that young fans are adopting the sport for, ideally, a lifetime.

“This season was sparked after Boston completed those off-season trades, and suddenly it’s not just the Boston Celtics who were benefiting but the Celtic brand as well,” said Mr. Levy. “For a sport to grow they need those big markets and big brands such as the Celtics, Lakers, and Bulls to be contenders. Through the trades we’ve seen this season for the likes of Jason Kidd and Shaquille O’Neal, the NBA is suddenly on the front page of the sports section again.”

Despite a wide-open race, college basketball ratings have stumbled slightly this season for most networks carrying the sport. However, ESPN’s coverage of the Feb. 23 matchup of No. 1 Tennessee at No. 2 Memphis bucked that trend, setting a record as the network’s most-viewed men’s college basketball game.

The contest between the country’s two best teams, according to polls, averaged a 3.8 rating for the cable channel, as well as 3.6 million households and 5.3 million viewers. The game, won by Tennessee 66-62, was ESPN’s highest rated men’s college basketball game since Dec. 22, 1998, when Kentucky and Duke pulled a 3.9.

The game also marks the most-viewed regular-season men’s college basketball on any television outlet—broadcast or cable—since March 6, 2005, according to ESPN, when CBS’ coverage of Duke at North Carolina averaged 3.977 million households.

ESPN said its men’s regular-season college basketball coverage is averaging 946,000 households and a 1.0 rating this season, marking 11% increases in households (vs. 850,000) and ratings (vs. 0.9) from last year through the same point.

Season-to-date ratings for broadcast outlets, however, show the sport is down year-to-year, as much as 13% in households and 11% in the men 18-34 demo.