What Do Sports Fans Watch When They Can’t Watch Sports On TV?

 

One of the many questions facing the TV industry these days is what happens to sports fans when there are no sports to watch?

It’s a question that obviously looms large for networks like ESPN, but also for brands who are interested in reaching sports fans.

VIZIO, whose Inscape division uses data from over 14 million opted-in smart TVs has some very telling stats on the topic, culled from The Weekend After Live Sports Stopped. (March 14-15.)

The most telling one is that sports fans who use OTT devices spent 47% more time streaming when compared to the previous week when sports were on. That’s a lot more streaming. 

It’s a stat that becomes even more ominous (if you’re in the business of linear TV) when you take into account that a full 10% of fans didn’t watch any linear TV at all once sports were unavailable.

On the other hand, news consumption, which is very much linear, was way up, though that figure is likely something of an outlier, given how important the news has been these past weeks. Still, it’s notable that while FOX News only saw a 7% spike, CNN saw a 35% spike from sports fans, MSNBC saw a 16% spike and C-SPAN saw a whopping 40% jump.

News wasn’t the only topic that caught sports fans interest. The kid-oriented programming from Discovery Family was up 39%, likely as a result of schools being closed and everyone being at home, while the Travel Channel, which I guess qualifies as escapist fantasy for the next few weeks, saw a  28% lift in viewing from sports fans.

Crossover Viewing

In order to get a sense of what sports fans watch when they’re not watching sports, I looked at some stats from this past year. 

NBA fans, it seems are the most loyal of all sports fans, at least when the season is actually happening. Meaning that they will frequently watch shows related to basketball like Inside The NBA, NBA Countdown, NBA: The Jump, First Take and Around The Horn. 

It will be interesting to see how long that behavior is maintained, will fans continue watching basketball-related shows because they have withdrawal, will they take to watching the classic basketball matchups that ESPN and others have been showing or will they move on to something else as they wait for the 2020/21 season to begin.

By contrast, fans of last year’s March Madness (aka the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament) were less basketball-focused in their viewing, watching everything from the NFL Draft to the Master’s Tournament. This supports an earlier theory I’ve put out about RSNs versus ESPN: there are sports fans who are fans of particular teams and really only care about games those teams are playing in (and/or games that might affect them) —those are the fans who watch and support RSNs (Regional Sports Networks.)

Then there are fans who just like sports in general, who are happy to watch the March Madness tournament regardless of who is playing that day, just so long as it’s a good game. They’ll happily watch an array of sports-related programming, but are more at home on ESPN than on an RSN.

This is not, of course, an either/or scenario: there are plenty of fans who fall into both camps to one degree or another, but most will lean more one way than another.

The Advertiser’s Dilemma

With live sports off the air, advertisers who want to reach fans of the major sports leagues—generally men in their 40s, 50s and 60s—will have to look at alternatives.

While sports and news are not the only online genres they watch—Inscape reports that sports fans were watching more comedy and drama last week than they usually do—it might be instructive to look at what ESPN fans watch when they’re not watching ESPN.

Data from January 1, 2019 through March 12, 2020 indicates that the top five networks for ESPN viewers are (in order) TNT, TBS, AMC, the NFL Network and A+E. 

While TNT and TBS have plenty of sports programming and the NFL Network obviously shows football games, AMC has no sports programming and shows a range of original programming, library classics and movies. A+E is also an outlier, showing original and library non-fiction programming and movies

The key takeaway here is that sports fans are not monolithic, that they have a range of tastes and that reaching them on non-sports programming should be approached in the manner the brand would approach non-sports fans in general, at least those in the desired demographic.

What’s Next?

It will be interesting to track the behavior of sports fans over the next few weeks to see if there is any discernible pattern to their viewing: are they watching sports-themed movies, comedies and dramas? Or is their viewing more in line with others in their demographic?

And what happens next season? Does viewership pick up as sports hungry fans try and make up for lost time? Or does viewership fall off as fans find that they don’t miss it?

Given the nearly lifelong relationship most pro sports fans have with their teams, I’d say the former option is far more likely, but it will definitely be interesting to see how it all plays out.

(Pun intended.)



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