Comprehensive Ratings Report Finds Beijing Olympics Tops Super Bowl's Total Audience Across All Platforms
NEW YORK, Oct. 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Optimedia International US Inc., a Publicis Groupe-owned communications planning and media buying company headquartered in New York, has released its Content Power Ratings Report - Sports Edition (www.optimedia-us.com) -- a comprehensive report that details the multi-media performance ranking of major sporting events in the US for the 12-month period ending August 2008.
Using data from the agency's own primary research, as well as media data from The Nielsen Company, comScore, Inc., ePoll, Divinity Metrics, Inc. and Dow Jones Factiva, the report measures and evaluates the performance of the top televised sports events across multiple media types, including:
Television ratings
Streaming online video
Web traffic
Mobile views
Press coverage
Word of mouth
Additionally, the ranking factors not just the size of the audience but the perceived "appeal" of each event, as well as measures qualitative factors such as how "viewers rate the event," "which viewers would make a special effort to watch these events in the future" and "whether they purchased merchandise around the events."
Key findings of the report include:
The Olympics (#1) outranked the Super Bowl (#2) this year, on the strength of the former's online audience and substantial offline word-of-mouth
Four of the top 10 ranked sports events belonged to Major League Baseball. This includes last October's Boston Red Sox/Colorado Rockies World Series (#3); the All Star game (#6); and the Championship series for the American League (#7) and National League (#10)
The NBA Finals featuring the Boston Celtics' win over the LA Lakers was ranked #8
Wrestlemania (#15) despite being available only through pay-per-view, out rated events such as the NBA Western Conference (#18) play-offs and the US Masters (#20).
The Tour de France ranked 27th despite being the 57th ranked television rated event.
The Content Power Ratings Report also provides event sponsors, advertisers, networks and sports marketing bodies a fully independent report of the exposure these marquee events deliver across all media platforms, and therefore the value they have to marketers.
Antony Young, president, Optimedia, US, said, "From our perspective, sponsoring or advertising within sporting events such as the Olympic Games or the NBA is just an alternative way of promoting our clients' brands. Understanding the full extent of the exposure they are getting is key to our evaluating them as advertising media."
Optimedia's Director of Strategic Resources Group, Greg Kahn, added, "We are as interested in the broad appeal and engagement value of sporting events as we are in the size of the audiences being delivered for one particular telecast. The Content Power Ratings system allows advertisers and sponsors to assess the true commercial value of these important sports properties."
Added Larry Novenstern, joint managing director of Optimedia's integrated broadcast buying unit, NewCast@Optimedia, "As traditional broadcasters are beginning to distribute their sporting events over three screens, this type of comprehensive study is becoming increasingly important in today's advertising marketplace. For example, NBC broadcast 2200 hours of coverage online, while the NFL this year took the first step of streaming a number of regular season games on the web. Young added "audience patterns over the past few years have changed dramatically with sports fans supplementing television and newspaper coverage with online and mobile."
CONTENT POWER RATINGS: SPORTS EDITION
Adults 18+ CPR Ranking
Rank TV Rank Program
---- ------- -------
1 4 2008 SUMMER OLYMPICS: BEIJING, CHINA
2 1 NFL SUPERBOWL (Football)
3 7 MLB WORLD SERIES (Baseball)
4 2 NFL NATIONAL FOOTBALL CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP (Football)
5 3 NFL AMERICAN FOOTBALL CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIPS
(Football)
6 11 MLB ALL-STAR GAME (Baseball)
7 15 MLB AMERICAN LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES (Baseball)
8 10 NBA FINALS (Basketball)
9 6 DAYTONA 500 (Auto Racing)
10 26 MLB NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES (Baseball)
11 22 NHL STANLEY CUP (Hockey)
12 8 NCAA MEN'S FINAL FOUR (College Basketball)
13 18 NFL PRO-BOWL (Football)
14 30 WIMBLEDON (Tennis)
15 25 WRESTLEMANIA (Pro Wrestling)
16 21 NBA ALL-STAR GAME (Basketball)
17 9 KENTUCKY DERBY (Horse Racing)
18 27 NBA PLAYOFFS - WESTERN CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIPS
(Basketball)
19 37 NIGHT OF CHAMPIONS (Pro Wrestling)
20 17 MASTERS (Golf)
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