WCQ Ratings

[Macksam]

What were they for the Honduras and USA matches?

[boris4c]

Saw a post on Reddit about the USA match on TSN with something like 350,000. 

 

Edit: 393,000

Edited September 9, 2021 by boris4c

[red card]

Honduras averaged 278k on Sportsnet. US averaged 393k on TSN4. 

Relative to other football, these are 2-4x higher than the average Canadian MLS team game in the past few years but much lower than the playoffs/MLS Cup Finals/CCL Final during peak TFC.

It's about 2x higher than the average Premier League match when it was on tv. It's in line to lower for Big 4-6 club matches. It's much lower than ratings for Euros, Olympics & World Cup football where 5-10 matches easily get over 1 million. England matches are usually the highest rated at over 900k.

So, I view it as decent numbers. But in the light of the volume of twitter hand wringing, expectations of the pull of tv were unrealistic. Quite a bit of misplaced views of where soccer & Canadian men national team soccer stand in the Canadian tv sports landscape and not fully aware tv viewing/entertainment habits are being disrupted.

 

 

 

Edited September 10, 2021 by red card

[Approve My Account Pls]

23 minutes ago, red card said:

Honduras averaged 278k on Sportsnet. US averaged 393k on TSN4. 

Relative to other football, these are 2-4x higher than the average Canadian MLS team game in the past few years but much lower than the playoffs/MLS Cup Finals/CCL Final during peak TFC.

It's about 2x higher than the average Premier League match when it was on tv. It's in line to lower for Big 4-6 club matches. It's much lower than ratings for Euros, Olympics & World Cup football where 5-10 matches easily get over 1 million. England matches are usually the highest rated at over 900k.

So, I view it as decent numbers. But in the light of the volume of twitter hand wringing, expectations of the pull of tv were unrealistic. Quite a bit of misplaced views of where soccer & Canadian men national team soccer stand in the Canadian tv sports landscape and not fully aware tv viewing/entertainment habits are being disrupted.

 

 

 

Given the fact Sportsnet and TSN pretty much started advertising this the less than 24 hours before the Honduras match, I think it's a very good starting point to build off of

[mrstepp817]

Yeah they didnt start advertising anything until real late....I bet with more advertising etc it'll get more ratings

[red card]

3 hours ago, Approve My Account Pls said:

Given the fact Sportsnet and TSN pretty much started advertising this the less than 24 hours before the Honduras match, I think it's a very good starting point to build off of

Canada WCQs aren't appointment tv (yet), so SN/TSN promo ads are of marginal benefit. Long break between windows also tempers any momentum.

Real drivers are Canada needs to continue to win, style of play should be perceived to be attractive and quality of play should be perceived to be good. Playing against nondescript footy nations like ES, Honduras & Panama doesn't help. And based on comments on this forum, even committed Canada supporters can't tolerate watching many Concacaf teams.

Telling stat in the Honduras tweet was that 936k channel surfed the product but less than 1/3 really were committed to watching it. 

Numbers for ES match came out. It averaged 184k. Lower distribution for SN1 hurt the numbers. At the same time, US Open got just over 200k while Jays vs Yankees almost hit a million.

 

 

Edited September 10, 2021 by red card

[Club Linesman]

1 hour ago, red card said:

Real drivers are Canada needs to continue to win, style of play should be perceived to be attractive and quality of play should be perceived to be good. Playing against nondescript footy nations like ES, Honduras & Panama doesn't help. And based on comments on this forum, even committed Canada supporters can't tolerate watching many Concacaf teams.

 

 

Do you mean casual Canada supporters?  The people that I know don’t miss a game, regardless of who we play.  
We need to recruit more of the casuals and Sportsnet needs to get some advertising out for these  coming games.  Someone mentioned getting Ryan Reynolds on board. 

[SoccMan]

184 to 1 million for the jays game  just goes to show how niche of a sport soccer is in Canada at least the men’s national team is . Playing in the last round of qualifying for the first time since 1998 and so few watching compared to what the Jays pulled in . Remember, the Jays game one of 140 games a season the Jays play .

[Yoginess]

29 minutes ago, SoccMan said:

184 to 1 million for the jays game  just goes to show how niche of a sport soccer is in Canada at least the men’s national team is . Playing in the last round of qualifying for the first time since 1998 and so few watching compared to what the Jays pulled in . Remember, the Jays game one of 140 games a season the Jays play .

I don't think casuals quite understand how big of a deal being the last round of qualifying as much as we would. If I was a casual this would be another not World Cup game. 

[Kent]

4 hours ago, SoccMan said:

184 to 1 million for the jays game  just goes to show how niche of a sport soccer is in Canada at least the men’s national team is . Playing in the last round of qualifying for the first time since 1998 and so few watching compared to what the Jays pulled in . Remember, the Jays game one of 140 games a season the Jays play .

I don't follow TV ratings, but I am guessing that 1 million figure is high for them. They were playing the Yankees and it was their 7th win in a row. But yeah, obviously the Jays are a much, much, bigger draw than the CMNT.

[Shway]

1 hour ago, Kent said:

I don't follow TV ratings, but I am guessing that 1 million figure is high for them. They were playing the Yankees and it was their 7th win in a row. But yeah, obviously the Jays are a much, much, bigger draw than the CMNT.

Sad but it’s true.

I had a girl come up to me who lives in liberty village(because I was in red gear) and ask me “what’s going on today”….I’m like “CMNT (obviously said the full thing) are playing in WCQing games to qualify for the World Cup”. I tried in the most basic laymen’s terms. She goes ohhhh, I should’ve known I played soccer all my life and still play. I’m like no way! You definitely should’ve known.

Just shows that marketing is very key in the city. It would go a long wayyyyy.

Bluejays is a known date vibe. Nice, slow, full and boring with opportunities to get drunk and talk. 

For TV ratings to be that high - I’m naive to the market.

[Kent]

9 hours ago, Shway said:

Sad but it’s true.

I had a girl come up to me who lives in liberty village(because I was in red gear) and ask me “what’s going on today”….I’m like “CMNT (obviously said the full thing) are playing in WCQing games to qualify for the World Cup”. I tried in the most basic laymen’s terms. She goes ohhhh, I should’ve known I played soccer all my life and still play. I’m like no way! You definitely should’ve known.

Just shows that marketing is very key in the city. It would go a long wayyyyy.

Bluejays is a known date vibe. Nice, slow, full and boring with opportunities to get drunk and talk. 

For TV ratings to be that high - I’m naive to the market.

Yeah. I've played soccer all my life, so of course I've got friends on facebook that used to play soccer, and that like to watch soccer. Nobody posted anything on facebook about going to the game, not even responding to my posts about being at the game. But there are a couple guys that quite often post about going to Jays games (I do see some posts about people going to TFC games). For the 2019 game against the USA I brought out something like 15 coworkers to the game and they all said they had a great time. This time around I couldn't get big group tickets obviously so I just let people know about the games and when tickets go on sale in case anybody wanted to buy their own tickets. The only people from that group that went to either game were a couple of guys that I brought as part of my 4 ticket purchase.

At this point my impression is that people enjoy if they watch or attend the games, but they don't yet think to make the effort.

[Metro]

12 hours ago, Kent said:

I don't follow TV ratings, but I am guessing that 1 million figure is high for them. They were playing the Yankees and it was their 7th win in a row. But yeah, obviously the Jays are a much, much, bigger draw than the CMNT.

I think it's unfair to compare ratings with the Blue Jays.  Keep in mind that the entire Rogers media empire is one big marketing tool for the Blue Jays.  It is not uncommon to tune into news680 on the radio and hear a news story on what Guerrero Jr. had for breakfast (I'm not really kidding).  With coverage like that, casuals will know when the team is playing.

A more appropriate comparison would be basketball, and in particular the Raptors, IMHO; a sport and team that is not as established here as baseball and hockey.  And what we learn is something we all know: if you win, they will come.

184K the other day seems a little disappointing but I remember the Raps getting consistently less ratings WITH Vince Carter back in the day.  In fact, Raptor fans would complain (and I was one of them :-) ) that the American media cared more about the team than the Canadian media.  But once they won that title, they've been everywhere.

[SoccMan]

Yup the sad sad part are hearing stories of people who played soccer all their life growing up and having no clue about the Canadian men’s national team. If these people can’t get engaged about the men’s soccer team how can we expect to get sports fans that never played the game have no connection to the game to get into the team. I think soccer will always suffer here in Canada with the fact that unlike the other sports that are popular here, the big leagues for soccer are not here, the big leagues are in Europe and I think this plays a part in following domestic soccer and even the national team, that mentality that they are watching second rate soccer in their minds . It’s a mentality that permeates through a big portion of sports fans here in Canada and North America in general .

Edited September 11, 2021 by SoccMan

[Craig11rm]

In my social group only one guy from work ever knows when Canada plays and he never watches. He will check out highlights and maybe peak at the stats. When we played USA at the gold cup he looked at the passing stats and compared it to the Spain game he watch in the Euros and said you can’t be at the World Cup with those stats… but he’s a Euro snob. 

[TOCanada115]

I use to work at TSN. Jays usually get high hundreds of thousands to 1.1-1.2 million per game during the season (depending how big the game is/if they’re competitive. How the ratings go in Toronto:

1) Leafs

A little gap

2) Blue Jays

Huge gap

3) Raptors

somewhere in between the other 2 gap

4) TFC

 

CFL does shockingly well. Around the Raptors, and above. 

[Watchmen]

The ratings are solid, and hopefully Sportsnet is pleased with them, but it's also why getting the games on Sportsnet (or TSN) matters, because no where near these numbers would have signed up OneSoccer to watch. This thread includes a lot of people discussing how they couldn't get friends/co-workers to watch when it was essentially free. I'm sure the 278k/393k/184k viewers includes a lot who did casually tune in but never would have paid for it. If the team continues to do well, hopefully we start to see those numbers grow.

[youllneverwalkalone]

Apparently the women's 2015 WC QF got almost 3m:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/616465/most-watched-sports-tv-broadcasts-in-canada/

I think we will be at 1m by the end of the Ocho. Sunday, Jan 30 against the US or March 27 when we clinch at home against Jamaica.

Edited September 13, 2021 by youllneverwalkalone
What is the Jamaica?

[Joe MacCarthy]

On 9/11/2021 at 12:53 PM, SoccMan said:

I think soccer will always suffer here in Canada with the fact that unlike the other sports that are popular here, the big leagues for soccer are not here, the big leagues are in Europe and I think this plays a part in following domestic soccer and even the national team, that mentality that they are watching second rate soccer in their minds . It’s a mentality that permeates through a big portion of sports fans here in Canada and North America in general .

These guys are like Kennedy assassination conspiratards.  It doesn't matter what evidence or facts you put in front of them they will deny it.  If we beat Italy or Spain tomorrow, they would have had their B team, the turf was subpar, we were lucky, it wouldn't matter.

Fact, we went into the 10th? ranked teams home and outplayed them for significant minutes.  So what are the excuses, well the rankings are BS blah. blah. blah.  Sooner or later we're going to get to the point where we are beating those traditionally good teams.  If these guys can't deal with that f 'em.  I've been waiting decades to start getting to this point. 

[Joe MacCarthy]

On 9/11/2021 at 1:35 PM, TOCanada115 said:

CFL does shockingly well. Around the Raptors, and above. 

September 5 2021

CFL WIN/SSK: 980k (TSN)
Baseball Blue Jays: 695k (SN)
Soccer CAN/USA: 393k (TSN)
Racing Dutch GP: 372k (TSN)

[Macksam]

On 9/10/2021 at 6:38 PM, SoccMan said:

184 to 1 million for the jays game  just goes to show how niche of a sport soccer is in Canada at least the men’s national team is . Playing in the last round of qualifying for the first time since 1998 and so few watching compared to what the Jays pulled in . Remember, the Jays game one of 140 games a season the Jays play .

184,000 on Sportnet 1, a channel most probably don't have. I don't and had to resort to Onesoccer to fall back on. 

The Jays are doing well right now, hence why they are drawing well. Baseball is such a Fairweather sport, that number would be halved or even a third of what it was if the team was out of the playoff hunt. 

On 9/11/2021 at 11:53 AM, SoccMan said:

Yup the sad sad part are hearing stories of people who played soccer all their life growing up and having no clue about the Canadian men’s national team. If these people can’t get engaged about the men’s soccer team how can we expect to get sports fans that never played the game have no connection to the game to get into the team. I think soccer will always suffer here in Canada with the fact that unlike the other sports that are popular here, the big leagues for soccer are not here, the big leagues are in Europe and I think this plays a part in following domestic soccer and even the national team, that mentality that they are watching second rate soccer in their minds . It’s a mentality that permeates through a big portion of sports fans here in Canada and North America in general .

I think MLS actually becoming Major league will help, hopefully by 2023 when they sign a new major media deal. A lot of the fragmented soccer consumption in Cansda and the USA should amalgamate towards MLS at that point. 

[red card]

Audience reported for Mexico match on SN 360 was 158k, which makes it lowest rated Canada WCQ Octo match so far.

360 has the least reach of the SN channels and it was the latest starting match so far. Lots of MLB, NFL & NHL to watch also on the other channels at the same time. OneSoccer's youtube stream peaked around 4.5k.

 

 

Edited October 9, 2021 by red card

[Cblake]

3 minutes ago, red card said:

Audience reported for Mexico match on SN 360 was 158k, which makes it lowest rated Canada WCQ Octo match so far.

360 has the least reach of the SN channels and it was the latest starting match so far. Lots of MLB, NFL & NHL to watch also on the other channels at the same time. OneSoccer's youtube stream peaked around 4.5k.

 

 

Yeah 360 certainly will push down the numbers , a prime time match on the main network would certainly see a big uptick. Will be curious to see how ir shakes out in the later windows. Hopefully the November games can be positioned to give them maximum exposure. Everyone would benefit from it. 

[Grandbloke]

13 hours ago, red card said:

Audience reported for Mexico match on SN 360 was 158k, which makes it lowest rated Canada WCQ Octo match so far.

360 has the least reach of the SN channels and it was the latest starting match so far. Lots of MLB, NFL & NHL to watch also on the other channels at the same time. OneSoccer's youtube stream peaked around 4.5k.

 

 

The Mexico match was also on RDS.

[red card]

On US TV, Canada v Mexico got 3 million across 3 Spanish language networks. Univision got 1.9 million. Match would have been a good pickup for Univision Canada to carry assuming Spanish language rights would be cheaper.

This was higher than the Jamaica v USA audience of 1.9 million across 3 networks. More people watched on 2 Spanish language networks as ESPN2 only got 596k. 

Vs other sports, Canada v Mexico was only behind a NFL game. Vs all programs, it was just outside the top 10. 

https://showbuzzdaily.com/articles/showbuzzdailys-thursday-10-7-2021-top-150-cable-originals-network-finals.html