Making an Impact

21CF Impact Week, held the week of June 4, 2018, is an initiative of 21CF’s Social Impact program, which aims to help create a business that looks beyond profit to consider the impact we have in the world around us.

 

This is 21CF’s second nationwide week of service and involves approx. 3,000 colleagues volunteering in over 80 events in over 25 cities across the US with a global rollout early fall.

During the week, we at FOX Sports Ohio and SportsTime Ohio volunteered our time at the Greater Cleveland Food Bank and Cincinnati’s Freestore Foodbank to help sort and repack non-perishable food items to serve our local food pantries, soup kitchens and shelters.

 

We also collected military care package items, from food and clothing to toiletries and personal items.

We then loaded up the Fan Express and made the deliver to Camp Ravenna Joint Military Training Center, the training site for the Ohio Army Nationall Guard in Ravenna, Ohio.

 As part of 21CF, we have tremendous scale, and 21CF Impact Week a powerful way to harness and celebrate the collective impact we can make by giving back. 

We believe it’s our responsibility as a local business to make a positive social impact on the communities in which we live and work.

 




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Cavs pregame clip

Indians pregame clip 1

Indians pregame clip 2

Reds pregame clip

FSO Tweet 1

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New way to track TV viewership vaults Reds past top TV shows

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2018/03/30/new-way-to-track-tv-viewership-vaults-redspast-top.html

By Steve Watkins – Staff Reporter, Cincinnati Business Courier

Fox Sports has been focusing on a new way to look at Major League Baseball TV ratings that would push Cincinnati Reds games’ viewership far beyond even the top-rated TV shows.

Fox Sports executives have been tracking a metric called total viewing consumption over the past few years to gauge TV viewership. It multiplies average household ratings – the typical measure for a TV show’s viewership – by the number of minutes that show is on TV over the course of the year.

In essence, the Reds and other MLB teams fare much better in total viewing consumption because they’re on the air for so many more hours over the course of a year than a hit show would be.

Take last year. The Reds averaged 32,000 households watching their broadcasts on Fox Sports Ohio last year. That’s pretty good, especially considering they had their third straight last-place finish. They posted a 3.8 average household rating, meaning 3.8 percent of TV households tuned in to Reds games. Their prime-time ratings ranked 17th among MLB’s 30 teams, according to Forbes.

But those ratings were well shy of popular shows like “The Big Bang Theory,” which averaged 125,000 local households over the 2016-17 season, or “NCIS,” which averaged 112,000. But those shows are on for a half-hour and hour, respectively, and air once a week. The Reds are on 162 times last season with games typically lasting about three hours.

Reds games were on TV for 29,355 minutes last season. New episodes of “Big Bang” aired for just 720 minutes, while “NCIS” was on for 1,440 minutes. 

Multiply all of that Reds air time by their ratings, and they had total viewership consumption of 939.4 million viewer minutes. By comparison, “NCIS” had a paltry 161 million viewer minutes, while “Big Bang” had 90 million.

“It’s no secret that Cincinnati has always been a great baseball town, and when we look at Reds viewing in terms of total time spent we really get a clear picture of how dominant the Reds are locally all season, and how that viewing piles up over a 162-game season,” said Mike Mulvihill, Fox Sports executive vice president of research and strategy. “Notice, for example, that the Reds attract more than 10 times as much total viewing as “The Big Bang Theory.” That is marketplace domination, and we see similar trends all over the country.”

Mulvihill said this new metric won’t replace ratings for Fox Sports or advertisers in determining ad rates, but it does provide valuable information to Fox.

“Our business partners find this interesting, but I think they’re going to continue to focus primarily on metrics that speak specifically to their own campaigns,” Mulvihill said. “Looking at total consumption just helps us paint the most accurate picture of how much a major league team really controls its market over the course of a season.”

Meantime, the Reds will start to pile up viewership numbers again this season beginning Friday with the Opening Day game at 4:10 p.m. vs. the Washington Nationals after it was postponed from Thursday due to inclement weather. The game will air on Fox Sports Ohio and WKRC-TV (Channel 12). 

Indians break STO ratings record

Indians break STO ratings record

September 15, 2017 12:02 pm

KEVIN KLEPS Twitter RSS Feed

STAFF BLOG : Sports Business

The Tribe's 10-inning win over the Royals on Thursday night — victory No. 22 in a row — generated an average rating of 20.44 in the Cleveland market. That's the largest ever for a Tribe broadcast on SportsTime Ohio, beating the 2017 home opener (a 19.58 rating) by almost a point.

Thursday's game was watched by 306,000 homes in the Cleveland market, and it peaked at 27.96 rating and 419,000 homes in the final 15 minutes.

STO has broadcast 19 of the 22 wins during a streak that is the longest in baseball in 101 years (or all-time, depending on your view of the 1916 New York Giants). The average rating of the 19 broadcasts is a whopping 10.66.

Wait, there's more: Five of the 10 highest-rated Tribe games of the season have occurred in the last seven contests, and those seven have a ratings norm of 14.19.

Indians ratings in September are averaging 11.45, a 55% increase from the September norm at this point in 2016, and the season average is up 28% year-over-year (to 8.16).

The Indians will finish the year with their best TV ratings since 2001, and they'll reach 2 million in attendance for the first time since 2008.

(So, please, stop saying Cleveland doesn't support the Tribe.)

September 14, 2017 12:05 pm

KEVIN KLEPS Twitter RSS Feed

STAFF BLOG : Sports Business

The TV ratings

The Indians have MLB's second-best local TV ratings, and the Tribe is pretty much guaranteed to finish in baseball's top five for the third time in four years.

On Sept.6 — win No. 14 during the streak — the Tribe drew a 14.9 rating and 23 share on SportsTime Ohio. That was the largest-ever rating for an STO-exclusive broadcast, and the best for an Indians game that aired only on a regional sports network since 2005 (a 15.1 rating on Fox Sports Ohio for a Sept. 30 game against the White Sox, with the Tribe battling for a playoff spot).

Six days later, STO easily topped that number, with a 16.67 rating and 250,000 households in the Cleveland market, for the Indians' 2-0 win over Detroit — the Kluber gem that drew 24,654 at Progressive Field for win No. 20 in a row.

Prior to Wednesday afternoon's win over Detroit, STO's previous six broadcasts had posted an average rating of 13.5, with each posting at least an 11. The Tribe's September ratings were averaging 10.85, which was a 50% jump from September's average at that point in 2016. And the Wednesday game, with many of us "working," generated a 9.08 rating, which is monstrous for a weekday afternoon broadcast.

The frenzy of the streak has brought the Indians' ratings average to 8.1, which is a 27% year-over-spike and 1.6 ahead of last year's norm of 2016. The latter number, a 6.5 average, was the best in 11 years, and this year's norm will wind up being the best since 2001 (9.94).

The two takeaways from all that data: Clearly, there's a ton of interest in the Tribe, and you don't need a packed house at Progressive Field every night to prove it.

Indians lead MLB in TV ratings

May 18, 2017

KEVIN KLEPS

Entering Wednesday's loss to the Rays, the Indians were averaging an 8.0 rating and being watched by 120,000 homes in the Cleveland market on SportsTime Ohio. That marked a 60% year-over-year jump, and was 23% better than the Tribe's 2016 ratings norm of 6.5, which ranked fifth in baseball and was the franchise's best since 2005.

As of May 11, the Indians, according to Nielsen, had the best local TV ratings in MLB. The Cardinals (7.92 average), Royals (7.55) and Orioles (7.53) were all within striking distance of the top.

Also noteworthy: The Indians' ratings norm on STO was significantly better in April, when they were 14-10, than it has been in May, a month in which they're 6-9. The Tribe had a whopping 8.45 ratings average in April, a 62% jump from April 2016.

The Indians' ratings norm in May entering Wednesday was 6.96, which was up 41% from May 2016 and almost a half-point higher than the club's 2016 season average.

The five highest-rated games this season all occurred in the first 11 days of April. That list is led by an April 11 win against the White Sox, a WKYC simulcast that produced a 19.58 rating — the highest ever for the Tribe on STO.

The top five is rounded out by the opening three-game series at Texas (11.49 on April 4, 10.19 on April 3 and 9.69 on April 5), and another matchup with the White Sox (a 10.04 on April 12 that ranks fourth).

The Tribe's season average of 8.0 is on track to be the club's best since 2001, when the Indians had a 9.94 ratings norm on Fox Sports Ohio.

One very large caveat in all of this ratings buzz: For the robust numbers to continue, the Indians need to play better. They've lost five of their last seven, and have scored four or fewer runs in 11 of their 15 games this month.

Fortunately, the AL Central is kind of a mess (the 19-16 Twins and 20-19 Indians are the only teams above .500), and other expected powerhouses (the 20-19 Cubs and 21-18 Red Sox) aren't wowing anyone, either.

It's a LONG season, but we're confident in at least one ratings prediction: The Indians will be in the top five on TV for the third time in the last four years.

Natalie Gulbis joins golf pro Jimmy Hanlin's '18 Holes' show

February 01, 2016

By Kevin Kleps

Northeast Ohio golf pro Jimmy Hanlin’s popular “18 Holes” television show is adding a big-name co-host, and a few words to the program’s title.

Natalie Gulbis, one of the most popular personalities in women’s golf, is replacing Carling Nolan as the co-host for “18 Holes with Jimmy Hanlin.” The show was originally named “Tee it Up,” but was rebranded in 2014, when Fox Sports Ohio expanded the show’s reachby airing the program on 10 of its regional sports networks.

When the first “18 Holes with Jimmy Hanlin and Natalie Gulbis” debuts in May, the show will be available on the majority of Fox’s 18 regional networks, an industry source said. Hanlin’s website says “18 Holes” in 2015 was available in more than 70 million homes across the U.S.

“Honestly, if you told me that Carling was leaving and I was allowed to pick one person, anybody in the world, my No. 1 choice would be Natalie Gulbis,” Hanlin said in an interview withCrain’s. “She brings everything to the table from the standpoint that she has star power, she loves the game of golf, and in person, she’s flat out one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet.”

In a news release, Fox Sports said Nolan left the show to “pursue other opportunities.” Hanlin said his former co-host, who has Type 1 diabetes, is working full-time for JDRF, a global organization that raises money for Type 1 diabetes research.

The 33-year-old Gulbis won the California Women’s Amateur Championship at age 14 in 1997, and played in her first LPGA tournament that year. She has one LPGA victory and 37 top-10 finishes in her 15-year career, which has been hampered of late by injuries.

Gulbis, who had hip surgery late in 2014, played in 14 events last year, and Hanlin said she’s cutting down on her tournament schedule as she begins to focus more on the next stage of her career.

Gulbis had her own reality show on the Golf Channel, was featured in the 2012 Sports Illustratedswimsuit issue, and has appeared on “Celebrity Apprentice” and “The Price is Right.” Her foundation raises money annually for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Southern Nevada.

“She’s one of the most recognizable golf professionals, man or woman, in the country,” Hanlin said.

Hanlin — who also hosts “Swing Clinic,” “Golf Zone” and “Links to the Game” on Fox Sports Ohio and SportsTime Ohio — said the “18 Holes” format will “stay basically the same.”

The 30-minute program showcases 12 golf courses per year, with many of the programs shot at some of the country’s nicest resorts.

Hanlin and his partner show how they play different shots on the course, and they hope the program “gets people excited about the game of golf.”

Gulbis, according to Hanlin, saw “18 Holes” as the “perfect avenue to do that.”

The show begins shooting in a couple weeks at Wolf Creek Golf Club in Mesquite, Nev. The second stop on the Hanlin and Gulbis tour will be Aviara Golf Club & Resort, a San Diego-area course that hosts an LPGA event each year.

One show detail that hasn’t been decided: Where will Hanlin line up his tees?

“Carling has beat me already. I might have to negotiate with Natalie,” he said with a laugh. “I would play tees all the way in the back with Carling. She would typically play the white tees (often called the men’s tees or “regular” tees) or the senior tees. I might have to negotiate with Natalie to move my tee up.”

In a Fox Sports news release, Gulbis said she’s “excited to play courses around the country with Jimmy and share my perspective of the game with viewers.”

Hanlin said the extended reach of “18 Holes” has resulted in something with which he isn’t accustomed — getting recognized outside Northeast Ohio.

“Ohio is a really strong brand for us,” said the owner of three golf courses, including Little Mountain Country Club and StoneWater Golf Club, in the state. “When I go to an Indians game, people recognize me. But that is happening outside of Ohio now.”

Hanlin said when he was playing at Trump National Golf Club outside of Los Angeles for a 2015 “18 Holes” show, a group of golfers got his attention.

“Guys were yelling, ‘Hey, 18 Holes is fun,’ ” he said.

Everything you need to know about NFL’s streaming experiment

The Jaguars’ Oct. 25 game with the Bills is Jacksonville’s most anticipated regular-season NFL game in at least a decade — maybe ever. The curiosity around this game, which will kick off at 9:30 a.m. from London, has nothing to do with how the team performs on the field. Rather, the sports community is focused on this game to see how the team performs online.

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2015/06/22/Media/Sports-Media.aspx

Yahoo paid around $15 million for the rights to stream this game worldwide, sources said, marking the first time that one of the NFL’s regular-season games will be streamed to an international audience. Nobody knows how many people will watch it. Nobody knows whether the technology will work with a mass audience. Nobody knows how the NFL will capitalize on this over the next several years. But Yahoo is in the market selling it already with an initial asking price of $200,000 per 30-second spot. 

It’s a Tier? It’s a Package? It’s…. Cable TV in 2015 as ESPN Sues Verizon

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

http://www.btigresearch.com/2015/04/28/its-a-tier-its-a-package-its-cable-tv-in-2015-as-espn-sues-verizon/?print=true

Oxford Dictionary definitions:

Tier: “a row or level of a structure, typically one of a series of rows placed one above the other and successively receding or diminishing in size”

Package: “combine (various products) for sale as one unit”

Given the rapidly evolving media landscape, multi-year programming contracts (usually 5+ years in length) are incredibly complex documents that attempt to plan for unforeseeable changes throughout the industry.  Making matters even more complicated is the fact that the exact terms of programmer contracts are highly confidential, with most industry participants only talking publicly in generalities. 

Collapse of Comcast-TWC merger could extend Dodgers' TV blackout

http://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/dodgersnow/la-sp-dn-dodgers-comcast-time-warner-blackout-20150423-story.html

Dodgers fans should brace for a second full season without the home team on 
television throughout Southern California.

That was the word Thursday from sports business analysts, as the proposed merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable teetered  near collapse.  

Comcast Takes a $236 Million Write-Down on Houston RSN

https://www1.snl.com/interactivex/article.aspx?KPLT=7&id=31463256

Comcast Corp. recorded impairment charges in 2014 related to CSN Houston.

The cable and media company booked a net $236 million of impairment in investment and loans related to the Houston-based regional sports network, according to a Form 10-K filed Feb. 27.

CSN Houston broadcasts the games of MLB's Houston Astros and NBA's Houston Rockets. Comcast owned a 23% stake in the network while the Astros owned 46% and the Rockets had the rest. But the network had difficulty getting carried by a pay TV operator because its fees were among the highest for RSNs.

After CSN Houston filed for bankruptcy, AT&T Inc. and DIRECTV bought the network. AT&T owns 40% while DIRECTV holds 60%. The new RSN was relaunched as Root Sports Southwest.

The Astros and Rockets gave up their ownership and voting rights but will collect rights fees.

No MLB In-Market Streaming Expected for Opening Day and Beyond

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2015/03/02/Media/MLB-streaming.aspx

No U.S.-based MLB team will have in-market streaming services on Opening Day in April, a development causing mounting frustration among regional sports network executives.

Despite public statements to the contrary, sources familiar with the discussions say MLB and the companies that run RSNs have not made any progress in negotiations since last fall.

Furthermore, several media executives said they are angry that the league is not accepting the same TV Everywhere streaming terms that other leagues and content providers are using. Privately, they say they are skeptical a deal will be completed at all for the 2015 baseball season. 

FIFA Angers ESPN by Awarding U.S. World Cup Soccer Rights to Fox

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2015/02/16/Media/FIFA.aspx

ESPN President John Skipper on Friday said that the network "had no advance warning about the news" that FIFA had extended its deal with Fox and Telemundo for English- and Spanish-language World Cup rights in the U.S. through '26, according to Neil Best of NEWSDAY. Skipper "did not sound too pleased about it." He said, "No, not only not given an opportunity to bid, but we were given no heads up; nobody's called us yet. We read the press release. We know the same thing you know, which is an interesting position to be in as a former rights-holder who I think did a very outstanding job with the last two World Cups." When Skipper was told he sounded displeased, he responded, "I'm not going to characterize my emotions" (NEWSDAY, 2/14). SI.com's Richard Deitsch cited sources as confirming that ESPN execs "were ticked off -- and rightly so." Sources suggested that granting Fox and Telemundo an "extra round without opening up the bidding means a move to the winter" for the '22 World Cup in Qatar "is a done deal" (SI.com, 2/15). BLOOMBERG NEWS' Tariq Panja noted ESPN's Bob Ley criticized FIFA on his Twitter feed, writing, “Did FIFA just grant rights to WC2026 without opening it up to bidding? #typicalFIFA" (BLOOMBERG NEWS, 2/13). WORLDSOCCER.com's Keir Radnedge wrote the move is "being seen as compensation over the likely date change" of the '22 event. Fox execs "were furious when ... they suddenly discovered that the climate row over Qatar threatened to switch that ‘second’ World Cup into a midwinter broadcast clash with the run-up to the Super Bowl" (WORLDSOCCER.com, 2/13). 

QUESTIONS ABOUND: ESPN FC's Gabriele Marcotti wrote at the "very least," the TV rights announcement "is unusual on two fronts." First, they "never went to tender, unlike last time around when bidding was fierce and the value of the rights went sky high." There "was no auction, just an extension." When asked on Friday as to the reasons, FIFA responded, "The extensions were the result of a detailed assessment of the market and discussions with the relevant broadcasters." Second, the deal "comes with the tournament 11 years away, at a time when we don't even know where it will be held." Location generally "is fundamental to determining how much a broadcaster is willing to bid." The possibility that the U.S. could be awarded the '26 World Cup "would have driven the value of the rights even higher." It is "hard to see how the broadcasters who were awarded 2026 even began to budget for how much they could afford to bid" (ESPNFC.com, 2/14).

FOX Sports 1 To Launch New Sunday Night Show Hosted By Katie Nolan

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2015/02/16/Media/FS1-Nolan.aspx

FS1 plans to launch a new show hosted by Katie Nolan that it is calling “Garbage Time with Katie Nolan.” It is scheduled to run Sunday nights, but it is not clear when it will debut. Fox Sports would not comment on the show, which was discussed on a recent podcast by "Fox Sports Live" anchors Jay Onrait and Dan O’Toole. FS1 hired Nolan for the Regis Philbin-led studio show “Crowd Goes Wild,” but that was cancelled last spring after eight months on air. Nolan since then has been hosting a regular video series on FoxSports.com called “No Filter."

NBA ratings: Teams in transition post huge TV gains

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2015/02/16/Media/NBA-RSNs.aspx

Bucks, Hawks strong locally after offseason of drama

By John Ourand & David Broughton, Staff Writers

Published February 16, 2015

Two NBA markets that went through tumultuous offseasons — Milwaukee and Atlanta — have posted two of the three biggest local TV ratings increases in the league so far this season. 

In Milwaukee, new owners and a new coach are breathing life into the Bucks, a team that’s finished below .500 on the court nine of the past 10 seasons. This year, however, the team is winning, and Bucks fans are tuning in: Games on FS Milwaukee are up a whopping 323 percent so far this season compared with midseason last year.  

Fox in market with playoff spots on RSNs

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2015/02/16/Media/HTS-NHL-playoffs.aspx

Published February 16, 2015

Fox Sports is in the market selling presenting sponsorships to the first round of the NBA and NHL playoffs on its regional sports networks. 

Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger is no longer viewed as inevitable

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-comcast-time-warner-cable-merger-opposition-20150127-story.html?track=rss#page=1

By MEG JAMES - January 27, 2015

Comcast Corp.'s bold move to buy rival Time Warner Cable in a $45-billion deal once seemed inevitable.

Wall Street figured combining the nation's two largest cable operators wouldn't have much problem clearing regulatory hurdles. Both companies operate in different parts of the country, and wouldn't be seen as anti-competitive. Subscribers, including 1.8 million in the Los Angeles region, would have the same number of choices for pay-TV as they currently do.

But that was 11 months ago — and a lot has changed. 

FOX Sports Midwest to reair key Cards games on Christmas Day

As has become a FOX Sports Midwest custom on Christmas Day, the Cardinals’ local television outlet plans to air a marathon of some of the team’s key games from the previous season.

Royals’ TV marathon games set

FOX Sports Kansas City will replay five of the most memorable regular-season Royals games of 2014 on Christmas Eve. 

James Murdoch Discusses FOX RSNs, FOX Sports 1

Excerpts from James Murdoch's appearance this week at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference in NY: 

Q: On Fox Sports side, obviously, some big changes and some investments. What's the long-term vision for Fox Sports? I mean, as we sort of look at the rest of the decade, the Big 10 I think is the last  sort of big piece that comes up and seems to slot right in for various reasons, but there's no other major sports  renewals until next decade. So, at this point, is this just sort of operate what you have well and wait for the next round of big stuff to come up next decade or is there more to it than that? 

50 Most Influential Executives in Sports - 2014

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2014/12/08/Most-Influential/Intro.aspx

1. Adam Silver, NBA
2. John Skipper, ESPN
3. Robert Kraft, The Kraft Group
4. Bud Selig / Rob Manfred, Major League Baseball
5. Roger Goodell, NFL
6. Sean McManus, CBS Sports
7. Ari Emanuel / Patrick Whitesell, WME-IMG
8. David Levy, Turner Broadcasting System
9. Gary Bettman, NHL
10. Brian France, NASCAR
11. Mark Lazarus, NBC Sports Group
12. Randy Freer, Fox Networks Group / Eric Shanks, Fox Sports
13. Steve Ballmer, Los Angeles Clippers
14. Mike Slive, Southeastern Conference
15. Jerry Jones, Dallas Cowboys
16. Tim Finchem, PGA Tour
17. Mark Parker, Nike Inc. / Trevor Edwards, Nike Brand
18. Phil Anschutz, AEG
19. Don Garber, Major League Soccer
20. Casey Wasserman, Wasserman Media Group
21. Kevin Plank, Under Armour
22. Jim Delany, Big Ten Conference
23. Stan Kroenke, Kroenke Sports Enterprises
24. Michael Levine / Howard Nuchow, CAA Sports
25. Bob Bowman, MLB Advanced Media
26. Dan Gilbert / LeBron James, Cleveland Cavaliers
27. Larry Baer, San Francisco Giants
28. Peter Holt, San Antonio Spurs
29. Scott Blackmun / Larry Probst, U.S. Olympic Committee
30. John Henry, Fenway Sports Group
31. Indra Nooyi / Adam Harter, PepsiCo
32. Bob Bowlsby, Big 12 Conference
33. Ted Leonsis, Monumental Sports & Entertainment
34. Jeff Pash, NFL
35. Michele Roberts, National Basketball Players Association
36. Joe Leccese, Proskauer
37. Jorn Socquet / Lucas Herscovici, Anheuser-Busch InBev
38. Bill Daly, NHL
39. DeMaurice Smith, NFL Players Association
40. Tom Long / Andy England, MillerCoors
41. Mark Emmert, NCAA
42. Judge Claudia Wilken, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California
43. Don Fehr, NHL Players’ Association
44. Mark Tatum, NBA
45. Sandy Douglas / Sharon Byers, Coca-Cola North America
46. Brian Rolapp, NFL
47. Mark Cuban, Dallas Mavericks
48. Tony Clark, MLB Players Association
49. Sunil Gulati, U.S. Soccer Federation
50. Harvey Levin, TMZ