CNBC: Advertisers Bet Big on the Super Bowl

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100424213

"So why are advertisers flocking to a single event, where a mere 30 seconds of ad time costs as much as $4 million, plus often another million or so to produce a commercial?

Because it's still the best way to reach a massive audience, who treat the ads with just as much respect as they treat the game itself. And now brands can get more bang for their buck by extending their ads for weeks before and after."

Nielsen: Avid sports fans are a particularly tech-savvy demographic

Perhaps the most over-used phrase in my dissertation was "tech-savvy affluent males." This is the specific audience that Vox Media -- the company I studied -- is most interested in attracting to its network of 300+ sports blogs (SB Nation), its consumer technology news site (The Verge), and its video games news site (Polygon). As Vox Media CEO Jim Bankoff explained of the company's expansion from sports to technology:

Nearly all of our advertisers are looking for young, tech savvy affluent males so there is great overlap and expansion opportunity there.

Indeed, Nielsen research published this week suggests that avid sports fans are a particularly tech-savvy demographic. Some highlights:

• "Avid sports fans are 52 percent more likely to own a tablet"
• 42% more likely to own a DVR
• 33% more likely to own a gaming console
• 21% more likely to own a smartphone
• 20% more likely to own a HDTV

• "Nearly 60% of tablet and smartphone owners who access sports on their device check this content at least once a day"

• "41% of all TV-related Tweets are about sports programming, although sports accounts for only 1.3% of all TV programming."

• Users of the top six sports apps spend more than 1 hour, on average, using that app each month. ESPN Streak for the Cash users spend an average of 2 hours each month using the app.

As Stephen Master, senior VP of sports for Nielsen, told Mashable:

"Live sports are all about real-time action, and mobile devices allow sports fans to keep up and discuss that action, while also providing instant access to the sports content they want — whether that's score updates, fantasy stats or tweets to their favorite athlete ... Smartphones and tablets haven't quite changed the live sports viewing experience yet — TV is still the top platform — but our research shows that more and more people are frequently using these devices while watching TV, indicating that these devices are enhancing that viewing experience."

For Super Bowl Ads, It’s Go Viral or Go Home - cnbc.com

"We are seeing more teasers because they have been effective," said Steve Posavac, professor of marketing at Vanderbilt University. "This year, many advertisers feel that if they don't release a teaser, they will fail to gain consumers' mindshare, and that their ads will be lost in the clutter."

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100410648

All Viewers Pay to Keep TV Sports Fans Happy - NYTimes.com

"Sports are the television industry's bulwark against rapid technological change: while the companies fear cord-cutting by customers who can cobble together a diet of TV on the Internet, they rest a little easier knowing that former customers would be hard-pressed to find their favorite teams live online."
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/26/business/media/all-viewers-pay-to-keep-tv-sports-fans-happy.html?smid=pl-share

Dodgers, Signing Lucrative TV Deal, Plan to Start Regional Sports Network - NYTimes.com

"The multibillion-dollar deal with the Dodgers seemingly flies in the face of Time Warner Cable's public statements about tamping down on the rising costs of programming. SportsNet LA is likely to amount to $4 to $5 a month per subscriber in southern California, and some of that cost will be passed on subscribers through their monthly cable bills, with Time Warner Cable also absorbing some of the cost."

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/28/dodgers-signing-lucrative-tv-deal-plan-to-start-regional-sports-network/

Who are behind Super PACs? A collaborative class wiki project

(Originally published 11/7/12)

This week my Media History and Institutions class completed a collaborative research project that worked out pretty well. Each student was asked to research one of the largest individual donors to this election cycle's four largest Super PACs, and to report their findings on a collaborative class wiki. Students gathered information about that donor from ProPublica's PAC Track tool, Bloomberg Businessweek's company look-up tool, reputable citations at the bottom of their donor's Wikipedia article, and the power and influence mapping website, Muckety.com. The information they were asked to gather included: the donor's giving levels to Super PACs, their economic/political/ideological motivations, and their connections to other wealthy people and powerful groups. They completed the project in conjunction with a reading on the history of "dark money" in politics and political advertising.

Here are the directions for the project and the collaborative class wiki where students reported their findings. Feel free to borrow what you'd like.