Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Viewership Down for Women's Sports Last Weekend
Paul Sen at Sports Media Watch reported that the WNBA - and women's sports in general - struggled for viewers on the weekend:
The WNBA's season opener between the Shock and Sparks -- a rematch of their now nearly forgotten brawl -- drew a 0.6 overnight rating on ABC, down 33% from a 0.9 for last year's comparable Sparks/Mercury tilt, but even with Monarchs/Shock in '07.
(* * *)
The WNBA and LPGA accounted for the three lowest overnights of the weekend for live sports programming on broadcast. Even a relatively unheralded event like the Track & Field Prefontaine Classic managed a 1.2/3 overnight over the weekend -- double the ratings of the WNBA and LPGA.
Egad. Let's hope this isn't an ominous portent. Then again, given the quality of that Shock/Sparks game, maybe we should be happy about the low numbers.
A couple of interesting tweets from Paul Sen at Sports Media Watch
@paulsen_smw The Sparks wore their yellow home unis on the road at Detroit; does Farmers Insurance not allow them to wear purple?
@paulsen_smw Unbelievably misleading ad courtside: "WNBA Saturdays on ABC". ABC aired its only reg. season WNBA game of the season yesterday.
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2 comments:
Must've been because everyone was tired of hearing the same crap over and over. Did you know this is Lisa Leslie's last season?!! Did you know that Candace Parker just had a baby and she has to go breastfeed?!! ;)
I imagine the league is tracking the viewership of Live Access?
Viewership was not down in *our* household...I think with the ABC game, NBATV (which I didn't even know I had until this weekend) and Live Access, I think I watched about five games this weekend.
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