Monday, March 06, 2006 |
Not Reading The Paper
As McDonald explains, "The business model for all major stick-and-ball sports ... is predicated on DMA."Or, he could have just read his own paper back in January of last year, when Arte Moreno said basically the same thing. It really is true: reading is fundamental!That's short for Designated Market Area, a list used by the TV and ad industries to rank all 210 media markets in the U.S. It's based on the number of homes with televisions. No. 1 is New York and No. 210 is Glendive, Mont. (motto: "Good People Surrounded by Badlands") - which has 5,020 homes with TVs. Insert your own sheep joke here.
A sports team lives and dies, financially, on "its ability to drive revenue across every part" of its DMA. The "Los Angeles" DMA, No. 2 in the U.S., covers the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino and Riverside, except Palm Springs.
The best strategy to target all areas of a DMA, McDonald says, is to adopt the popular DMA name as the geographic part of the team's name. That allows a cable network like Fox Sports Net to sell to all areas of the market.
"It is absolutely no coincidence that clubs branded 'Anaheim,' 'California,' 'San Jose,' 'Golden State' and 'Oakland' have problems finding media dollars, as none of those ... reflect the DMA the team plays in."
"While Cox (Cable) in Rancho Santa Margarita may sell 'Anaheim' with ease, Adelphia in Los Angeles ... can't go to the Thousand Oaks Auto Mall and ask them to attach their brand to 'Anaheim.'"
"It is no coincidence that the Angels rebrand with ... ('Los Angeles') and nine months later, Fox Sports offers them a (TV) contract that triples their media revenue. ... The Angels significantly increased the number of advertising targets Fox can approach."
And what if Orange County became its own DMA?
It would be No. 30, behind markets such as Raleigh-Durham. Rules would keep Angels and Ducks broadcasts out of the L.A. DMA, so "advertising revenue would plummet, and both O.C. franchises would eventually relocate."
I would point out that a No. 30 DMA would still put us ahead of a lot of other pro sports towns - Kansas City, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, New Orleans and Memphis - so I don't subscribe to McDonald's dire prediction, but I do appreciate his work here.
-Frank Mickadeit
Someone needs to remind Mr. Mickadeit that those other smaller cities nevertheless have their own television stations. While OC might be #30, it would be academic. He acknowledges that the games couldn't be broadcast in L.A., while failing to realize that there would be no broadcast alternative for the Halos.
Talk about a sore loser.
: 3/06/2006 11:11:00 PM : 3/06/2006 11:52:00 PM
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