Is the NHL dying?

The National Hockey League this past week held its first all-star game in 3 years.

No game was held in 2005 due to a labor dispute. No game was held last year due to the number of players taking time to play in the Winter Olympics.

The all-star game in 2004 was aired on ABC. It aired on a Sunday afternoon and had approximately 2 million viewers.

This year the game aired on Versus, the network formerly known as the Outdoor Life Network. It garnered a 0.7 Nielsen rating, which translates to approximately 673,000 viewers.

There was definitely drop off due to the game airing on a cable network that is not carried by all cable service providers. The potential audience was much smaller than when it aired on ABC in 2004.

But did the long labor dispute in 2005 hurt the game? Is overall interest in the league waning?

The NHL better put a plan in action if they want to increase audience size in the short term, and hopefully survive as a professional sports league in the long term.

Super Bowl XLI

The teams are now set. The combatants for Super Bowl XLI have been determined.

Yesterday the Chicago Bears beat the feel good favorite, the New Orleans Saints while the Indianapolis Colts were able to squeak by the New England Patriots.

It got me wondering what the advertisers for the biggest game in sports are thinking. The obviously want to have teams that represent the biggest markets in the country so that the potential audience could be at its greatest.

They would definitely want a team from New York, and if Los Angeles still had a team that would be ideal.

But Chicago is a good third. They are definitely a large enough market that advertisers would want.

But is Indianapolis? I definitely wonder how advertisers feel overall about having the Colts in the big game.

And It Starts Again

Today marked my first dissertation participant of the spring semester.

Last fall I ran 63 people through my expriment. I technically only need 17 more.

Yesterday I recruited 27 people to be run over the next 10 days. Hopefully enough of them will show up!

Complying with Title IX-At What Price?

James Madison University has made the decision to cut ten of its varsity sports. This is being done so that the university can become Title IX compliant.

Being dropped are men’s indoor and outdoor track, men’s cross country, men’s wrestling, men’s swimming, men’s gymnastics, men’s archery, women’s gymnastics, women’s archery, and women’s fencing.

Moves such as this baffle me. Is the elimination of opportunities to students what was in mind when Title IX was enacted?

The original intention for Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 was to ensure that female students had the same opportunities as male students in schools that receive some form of federal financial assistance. Exactly, what Title IX says is:

“No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, or be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

While the original intent of this was to equalize academic opportunities, Title IX has become synonymous with athletics.

The NCAA can enact sanctions on any university that is not deemed compliant under Title IX. Schools can be considered compliant in one of three ways.

1. Have the percentage of male and female athletes exactly (or nearly exactly) match the percentage of male and female students.

2. Show a consistent increase in the number of opportunities available to women in an effort to reach the equal percentages.

3. Prove that they are meeting the athletic interests and abilities of its female students.

James Madison was already a university with one of the largest number of intercollegiate sports. In total they had 28 sports. The problem was that while 61% of the student population is female only 51% of the student athlete population is female.

In an effort to reach compliance these 10 sports were eliminated. With these ten sports removed, 61% of all student athletes are now women.

But is this really complying with the original intent of the law? I’m a big supporter of Title IX, but I can’t imagine that those who enacted it really intended it to take away opportunities to anyone in an effort to get “equality.” Now 144 athletes at James Madison are without a sport, 8 of which were at James Madison on an academic scholarship. The funding that was going to these ten sports will now, however, provide more scholarships to women’s golf, tennis and swimming, and will allow men’s golf and tennis to have athletes on scholarship.

I understand that it is not always economically feasible to have more female sports than male sports. That is a fact of collegiate athletics. It was probably not cost effective for James Madison to add more women’s sports. But the question I have is, were they wanted or needed? If James Madison was meeting the athletic wants and needs of its female population, wouldn’t it have been compliant under the third prong of its test even though only 51% of their student athletes were female?

I do think that the NCAA and those who enact Title IX have to give serious thought as to its implementation, particularly since it seems to be doing the opposite of what it originally intended: it’s taking away opportunities instead of adding them.

Interesting Counterprogramming or Ridiculous Concepts?

You’d have to be living under a rock or not watching a television to not know that reality programming over the past seven years has become a staple of the television schedule. In comparison to the typical sitcom or drama, a reality show (or even a game show) is relatively inexpensive to produce. Less writers, less talent, and less behind the scenes personnel needs to be paid in the production of a reality program. Plus these programs are interesting ways for networks to counterprogram against the sitcoms and dramas that appear on the other networks’ schedules during those time slots.

The television networks have recognized this and typically a day doesn’t go by where you don’t find a reality program somewhere on the prime time schedule. All of the big five broadcast networks have their hits that seem to return year after year to their schedule, often posting some of the best ratings that the network sees. ABC has Extreme Makeover Home Edition and Dancing with the Stars, CBS has Survivor and the Amazing Race, Fox has American Idol and Hell's Kitchen, and the CW has America’s Next Top Model and Beauty and the Geek. The NBC brass has gone so far as to recently announce that they plan to program much of the 8:00 hour in prime time with reality and game shows. While NBC has had modest hits with the Biggest Loser and the Apprentice, their biggest ratings have been coming with game shows such as Deal or No Deal and 1 vs. 100. (It’s also worth noting that cable networks aren’t exempt to these programming trends either.)

I must admit that the ideas behind reality programming fascinate me. Real people placed in contrived situations and watching their reactions is something that I watch with great interest. With the start of January many new reality programs are on the slate, and I plan to give each at least one viewing to see how entertaining it really is.

So far I’ve given NBC’s Grease You’re the One that Want and the Apprentice Los Angeles, the CW’s Beauty and the Geek, and CBS’s Armed and Famous a shot. Beauty and the Geek has been the best of the bunch, but over the past two seasons has been a quality performer. The Apprentice Los Angeles was interesting because it took and existing show’s formula and tweaked it just a bit. Grease You’re the One that I Want was definitely lacking, appearing as if they were trying to be American Idol for the Broadway audience. And last night I watched Armed and Famous, which looks like it is going to end up being Cops with celebrity police officers. (Am I the only one frightened by the idea of LaToya Jackson carrying a gun?)

Still to come are new seasons of American Idol, Survivor, and the Amazing Race. You can bet that I’ll be there to at the very least sample these programs.

Could They Be Sending a Message?

This evening I had the joy of watching the Indiana University men’s basketball team handily defeat Purdue by a score of 85-58. Unfortunately many individuals in the Bloomington and Indianapolis area were not able to see the game on their televisions. The game was carried by ESPNU, a cable network not currently carried in basic cable packages in these areas. In the past this game, as well as other IU basketball games, have been carried in Bloomington on ESPN Plus and aired on the local WB (now CW) affiliate.

I began to wonder why ESPN would not this game between two big rivals available to a wider audience. I can understand that they would like to build ESPNU’s audience, but why do so at the expense of many fans?

Then a friend tonight asked me about the Big Ten Network, which is set to debut in August, 2007. Could the imminent start of this network, and the amount of Big Ten sporting events it will cover, be a reason why ESPN relegated this game to ESPNU?

I did some investigating of the Big Ten Network and discovered that the majority of the network is owned by the Big Ten Conference itself with a minority of the network owned by the Fox Cable Networks. The Big Ten Network will not carry just football and basketball. It will also carry the championship events, classic Big Ten sporting events, coaches’ shows, Olympics events, and academic programming.

I read in the FAQ section for the Big Ten Network how games that will be aired will be chosen. It appears that ABC gets first selection of Saturday afternoon games, CBS gets first selection of weekend men’s basketball games, ESPN has first selection of weekday men’s basketball games, and ESPN on most weekends has second and third selection of football games. The change occurs with the football and men’s basketball games not selected during this process. In the past these games could be picked up by ESPN’s syndication outlet (known as ESPN Regional Television or ESPN Plus). This is why a game such as Indiana vs. Purdue would have appeared on a local station. Now these games will appear on the Big Ten Network.

Did ESPN put this game on ESPNU to bolster this new network’s ratings? Or did they do this to send a message to the impending Big Ten Network, due to their partnership with Fox Sports?

Cancellations in the New Year

Happy New Year all. I have two program cancellations to report.

Fox's prime time soap, The O.C., has been cancelled after being plagued with low ratings. After a promising start the ratings started to fall. Then Fox moved it to Thursday's at 8pm, which happens to be an incredibly competitive time slot. It really had no chance to survive. The series final episode will air in February.







The Megan Mullally Show, a syndicated talk show, was also cancelled. It will air repeats through January. Mullally, former co-star of long running sitcom Will & Grace, seemed like a shoo-in for talk show success. However, she barely garnered 1 million viewers a day.