Very interesting seeing the World Cup television schedule that will be spread across ABC, ESPN, ESPN2

None of the ABC games involve the US, Mexico, Brazil, Spain, Netherlands, England, or Germany.

Only two of eight round of 16 games will be on ESPN. If the US does get out of pool stage, the US games will be on ESPN in the round of 16.

Quarterfinals. 1 ABC, 1 ESPN2, 2 on ESPN

Semi-finals. Both on ESPN

Third place match ESPN

Championship ABC

I think it is fascinating to see that very few of the games that would appeal to most fans in the US are available on ABC.

Probably not willing to give up primetime viewing on ABC for most of June.

(02-24-2014 05:36 PM)CommuterBob Wrote:  Probably not willing to give up primetime viewing on ABC for most of June.

not suprising. abc lucked into the us games last world cup. abc gets that saturday and sunday afternoon slot and the championship. thats about it

(02-24-2014 05:36 PM)CommuterBob Wrote:  Probably not willing to give up primetime viewing on ABC for most of June.

Right. It sad but true that a dance competition or the Bachelor would kill most World Cup match ratings in the U.S. It is easy to forget how many Americans couldn't even tell you what the World Cup is.

(02-25-2014 12:18 PM)bigblueblindness Wrote:  

(02-24-2014 05:36 PM)CommuterBob Wrote:  Probably not willing to give up primetime viewing on ABC for most of June.

Right. It sad but true that a dance competition or the Bachelor would kill most World Cup match ratings in the U.S. It is easy to forget how many Americans couldn't even tell you what the World Cup is.

I applaud these true American patriots.

(02-25-2014 12:18 PM)bigblueblindness Wrote:  

(02-24-2014 05:36 PM)CommuterBob Wrote:  Probably not willing to give up primetime viewing on ABC for most of June.

Right. It sad but true that a dance competition or the Bachelor would kill most World Cup match ratings in the U.S. It is easy to forget how many Americans couldn't even tell you what the World Cup is.

Many people on here reguarly forget that the majority of the country does not follow sports in the slightest. It's been my experience that women will almost never watch a sporting event unless it involves one of their favorite teams....women make up 51% of the population.

(02-25-2014 01:37 PM)All Dukes_All Day Wrote:  

(02-25-2014 12:18 PM)bigblueblindness Wrote:  

(02-24-2014 05:36 PM)CommuterBob Wrote:  Probably not willing to give up primetime viewing on ABC for most of June.

Right. It sad but true that a dance competition or the Bachelor would kill most World Cup match ratings in the U.S. It is easy to forget how many Americans couldn't even tell you what the World Cup is.

Many people on here reguarly forget that the majority of the country does not follow sports in the slightest. It's been my experience that women will almost never watch a sporting event unless it involves one of their favorite teams....women make up 51% of the population.

Or, unless it's the Olympics. That's why NBC pays obscene amounts of money to the IOC crooks. Because both women and men watch the Olympic telecasts in big numbers.

That's also why ABC wanted to offload MNF to ESPN. Disney nets a lot more TV viewers that way, because they can show primetime programming on ABC that appeals to women, and the huge net gain in audience for ESPN on Monday night is far more than any loss of Monday night viewers on ABC.

Well ABC offloaded MNF to ESPN because ESPN gets paid subscribers for their channel to help offset the cost.

But ABC is also having a major network swift overall geared towards women compared to the other 4 networks. Overall their ratings aren't great but they do really well in primetime with women, I believe they are second behind CBS in that regard.

(02-25-2014 12:27 PM)Brick City Wrote:  

(02-25-2014 12:18 PM)bigblueblindness Wrote:  

(02-24-2014 05:36 PM)CommuterBob Wrote:  Probably not willing to give up primetime viewing on ABC for most of June.

Right. It sad but true that a dance competition or the Bachelor would kill most World Cup match ratings in the U.S. It is easy to forget how many Americans couldn't even tell you what the World Cup is.

I applaud these true American patriots.

I prefer to call them morons instead of true American patriots. But hey, what can ya do?

Most of the World Cup TV schedule is luck of the draw...ABC only gets weekend games because God Forbid some old lady misses her soap opera one day for a US World Cup Soccer Match, and the one Sunday the US Does play, its a late afternoon match, and ABC isn't dumping local newscasts for anything anymore.

Soccer is all about a Niche audience. You get little advertising spots in the game outside of sponsoring portions of the match because there are no stoppages of playing in a soccer match, and the lack of scoring often makes it hard for many Americans to watch. Its very popular in several different places in the country, but due to the Nature of the way Soccer runs, these fans are more likely to be at a bar, or watching with friends, and will pretty much ignore any halftime advertising.

You can make big profit off it if you know what you are doing (See NBC paying Millions for Premier League TV rights, simply to shift many of the matches to NBCSN or an Online Platform), but for the most part, ABC is really pushing the Women demographic, and far fewer Women watch soccer than any other sport here.

I worry about how Fox will handle the World Cup when it picks up 2018 rights. with that World Cup in Russia and operating on a 10 hour time difference, you're going to see a lot of matches telecast at 4am East Coast time, which leads me to fear we're going to see a lot of tape delay...sort of like we saw with the Winter Olympics this year.

With Brazilian time operating only a couple hours ahead of the US In most areas, we can easily pick up all games live.

(02-25-2014 02:34 PM)MissouriStateBears Wrote:  Well ABC offloaded MNF to ESPN because ESPN gets paid subscribers for their channel to help offset the cost.

But ABC is also having a major network swift overall geared towards women compared to the other 4 networks. Overall their ratings aren't great but they do really well in primetime with women, I believe they are second behind CBS in that regard.

Isn't that becoming the case for almost all the networks on weekdays? Can you think of any weekday network show that appeals heavily to men other than CSI or the occasional darkish cop/CIA/spy drama? In households where a man is totally controlling the programming (no ladies or kids around), I bet 90% of the dials are on a cable station, of which 90% is probably sports or news.

(02-25-2014 05:18 PM)bigblueblindness Wrote:  

(02-25-2014 02:34 PM)MissouriStateBears Wrote:  Well ABC offloaded MNF to ESPN because ESPN gets paid subscribers for their channel to help offset the cost.

But ABC is also having a major network swift overall geared towards women compared to the other 4 networks. Overall their ratings aren't great but they do really well in primetime with women, I believe they are second behind CBS in that regard.

Isn't that becoming the case for almost all the networks on weekdays? Can you think of any weekday network show that appeals heavily to men other than CSI or the occasional darkish cop/CIA/spy drama? In households where a man is totally controlling the programming (no ladies or kids around), I bet 90% of the dials are on a cable station, of which 90% is probably sports or news.

FWIW, I have read that "Big Bang Theory" draws more male viewers, though it's obviously not a guys-only type of show. But for sure, if I was programming a network on a night when a major televised sports event is siphoning off the male viewers, I'd skew the programming to appeal to women, because running a "guy show" against Sunday night NFL would be a lost cause.

(02-25-2014 05:26 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(02-25-2014 05:18 PM)bigblueblindness Wrote:  

(02-25-2014 02:34 PM)MissouriStateBears Wrote:  Well ABC offloaded MNF to ESPN because ESPN gets paid subscribers for their channel to help offset the cost.

But ABC is also having a major network swift overall geared towards women compared to the other 4 networks. Overall their ratings aren't great but they do really well in primetime with women, I believe they are second behind CBS in that regard.

Isn't that becoming the case for almost all the networks on weekdays? Can you think of any weekday network show that appeals heavily to men other than CSI or the occasional darkish cop/CIA/spy drama? In households where a man is totally controlling the programming (no ladies or kids around), I bet 90% of the dials are on a cable station, of which 90% is probably sports or news.

FWIW, I have read that "Big Bang Theory" draws more male viewers, though it's obviously not a guys-only type of show. But for sure, if I was programming a network on a night when a major televised sports event is siphoning off the male viewers, I'd skew the programming to appeal to women, because running a "guy show" against Sunday night NFL would be a lost cause.

Breaking Bad did all right this past fall....that's probably an exception to the norm though.

(02-26-2014 10:12 AM)All Dukes_All Day Wrote:  

(02-25-2014 05:26 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(02-25-2014 05:18 PM)bigblueblindness Wrote:  

(02-25-2014 02:34 PM)MissouriStateBears Wrote:  Well ABC offloaded MNF to ESPN because ESPN gets paid subscribers for their channel to help offset the cost.

But ABC is also having a major network swift overall geared towards women compared to the other 4 networks. Overall their ratings aren't great but they do really well in primetime with women, I believe they are second behind CBS in that regard.

Isn't that becoming the case for almost all the networks on weekdays? Can you think of any weekday network show that appeals heavily to men other than CSI or the occasional darkish cop/CIA/spy drama? In households where a man is totally controlling the programming (no ladies or kids around), I bet 90% of the dials are on a cable station, of which 90% is probably sports or news.

FWIW, I have read that "Big Bang Theory" draws more male viewers, though it's obviously not a guys-only type of show. But for sure, if I was programming a network on a night when a major televised sports event is siphoning off the male viewers, I'd skew the programming to appeal to women, because running a "guy show" against Sunday night NFL would be a lost cause.

Breaking Bad did all right this past fall....that's probably an exception to the norm though.

They only went head to head 4 times (9/8, 9/15, 9/22 and 9/29).

(02-25-2014 02:34 PM)MissouriStateBears Wrote:  Well ABC offloaded MNF to ESPN because ESPN gets paid subscribers for their channel to help offset the cost.

Just to clarify they moved MNF to ESPN not because they wanted to, it was because they lost SNF. Most of ESPN's subscriber feee agreements included clauses that if ESPN lost prime time NFL football, they would have their subscriber fees cut. So they moved MNF less to make more money, but more to keep the money they already were getting.

That's the beauty of being a fluent Spanish speaker, I can watch the games OTA on Univision/Unimas and give ESPN the middle finger.

(02-26-2014 12:43 PM)adcorbett Wrote:  

(02-25-2014 02:34 PM)MissouriStateBears Wrote:  Well ABC offloaded MNF to ESPN because ESPN gets paid subscribers for their channel to help offset the cost.

Just to clarify they moved MNF to ESPN not because they wanted to, it was because they lost SNF. Most of ESPN's subscriber feee agreements included clauses that if ESPN lost prime time NFL football, they would have their subscriber fees cut. So they moved MNF less to make more money, but more to keep the money they already were getting.

And it's the reason why you won't see the Super Bowl on ABC anytime soon. NBC replaced ABC and now rotates with CBS and FOX for the Super Bowl.

Well I think the Super Bowl and wild card weekend games were always attached the Sunday Night games, but they put them on ABC instead of ESPN, and the MNF package was a stand alone deal (only MNF, no playoffs). Thus when NBC bought the SNF package, it moved over. But I could be wrong on that one.