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Abstract
This research examines the within-game television ratings of regular season NFL games across three distinct viewership markets. Specifically, we operationalize our markets as follows-winning market denotes that of the team winning the game, losing market denotes the market of the losing squad, and all other markets where the game was broadcast were pooled in the neutral market category. Our modeling demonstrates that ratings changes attributable to scoring margin are essentially similar in neutral and losing markets, but different than winning markets. Implications related to the NFL's policy on televising uncompetitive games in neutral markets are further examined, concluding that the relationship between final scoring margin and audience interest is nuanced.
Keywords: NFL, Nielsen ratings, sport viewership
(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.)
Introduction
Despite the presence of other professional sport leagues including the National Basketball Association (NBA), National Hockey League (NHL), and Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Football League (NFL) is widely considered the most dominant and financially viable North American sports league. Even the presence of rival major professional sports leagues has not diminished fan enthusiasm for the NFL, signifying fans do not perceive there to be any viable substitute. For example, halfway through the 2013 regular season, NFL games represented the top 18 viewed television programs since the season started in early September (Brown, 2013).
Previous research has considered the optimal selection of games in a handful of markets without NFL teams (Tainsky, McEvoy, & Jasielec, 2011). The authors used average game ratings and predictive models to evaluate network choices in out-of-market game selection. In this research we examine not only ex ante appraisals of game closeness, but also intra-game scoring changes as a predictor of ratings dynamics. Moreover, we test how scoring changes result in divergent outcomes according to the relationship between the market and scoring margin. To preview the results, the home market of the losing team and neutral markets lose a similar proportion of the viewing audience as the final score margin between teams increases. While the trend of lost viewership in blowout games exists in the winning team's market, the magnitude of lost viewership is not nearly as great.
One of the advantages of using television viewership data is the ability to measure consumer consumption across different...