Brewers TV deal, looking for information.

[razzzorsharp]

I searched using the tags and couldn't find what I was looking for. I was just wondering if there was a place where it answered a couple questions I had...

 

How long is the deal and is it fair in comparison to other Fox Sports deals?

How are the Brewers ratings and how they compare?

Is there anyway the Brewers would create their own network after the deal?

How many game could they show?

 

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=154147

 

I found the link above while searching but it doesn't give me all the information.

[Trombone482]

If I remember the tv deal is all together bad!! pretty much expected though considering when it was signed the brewers we not that good. I do think FSN has stepped up some in making the deal OK. they have added HD, Pre and post game for every show. That being said I know that the ratings for brewers games are way up. (Obviously with a better team) I think with the team continuing to get better and depending on how far they go this year I think you see more upgrades next year. I believe the deal is trough 2012, and no matter what happens I don't see the Brewers being able to support their own network.

[Paul77]

Also important to note that the Brewers TV deal is the worst in all of baseball in terms of revenue produced for the team. Mark Attanasio has said that the deal, signed while under the Selig ownership is the "biggest fiscal constraint" the Brewers face. It is so bad that shortly after buying the team he had his lawyers look into trying to get the club out of the deal. Unfortunately, the Brewers are stuck with it until 2012.

[kramnoj]

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1297 is a link to an article from 2000 that looked at all team revenues. It's not exactly what you are looking for, because it includes all local media revenue, but it shows that the Brewers were then getting less than $6 million total locally. Compare that to the Pirates, who were getting over $9 million.

 

Someone linked a rumor here recently that Attanasio was looking to buy minority ownership of the Bucks. I wonder if there is interest to link the teams so that they could launch a joint network, like YES did. I don't know how they work around the games that would overlap, I guess sell some to a local channel. I know the Twins tried to launch their own network years ago and failed when trying to get on to all the local cable providers across the state.

[JoeHova]

I believe the Brewers are 4th in ratings so far this year (there was an article in Sports Busines Journal a couple weeks ago about ratings). However, their market is tiny, so even teams with far worse rating average more viewers.

[kramnoj]

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/dcsportsbog/2008/07/nats_last_in_the_league_last_i.html is a partial look at TV ratings.

 

"More to the point, the lowest average household numbers, aside from the Nats, watch the Royals (28,000), Orioles (33,000) and Pirates (34,000)."

 

"The biggest average households numbers, according to the story (which is based on Nielsen Media Research numbers) watch the Yankees (325,000), Red Sox (233,000) and Mets (204,000)."

 

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=767614 is a recent column that looks at the ratings from a series against the Twins this year.

 

"The Milwaukee Brewers' first game against the host Minnesota Twins on Friday night on FSN Wisconsin drew the largest audience with an 8.2 rating, or 73,062 households. Next was the Brewers-Twins telecast on Sunday with a 6.1 rating, or 54,351 households, followed by Brewers-Twins on Saturday night, 5.0, or 44,550 households"

 

I don't know how that weekend compares to others, but we know that they do better than at least 4 teams.