FanDuel Sports Network Rolls Out Converged Metric To Attract National Ad Sales

Last year, regional sports networks seemed to be on the brink of extinction.

Now, FanDuel Sports Network–the successor to Bally Sports–is looking forward and rolling out a new metric it says gives a more accurate picture of how many fans are watching nationally at a time advertisers are clamoring to invest their ad dollars in sports properties. 

Using Total Audience Delivery (TAD), a a new way of keeping score that combines linear and streaming audiences, FanDuel Sports Network says it averages 1.6 million viewers on days when it televises games–a figure it claims rivals other national sports programmers.

Jim Keller, who joined FanDuel Sports Network  in July as executive VP of advertising and sponsorship sales, told The Measure that the business went through a lot in the last few years, with a bankruptcy, new owners and a number of teams opting to take their media rights elsewhere. “It was like a media parlor game, like, what’s going to happen to them,” he said. 

Things are looking different now as baseball season nears a climax. “We’re not a regional sports network. We’re not looking back at all. We’re rebuilding what the local sports media community could be from the ground up,” Keller said. We are at the core, a national media brand with local passion at scale.”

That scale includes 3,000 games annually featuring 30-plus teams in big leagues like Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League.

He said the company is now focused on its fans and its platforms. “We want to build a solution to be what’s coming next, a fully scaled sports media platform that gives fans more optionality, more flexibility, more access to teams across our streaming platform.”

Some things don’t change. Keller and FanDuel Sports Network concede that cable is going to continue to decline in terms of coverage and viewership. On the other hand, what’s holding up best in terms of linear ratings is live sports. “The only things that people truly need to watch live anymore are sports and news, and sports is something that you are just inherently passionate about,” he said. 

For its Major League Baseball teams, FanDuel Sports Network aggregate in market numbers for linear only are up 19% from a year ago. Eight of its nine teams are showing year-over-year linear increases. 

“We think that's all part and parcel of the performances on the team, the quality of the production and the engagement of the announcers, of what's happening on the field,” Keller said. 

It helps that some teams on the FanDuel roster are having great seasons, including the Milwaukee Brewers and the Detroit Tigers.

Meanwhile on the streaming side, each of FanDuel’s teams are up, with some up 300% to 400% on what is admittedly a small base.

In May, FanDuel Sport Network said it had doubled its paI’d subscriber base to nearly 650,000 and said it was on track to reach 1 million DTC subscribers by the end of the year.

With an aggressive marketing push planned as the NBA and NHL seasons are set to start, Keller said that FanDuel is still on track to achieve that 1 million DTC subscriber goal.  Since opening day Fanduel Sports Network has had nearly 900,000 unique streamers on its platform.

He added that streaming-first consumers are significantly younger than its linear subscribers by 12 to 15 years. On average they’re watching a lot, he said,  from 90 minutes to 100 minutes per game. At a time when it seem younger fans are only interested in watching highlight clips, “that’s having a positive impact on what the overall experience is.”

As it adds streaming subscribers, the network should be able to glean more valuable information about its viewer media and purchase habits.

“We have not activated that tool set yet,” Keller said. “Hopefully we can talk more later this fall and into the new year of what our data strategy is going to be.”

The network will be amassing more first-party data and it is trying to figure out which vendors to work with to make its impressions more valuable either through programmatic big streams or direct targeting opportunities.

“I did that personally at Hulu and Discovery+, HBO Max and at Fuse and I'm looking to bring that to the table here, so we can create a more authentic, targeted ad experience for national advertisers and streaming,” he said. 

To attract national advertisers, FanDuel Sports Network needed a new metric that reflects a total audience perspective. 

“When you take our linear numbers in-DMA, our out-of-market, linear numbers, as published by Nielsen, and then you combine that with our streaming viewership and our co-viewing that is happening in streaming, we're seeing that we're delivering on par with what Fox and ESPN are doing on a national basis,” he said. “In our market, we're averaging 1.6 million viewers per game each night that we have games, and this is giving advertisers and our partners a better picture of how many people they reach across all of our distribution points each and every night.”

FDSN’s streaming numbers are compiled using a mix of Google analytics across its DTC, Amazon and TV everywhere assets, the same formula Amazon uses for its sports properties. 

Keller said the metric looks familiar to national media buyers and is setting expectations for how much the network will deliver during the NBA and NHL season.

At this point, about 60% of FDSN’s ad revenue comes from local advertising, with 40% national. 

Before Keller arrived, FanDuel Sports Network negotiated up front deals.  “We have robust upfront commitments with live sports being paramount in terms of driving overall media investments,” he said.  “We anticipate that we'll be very well sold going into the NBA and NHL season on the backs of these upfront partnerships.”

In addition to commercials, FanDuel is looking to make sponsorship deals with national advertisers, Keller said. The network is working to make sure that a national sponsor will get a consistent presence across its local channels through a single seller.

Though its looking to sell national sponsorships, the network reaches only 40% of the country. Keller said FDSN is open to having conversations with other local sports entities in order to “elevate our respective businesses.”

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Confirming how hot the TV sports market is, NBCUniversal confirmed that its has sold out the advertising inventory for its broadcast of Super Bowl LX before the NFL season even started. 

The earlier-the-ever sellout indicates that NBC was successful in getting more than $8 million per 30-second spot during the big game, which will be played February 8. 

In addition to the Super Bowl sellout, NBCU said that it was sold 90% of its NFL inventory for the 20th season of Sunday NIght Football, the highest rated primetime series on TV. 

The top categories stepping to to appear during the Super Bowl were CPG, entertainment, finance and alcohol. CPG, pharma, entertainment and QSRs increased their spending. Digital investments in the Super Bowl also increased by 20% compared to the the last Super Bowl on NBC. 

“Coming off of the strongest sports Upfront in our company’s history, Super Bowl LX has generated extraordinary interest from brands and allowed us to sell out of our ad inventory earlier than ever,” said Peter Lazarus, executive VP, NBC Sports & Olympics, Advertising and Partnerships. “The unprecedented demand from advertisers across the Super Bowl and our 20th season of Sunday Night Football has made this upcoming NFL season our highest grossing to date. With a monumental year ahead, we are proud of the incredible momentum thus far and are excited to offer both fans and brands an unrivaled slate of sports programming starting with NFL kick off.” 

The Super Bowl will be part of a busy fortnite for NBCSports that will also include the Winter Olympics and the NBA all Start Game.

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Guideline, a provider of advertising data, said it hired Sean Wright as chief insights and analytics officer.

Wright, who most recently had been senior VP of market intelligence and strategy at NBCUniversal, will also lead Guideline’s New Data Insights Service. The service is designed to help media customers use Guideline’s data to make smarter decisions.

“In today’s media market, the shelf life of insight is short,” said Wright. “Media buyers and sellers can’t afford to just know what happened—they need to understand why, what’s next, and how to act on it. Guideline’s Data Insights Service is designed to deliver clarity and strategy at speed in a fast-changing ecosystem.”