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At least on paper, I self-identify as a research consultant, and I’d contend in certain areas my level of expertise and experience would rival anyone, anywhere. So when I learn about situations where folks with certain pedigrees are getting otherwise clueless companies to pony up fees that some of us can only dream of I tend to notice–somewhat out of envy, to be fair, but mostly with the encouragement of “more power to ya”.
I’ve recently mused about how the Democratic party dropped a massive chunk of change to figure out how to talk to young men. And this week it was pointed out to me that the tab for an even more obvious conversation was even higher. ADVANCED TELEVISION’s Chris Forrester shared some numbers and a viewpoint yesterday:
Back in 2022, management advisor company McKinsey told Warner Bros that the media giant should combine itself with factual production specialist Discovery. The advice resulted in a reported fee of $55 million (€47.6m) for McKinsey. But in the period 2022-2025 McKinsey benefitted by another $37 million for advice issued to the now combined Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) to change its pay-TV channel HBO to HBO Max, then to Max, then back to HBO Max. (And) this year, to date, according to reports, McKinsey has billed WBD an additional $63 million to cover the advice, including research and detailed consultation, that Warner Bros Discovery should now separate and be split into two companies.
Now I’m not about to question the value of the level of insight and integrity that McKinsey brings to the table in the M&A arena and as Forrester points out, few could argue that listed companies need the comfort of solid professional advice in order to minimise shareholder complaints. But $37 million for brand research to essentially settle an internal debate that spun out of control gets an even stronger spit-take from moi than even the political geniuses caused.
Around the same time that I was forced to drag the mind behind New Coke into the mix at FOX Family some internal advocates were able to loosen the otherwise tight pursestrings to bring in a heavy-handed consultant on an ill-fated quest to launch gender-specific digital kids’ channels, which somehow landed on the juvenile-sounding names boyzchannel and girlzchannel. And be damn sure you watch the spelling–no capitalization and no use of the letter “s”. We had a brand book and a checklist of guidelines we needed to consult whenever simple Nielsen data was inconclusive toward whether or not certain content appealed to those with y chromosomes. We got a dossier filled with annotated recommendations and yes, we did a whole bunch of focus groups. Even allowing for inflation rate over time, we spent a fraction of what McKinsey got away with charging for settling an equally silly and ultimately needless debate as the one Yosemite Zas and company inflicted upon themselves.
Which brings us to a consultant with a somewhat less high profile who made some news this week–one I happen to know well as we collaborated on numerous FOX Sports projects back in the day. He was brought into play by the sensitive sports staff at the INDIANAPOLIS STAR who have been dealing with blame being sent their city’s way by a slew of stories on how poorly received their Pacers, not to mention their NBA Finals opponents, the Oklahoma City Thunder, are being received by the country as a whole. REUTERS sounded such an alarm earlier this week:
A Game 2 blowout in the NBA Finals on Sunday drew an average of 8.76 million viewers, the lowest for a Game 2 in the finals in 18 years – excluding 2020 during the COVID-19 global pandemic. The Oklahoma City Thunder’s 123-107 victory over the visiting Indiana Pacers, which evened the best-of-seven series at 1-1, was the least watched Game 2 of the finals since 2007, when 8.55 million tuned in for the San Antonio Spurs-Cleveland Cavaliers matchup. This year’s Game 2 viewership saw a drop of 30 percent from last year, when the Boston Celtics faced the Dallas Mavericks, and was watched by fewer viewers than the 2021 series between the Milwaukee Bucks and Phoenix Suns, which was affected by the pandemic. Last Thursday’s finals opener, won by the Pacers on Tyrese Haliburton’s jumper with 0.3 seconds left, peaked at 11 million viewers around the game-winning shot and averaged 8.91 million viewers.
Which sent the NBA into crisis management mode, and with commissioner Adam Silver able to command a spot at the NBA COUNTDOWN table at will he did his best impersonation of a research expert, an appearance AWFUL ANNOUNCING’s Michael Dixon described in yet another piece from earlier this week:
Silver noted that in terms of viewership, the league is both better and worse now than it was in bygone eras. “People compare us to 20 years ago,” Silver said. “But these Games 1 and 2, so far, as the highest-rated programs in May and June, so far, on television. And if something beats us, it will be another sports program. Back 20 years ago, we often didn’t win the night when the Finals were on. But the absolute rating is lower now.”
And at roughly the same time his PR team dropped a couple of additional nuggets on X:
- Nearly half of all 18- to 34-year-olds watching TV during Games 1 and 2 were tuned in to the NBA Finals.
- The NBA Finals have generated more than 1 billion views and counting across social media, a record through two games (per Videocites).
But only the STAR’s Zach Osterman was proactive enough to bring in my laser-focused comrade in arms to bring to light points that not even Silver made:
Yes, Oklahoma City is 47th TV market and Indianapolis is 25th. It’s important to acknowledge upfront there is some truth to the basic maxims of the TV-market discussion. In most cases, yes, pulling a major audience share like New York, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles or even Dallas-Fort Worth makes for a better-watched series.
That just doesn’t paint a full picture, according to Patrick Crakes, a former senior vice president at Fox Sports who now runs his own media consulting firm. “The NBA Finals is a national event. It’s better to have a base from big-market teams, from a mass of viewing, but the whole ecosystem is much more complicated than that,” Crakes said.
Per Crakes, advertising often constitutes approximately 20-30% of the overall financial pie, a meaningful number but not a decisive one. And much of that income that’s attached to the playoffs is derived not from the showpiece Finals, but from the early rounds, where TV partners broadcast the largest sheer quantity of games. Yes, bigger markets in later rounds makes a difference, but sometimes not as much of one as a busy, engaging start to the postseason.
Good, long series in rounds one and two will fill the advertising-dollars bucket long before the Finals. Short, uncompelling sweeps can leave a hole no big-city viewership or last-minute dramatics will fill. “Postseason economics, a lot of it gets determined by the first couple rounds. That’s where all the inventory is,” Crakes said.
In other words, the fact that the Thunder went to seven games with Denver and the Pacers to a compelling six with the Knicks–not to mention the fact that the those teams completed several record late-game comebacks along the way that dragged viewers into games they otherwise weren’t watching–has given the league a safety net that in addition to the valid points on demography and social media usage that are now at least entering into discussions before the Chicken Littles of old school media are allowed to dominate dialogue.
But only Crakes was able to point out that even by more traditional metrics having small markets on the grand stage isn’t as horrific as one might imagine. And he’s also able to provide context of what it was like from the other side of the coin:
Crakes worked at Fox Sports in October 2000, when the Yankees and Mets delivered their famed “Subway Series.” Top to bottom, the company was energized by the prospect of capturing a compelling championship dominating the country’s biggest market. Instead, despite the fact that every game was decided by one or two runs, national interest never materialized. The favored Yankees eased to a 4-1 series win in front of a national audience that delivered what was at that time the lowest-rated World Series in history. “The thing was a giant dud, because the rest of the America (wasn’t interested),” Crakes said. “You can be the dog that caught the car when you wish for these things.”
Crakes worked for a passionate Yankee fan who was quite close with my boss, an equally fervent Mets fan, and would frequently eye roll at them–and me–as our personal feelings dominated those energized discussions he referenced. As someone with strong ties to the heartland of America, not to mention empirical knowledge of how underwhelming the earlier rounds of that 2000 post-season had performed, especially the Mets’ relatively dull five game conquest of the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLCS, he knew exactly how vulnerable FOX Sports was at the moment, and shrewdly stayed away from the overexpectations that the New York-centric ad sales constituency was salivating over. But his and others’ lack of interest did free up a few tickets for the games, and at least I got to attend Games 3 and 4 at Shea Stadium in person–which included the Mets’ one win in that Subway Series.
I’m not sure I ever thanked Pat and others accordingly, so I hope this far too belated effort is at least acknowledged. And at the very least perhaps those out there in a position to hire a consultant might think all that more favorably about him (let alone me). Maybe pay us something at least a tad closer to McKinsey’s rate card in the process? Some of us are worth it.
Courage…