What’s in a Number?
There seems to be some confusion abound when it comes to Nielsen ratings, so I thought I’d try and clear it up. First off, let’s talk about how much each Nielsen rating point is actually worth. Each point represents 1% of the total households with a TV in the United States. There are an estimated 114.9 million households, so 1 rating point would equal 1,149,000 households.
Now let’s look at what this means to the billiards industry. Depending on the event and who’s playing, pool on ESPN will pull anywhere from a .2 to a .6. If its a men’s tournament, the number is typically pretty low, standard WPBA is right around a .3, trick shots are a little higher (typically around a .4). When a player of interest is on the TV (think sexy Austrian blonde who only wears black), the number spikes to as high as a .6. So let’s break this down by household counts:
Men’s Pool: Approx 250,000 households
Women’s Pool: 350,000 households
Gimmick Pool: 450,000 households
Sexy Lady Pool: 625,000 households
(Keep in mind that these number fluctuate up and down based on what its up against, which is typically the NFL)
Now how does this compare to other sports? Let’s look at a few examples from earlier this month:
NFL Sunday Night Football (Dallas/Philly): 13.1 rating/15 million households
College Football (LSU/Alabama: 4.3 rating/4.9 million households
NASCAR Dickies 500: 3.7 rating/4.25 million households
WWE Wrestling: 3.0 rating/3.44 million households
World Series of Poker: 1.3 rating/1.49 million households
Why do I bring this up? Here’s why. We know that PBA Bowling typically pulls around a .8 rating or about 900,000 households. While shows like the WSOP are out of reach for the WPBA, the PBA is not. This number is not that much higher than what the WPBA will pull when they feature a “star”. So let’s look at the sponsor list:
PBA: Bayer, Barbasol, Brunswick, Etonic, Flomax, Geico, Go RVing, H&R Block, Lumber Liquidators, Pepsi
WPBA: APA, Brunswick (sort of), Simonis, Cuetec, Aramith, Mueller and PoolDawg
So of course this brings up the natural question: If the difference between bowling and women’s pool is approximately 400,000 households, why is it that the WPBA can’t get one single sponsor outside the billiards industry? The demos are roughly the same, so why not approach Bayer to be the Official Pain Reliever of the WPBA? Why not approach Title 9 Sports to be the official outfitter of the WPBA?
Here’s the answer. Time and expertise. By my count, there is a grand total of one paid employee in the WPBA office, Anne Craig. Between handing communications, PR, organizing events and dealing with all the other day to day issues, there’s no time to sell sponsorships (not to mention that it takes skill and connections to pull real sponsors). If you dig deep into the WPBA site, you’ll find a mention of some guy named Nigel Oldfield who works out of the UK and acts as the main contact for sponsorships. His site also says that he’s the go to for the TV contracts, which is all I’m guessing he does, since for the most part the list of sponsors with the WPBA hasn’t changed in years.
WPBA, its time for a change. Hire someone internally or find someone who actually has contacts outside of the world of pool and darts and sell some sponsorships. There’s opportunity, someone just needs to step up and grab some of that low hanging fruit. Or, just keep limping along paying out players prize money that’s so miniscule you have to finish in the Top 16 just to cover your costs.
Good clear thinking. Wonder why the organizations themselves don’t get it. The women are missing major opportunities here. Hope this helps.