Mystified

[raspsa]

Can someone explain the following please? It doesn't seem logical.. SA appears to have a lot of people but not enough TVs? Or they have TVs but don't watch NBA games?

San Antonio is one of the league's smallest television markets, ranking 37th among U.S. NBA teams in television market as of Jan. 1, 2009, according to Nielsen's "people meter" data. But it's ninth-largest in population according to 2007 estimates, and houses the corporate headquarters of five Fortune 500 companies, including four in the top 176. Holt has never been a big spender; even through the Spurs' era of four championships in nine seasons, Tim Duncan was the only player who received anything close to a max contract.

[CubanMustGo]

Size of TV market aligns to size of metro area, not size of city in team name. SA has nearly no suburbs compared to larger markets. And maybe SA, being a poorer metro than most, has fewer sets, larger family sizes, which may impact how they count TVs.

This list may not be totally up-to-date but will give you an idea of what they're talking about:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_United_States_Metropolitan_Statistical_Ar eas

Note that when you look at the MSA, SA is higher than 37th, so there must be some other factors.

When and if SA and Austin merge into one MSA, it might make a diff in these comparisons.

[dbestpro]

My guess is it has allot of this has to do with the cable market. For instance teams in New York or LA have huge revenue contracts with the cable company. In San Antonio the cable company and local TV markets do not service the entire geographical area of the Spurs. Try watching a game in the Rio Grande Valley. I know Austin and all points in between has its issues too.

[stxspurs]

we r hispanic..we bbq and party for anything....spurs game=20+ ppl one house using 1 tv...thats why!

[The_Worlds_finest]

we r hispanic..we bbq and party for anything....spurs game=20+ ppl one house using 1 tv...thats why!

not even!!!!

[timaios]

San Antonio is one of the league's smallest television markets, ranking 37th among U.S. NBA teams in television market as of Jan. 1, 2009

How can the Spurs be 37th when there's only 30 NBA teams ?
Have I misunderstood something ?

[ploto]

Possibly, SA is 37th among all US TV markets, but then again you need to count Toronto for the NBA. Maybe a link for the quote would help.

[timaios]

An interesting post from Yorae (02-27-2009)

http://spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=118181



Nielsen Top 10 Local NBA Ratings

Sorry for the screwy formatting

RANK TEAM 2008-09 HH RATING 2007-08 HH RATING % CHANGE
1 Cleveland 8.1 3.7 119%
2 San Antonio 7.9 6.8 16%
3 Portland 5.6 4.4 27%
4 Utah 5.6 6.3 -11%
5 L.A. Lakers 4.7 4.2 12%
6 Boston 4.0 3.6 11%
7 Detroit 3.8 5.6 -32%
8 Phoenix 3.8 5.0 -24%
9 Houston 2.6 2.5 4%
10 Chicago 2.6 2.5 4%

The San Antonio Spurs, who boasted the NBA’s top-rated local market last season through as recently as the first month of this season, still showed an 18% year-to-year increase in its local ratings. On average, 7.9% of TV households in the San Antonio market have tuned in to see Tim Duncan & Co. each game, compared to 6.7% over the same time period last year.

link: http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/media_entertainment/lebron-cavs-top-local-nba-ratings/

[easy7]

They ran out of those damn digital converter coupons and some people can't afford to shell out the 40 bucks for them. No TVs means more population...:lol

[wildbill2u]

TV market=buying power. We are in the top ten cities population wise but that doesn't translate into buying power. Fugggettabout the number of TVs. All a sponsor looks at is how his ads will translate into dollars.

[DMX7]

It's all about the metro area. S.A. has a small metro area.

[thispego]

lol you were mystified over this

[A_Duke]

lol you were mystified over this
hahaha.

What I want to know is how does our international fan base compare to other teams.. Im sure we are up there with the Rockets and Lakers.

[Extra Stout]

San Antonio is one of the ten largest cities in the country, but its metropolitan area, and therefore its TV market size, is comparatively not that large. With other American metropolitan areas, the central city is surrounded by dozens of suburbs, some of which themselves will be large enough to be major cities. For example, the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area features at least eleven suburban cities besides Dallas and Fort Worth that have over 100,000 people each, and at least eight others that have between 50,000 and 100,000 each.

San Antonio differs from most metro areas in that the central city itself comprises most of the metropolitan area. There is only has one other city in its metro area with as many as 50,000 people -- New Braunfels. This is how even though San Antonio proper is larger than Dallas proper, the Metroplex is something like four times as large (and is overall the fourth largest metropolitan area in the United States) as the San Antonio metropolitan area.

[Calavera]

in my country (Bulgaria) most people still think Chicago Bulls are the best, others like Lakers, because the market is full with their shirts, hats etc. The people who are intrested in basketball and NBA have more knowledge, but ussualy they change their favorite teams from time to time. Overall the Lakers are number one in sales no doubt about it. It`s lot cooler to wear spurs shirt though. :)

[CGD]

Though not in the Metro area, I wonder how many sets go on in Austin, and to a less degree, Laredo each night the Spurs play...

[Slomo]

I always thought that when they're speaking of the size of the TV market they were referring not to the population of an area but about the TV revenues generated in that area.

?

[Man In Black]

Size of TV market aligns to size of metro area, not size of city in team name. SA has nearly no suburbs compared to larger markets. And maybe SA, being a poorer metro than most, has fewer sets, larger family sizes, which may impact how they count TVs.

This list may not be totally up-to-date but will give you an idea of what they're talking about:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_United_States_Metropolitan_Statistical_Ar eas

Note that when you look at the MSA, SA is higher than 37th, so there must be some other factors.

When and if SA and Austin merge into one MSA, it might make a diff in these comparisons.

Where you guys have it wrong is thinking that it's the MSA or Metropolitan Statistical Areal that matters when it comes to ratings. It's really the DMA or Desginated Media Area. It's the area that the TV stations border out to. Austin has it's own DMA.

Yes there are 30 teams in the NBA, but not every Large MSA has a basketball team. I live in San Diego, CA and this city is larger than New Orleans but has no basketball team.

[Da Spurs]

You guys are making it too complicated. San Antonio is ranked 37th in the country based on number of TV households in the San Antonio Metropolitan area. There are 818,560 TV households. That is simply a household in the San Antonio area that has a TV. So even though we have a large "city", we have a small metropolitan area and therefore a smaller number of TV households.

[Nathan Explosion]

When San Antonio and Austin merge, you'd serve all points in between plus Round Rock. That would help quite a bit.

To understand what they mean, Dallas is third in population behind Houston and San Antonio, but because of Fort Worth plus the suburbs in between, the Dallas TV market is the biggest in the state.

[spursfaninla]

There are too many unpopulated pockets of land between austin and SA to consider them the same metro...no way that goes down. Has there been any serious consideration of making Austin/SA merge, or is this speculation...

oops, alittle research brought this up...


http://www.texastriangle.biz/2007/11/southwest-metroplex.html

Well, this article says by 2040...that is a good, long while to wait until the Spurs boast a serious marketing vote...I will have a foot in the grave by then.

[Nathan Explosion]

There are too many unpopulated pockets of land between austin and SA to consider them the same metro...no way that goes down. Has there been any serious consideration of making Austin/SA merge, or is this speculation...

oops, alittle research brought this up...


http://www.texastriangle.biz/2007/11/southwest-metroplex.html

Well, this article says by 2040...that is a good, long while to wait until the Spurs boast a serious marketing vote...I will have a foot in the grave by then.

Yeah, I'd be 68 by then. The problem with Austin is that UT is king there. Hell, UT is its own small town boasting a student population in excess of 50,000.

I would think that the Spurs would try to make it happen though seeing as how the Toros are a Spurs farm system per se. It would make sense in marketing terms.

[exstatic]

It's all about the metro area. S.A. has a small metro area.

That. You have the 9th largest city, but you can drive out of the city almost directly into the country in most directions. There's NB, Boerne, Seguin and Helotes, and that's about it for small nearby cities. Dallas has probably 20 cities that size around it.

[SouthTexasRancher]

Can someone explain the following please? It doesn't seem logical.. SA appears to have a lot of people but not enough TVs? Or they have TVs but don't watch NBA games?

San Antonio is one of the league's smallest television markets, ranking 37th among U.S. NBA teams in television market as of Jan. 1, 2009, according to Nielsen's "people meter" data. But it's ninth-largest in population according to 2007 estimates, and houses the corporate headquarters of five Fortune 500 companies, including four in the top 176. Holt has never been a big spender; even through the Spurs' era of four championships in nine seasons, Tim Duncan was the only player who received anything close to a max contract.


It is strange for sure. Several NFL cities have smaller city and metro populations than SA. One of the things that hurt SA back in the 50's & 60"s when Dallas/Ft.Worth and Houston exploded was our city government mainly run by a bunch of old fuddy-duddies. They were more interested in keeping everything in-house so they could play big shot. Meanwhile Dallas & houston were giving major corporations big tax breaks, price breaks on land (99 year leasebacks and such) and they went through a tremendous growth period while SA sat back and played tourista destination spot instead. We now have 2 major players who do NOT want SA to have an NFL team, no matter what they tell reporters....Tom Benson and Jerry Jones. Guys like Red McCombs and Nelson Wolff have done a lot behind the scenes to try and get us an NFL team but, for now it would have to be a sneak move in the middle of the night like the Baltimore Colts moving to Indy. An expansion team goes to LA first even though they really could care less if they get an NFL team or not. USC is their team of choice as far as football goes.

The good news is everyone in the NFL knows SA would pack 60,000+++ into a staduium every Sunday there was a home game. The bad news is the NFL would demand a new stadium like in Dallas, Houston or Phoenix. Not sure if the voters in SA have the cajones to vote for a new stadium at this point.

Here is a link to the 2009 TV market numbers. Maybe everyone should head on over to Bjorn's or Best Buy this weekend and buy a bunch of flat screen tv's.

http://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?request=marketlist

[antimvp]

It's all about the metro area. S.A. has a small metro area.



thats bullshit because some how they always leave Austin out when calculating SA.

[peskypesky]

It's all about the metro area. S.A. has a small metro area.

WTF? SA is fucking gigantic. Every time I go back there the city has grown like a metastasizing cancer. It's on steroids.

[Nathan Explosion]

That. You have the 9th largest city, but you can drive out of the city almost directly into the country in most directions. There's NB, Boerne, Seguin and Helotes, and that's about it for small nearby cities. Dallas has probably 20 cities that size around it.

Actually, you have the 7th most populated city in the US (city proper) but metro area is a bit different.

[Tbiggums47]

That. You have the 9th largest city, but you can drive out of the city almost directly into the country in most directions. There's NB, Boerne, Seguin and Helotes, and that's about it for small nearby cities. Dallas has probably 20 cities that size around it.

Schertz, Selma, Cibolo....:wakeup

[Nathan Explosion]

WTF? SA is fucking gigantic. Every time I go back there the city has grown like a metastasizing cancer. It's on steroids.

San Antonio is almost as large as LA proper. Of course, when people refer to LA, they also mean the surrounding cities in the same way people refer to the 5 boroughs as NYC.

The city is over 400 square miles. The problem is, there aren't many people occupying all that land.

Funny thing about land area. The largest city in the US is in Alaska at over 7000 square miles. However, that "city" has 800 residents.

I had a friend say that some friends of his from Alaska talked about how Texans thought we were big when Alaska was twice as big as us. I responded that the city of San Antonio has twice as many people as the state of Alaska, and that's why no one cares what they think.

[boutons_deux]

Marketing people must factor in median/average per-capita income (what's the point of marketing if the market doesn't have enough money to buy shit?), and there SA has no large, super-wealthy contingent like Dallas and Houston to pull up the median/average per-capita/household income , and with poor or very poor East/West/South sides.

[ploto]

According to the 2000 census:

SA has 2.77 people per household while Dallas has only 2.58. So even just taking into account the cities themselves there are more households in Dallas than in San Antonio despite there being more people in SA. And contrary to popular belief, the income per household is similar in SA ($36,200), Houston ($36,600) and Dallas ($37,600) but the larger household brings down the per capita income in SA ($17,500) as compared to Houston ($20,100) and Dallas ($22,200). BTW Austin has a per capita income of ($24,200) with only 2.40 persons per household.

[Extra Stout]

WTF? SA is fucking gigantic. Every time I go back there the city has grown like a metastasizing cancer. It's on steroids.
It's all relative. Go to a truly large city and SA seems like a small town by comparison.

It's funny to read through the posts and see no matter how many times people explain how SA has no large suburbs (Arlington has like 400,000 people by itself), people still think this has to do with how the Mexicans in SA are too poor to own TV's or shop at Target, or with some government conspiracy to keep Pflugerville out of SA's metro area so it can't get the NFL.

[ploto]

Some quick research shows that they must be using Designated Market Areas as determined by Nielsen which signifies the number of television households in that transmission area. So it is based upon population, but number of households as opposed to persons, and television ownership seems to weigh in, as well. Here is San Antonio which is shown to be ranked 37th with blue for the added DMA.

http://www.kabb.com/sales/images/marketmap.gif

Here's the top 50. Of course the article is worded poorly because it does not even include Toronto which would be way up this list.

U.S. TV Household Estimates Designated
Market Area (DMA) — Ranked by Households

Rank Designated Market Area (DMA) TV Households
1 New York, NY 7,433,820
2 Los Angeles, CA 5,654,260
3 Chicago, IL 3,492,850
4 Philadelphia, PA 2,950,220
5 Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX 2,489,970
6 San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, CA 2,476,450
7 Boston, MA (Manchester, NH) 2,409,080
8 Atlanta, GA 2,369,780
9 Washington, DC (Hagerstown, MD) 2,321,610
10 Houston, TX 2,106,210
11 Detroit, MI 1,926,970
12 Phoenix, AZ 1,855,930
13 Tampa-St. Petersburg (Sarasota), FL 1,822,160
14 Seattle-Tacoma, WA 1,819,970
15 Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN 1,730,530
16 Miami-Fort Lauderdale, FL 1,546,920
17 Cleveland-Akron (Canton), OH 1,524,930
18 Denver, CO 1,524,210
19 Orlando-Daytona Beach-Melbourne, FL 1,466,420
20 Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto, CA 1,399,520
21 St. Louis, MO 1,249,820
22 Portland, OR 1,175,100
23 Pittsburgh, PA 1,156,460
24 Charlotte, NC 1,122,860
25 Indianapolis, IN 1,114,970
26 Baltimore, MD 1,102,080
27 Raleigh-Durham (Fayetteville), NC 1,080,680
28 San Diego, CA 1,066,680
29 Nashville, TN 1,016,290
30 Hartford and New Haven, CT 1,014,990
31 Kansas City, MO 937,970
32 Columbus, OH 925,840
33 Salt Lake City, UT 919,390
34 Cincinnati, OH 915,570
35 Milwaukee, WI 905,350
36 Greenville-Spartanburg, SC-Asheville, NC-Anderson,SC 858,050
37 San Antonio, TX 818,560
38 West Palm Beach-Ft. Pierce, FL 779,430
39 Grand Rapids-Kalamazoo-Battle Creek, MI 741,420
40 Birmingham (Anniston and Tuscaloosa), AL 739,750
41 Harrisburg-Lancaster-Lebanon-York, PA 738,880
42 Las Vegas, NV 728,410
43 Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News, VA 718,020
44 Albuquerque-Santa Fe, NM 689,120
45 Oklahoma City, OK 687,300
46 Greensboro-High Point-Winston Salem, NC 685,110
47 Jacksonville, FL 674,860
48 Memphis, TN 673,770
49 Austin, TX 667,670
50 Louisville, KY 667,230

For the complete list:
http://www.tvb.org/rcentral/markettrack/us_hh_by_dma.asp

[lotr1trekkie]

Driving out of Austin I can't get SA for a long time. NO Saints are an anomoly. How do they calculate their metro area compared to ours

[ploto]

NO Saints are an anomoly. How do they calculate their metro area compared to ours

53 New Orleans, LA 602,740
http://www.newportmedia.com/maps/LA-New-Orleans.gif

[Nathan Explosion]

53 New Orleans, LA 602,740
http://www.newportmedia.com/maps/LA-New-Orleans.gif

TV market is still smaller than SA's. But the NFL doesn't want to appear evil. And the Saints barely made the attendance numbers needed to kick in state support for the team.

If the Saints don't reach their attendance figures, they have an out of their Superdome lease. You bet Tom Benson wants out considering that even before Katrina hit (and especially after) the Saints were selling tickets for about $10 the day of the game just to achieve sell outs and meet their attendance figures.

Anyway you put it, the Saints are losing money and Tom wants out.