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After the Edmonton Oilers’ comeback attempt came up short on Thursday night, Disney executives now find themselves staring down the double barrels of financial misfortune. In taking a 3-0 lead in the Stanley Cup Final, the Florida Panthers effectively mirrored what the Boston Celtics have been getting up to in the NBA Finals, thereby setting up a rare twin-sweep scenario that could cost ABC hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising revenue.
The last time the NHL and NBA championship series went the bare minimum was back in 1995, when the Houston Rockets dispatched the Orlando Magic in four games a few weeks before the New Jersey Devils went on to make equally quick work of the Detroit Red Wings. To give you a sense of just how long ago that was, Houston’s headlong run through the Finals averaged a 13.9 household rating, which works out to some 21.2 million viewers per NBC broadcast. (This year’s series is averaging a 6.0 rating and 11.6 million viewers through the first three games.)
If being down 3-0 is bad news for the Oilers, the Dallas Mavericks and their fans—the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs are the only team to rally from a 0-3 start to win the Cup, while no NBA franchise has ever managed a similar feat in the Finals—it’s a downright calamitous state of affairs for Disney bean counters. Should the Celtics finish off Luka Dončić & Co. tonight, some $145 million in potential in-game sales will go up in smoke.
If Boston secures its 18th title in a clean sweep, ABC will walk away from the Finals with approximately $120 million in ad revenue. And while that’s certainly a respectable tally, it’s not even within shouting distance of things would stand after a full seven-game set.
As ad rates tend to increase over the course of a series, the network generates significantly higher in-game dollar volumes with each additional broadcast. A Game 5 nudges ABC into the $155 million neighborhood, while a sixth frame that plays out on a Thursday night likely gets the network over the $200 million hump. That’s the sweet spot; as old-school ad sales execs are wont to say, if Game 5 is when you break even,…
Source link : https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nba-nhl-title-sweeps-backbreaker-193942156.html
Author : Sportico
Publish date : 2024-06-14 19:39:42
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