2012 Olympics Cover

Olympics (Cont) 2-3

MLB 4

NCAA Football 5

NFL 5-6

UFC 6

Nielsen Sports Extra 7

Inside this issue:

NIELSEN SPORTS INSIGHTS

October 2012

2012 Summer Olympics Wins Gold!

The London 2012 Olympic Games won multiple gold medals with American viewers this summer as the Games demonstrated the incredible drawing power of sports content. The NBC primetime broadcast of the Olympics averaged 31.1 million viewers across the 17 days of coverage and became the most-watched event in U.S. television history. Ryan Lochte, Missy Franklin and Gabby Douglas became breakout stars and Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt continued to build upon their status as Olympic legends with their gold med-al performances in London. Hope Solo, Abby Wambach, Alex Morgan and the rest of the U.S. Women’s Soccer team extracted some revenge from their heartbreaking World Cup loss to Japan last summer with a win in the Gold Medal game which was watched by 4.4 million viewers on average, and became the most-watched event ever on the NBC Sports Network.

As the Summer Games wound down, both college football and the NFL got off to strong starts. Two of the college game’s most storied programs in Alabama and Michigan squared off over Labor Day weekend in the Cowboys Classic and close to 8 million viewers tuned in, on average. The NFL got a nice boost from the return of Peyton Manning as his debut with his new Denver Broncos team delivered a record 44.6 house-hold rating in Denver in the season premiere of Sunday Night Football.

As you will see throughout this edition of the newsletter, Nielsen's "FANALYTICS" platform is committed to tracking fan engagement with sports content and media consumption across every screen.

We hope you enjoy these highlights from across Nielsen's wealth of consumer and media insights as we strive to give you a deeper understanding of the sports fan.

Sincerely,

Stephen Master Senior Vice President of Sports, Nielsen Stephen.Master@nielsen.com

In the U.S., more than 179 million peo-

ple tuned in to at least six minutes of

the London 2012 Olympic Games in

primetime on NBC. With all this inter-

est, we asked viewers just how much

attention did they really pay to the

Opening Ceremony compared to other

“big events” in sports. The Opening

Ceremony was the single most engag-

ing major sports event of the last 12 months among viewers aged 18-49. Women were especially captivated by the Opening night,

with their attention the strongest when compared to championship games for other sports. Men showed equal interest in the

Opening Ceremonies and Super Bowl XLVI as 65 percent of men engaged with each event.

Source: Nielsen Brand Effect: Program Engagement = % of show content questions on average viewers were able to recall within 24-hours of being exposed; *2011 World Series, 2012

Masters, 2012 BCS Championship, 2012 Stanley Cup, 2012 Daytona 500, March Madness, 2012 NBA Finals

LONDON 2012 OLYMPIC GAMES

London 2012 Olympic Games (Continued)

With all the digital-social-mobile hype surrounding the London 2012 Olympic Games, teens still watched the Olympics

through their TV screen. Among the 17 Olympic primetime telecasts on NBC, about 795,000 female teenagers tuned

in on average, which was up 47 percent from 2008. Overall, teen viewership was up 22 percent from Beijing.

Teens Glued To The TV For The Games, And We’re Not Talking Video Games

Source: Galaxy Explorer: 2012 Dates: July 27th through August

12th 2012; 2008 Dates: August 8th through August 24th

It’s all About The Apps In The U.K.

In general, about 28 percent of mobile users

around the globe reported watching video on

their mobile device daily. For the London 2012

Olympic Games, we decided to take a look at how

UK residents were engaging with their mobile

phones during the events. Looking at time spent,

the average time spent in app per person jumped

from 10 minutes per person/week to 21 minutes

per person/week during the first week of The

Olympic Games. Overall, engagement with the

official London 2012 properties was high, and

apps were the primary way that people stayed

current with the games on their mobile devices as

96 percent of time spent happened in-app.

London 2012 Olympic Games (Continued)

Source: Nielsen/E-Poll: N-Score; Awareness is % of respondents who

recognize sports figure by image or name; Appeal is % of those who

recognize sports figure and likes, likes somewhat or likes a lot

Who Doesn’t Like a “Three-Peat”; Americans Adore Misty May and Her 3 Golds

Between her second and third Olympics, Misty May was elevated to “Superstar” status* as her awareness grew threefold.

Moreover, men found her to be more confident and more energetic during this Olympics than in Beijing.

Bring in the Medals, Bring in the Buzz

The social media conversation heated up for men earning gold at the Games. Bolt, Lochte and Phelps garnered a large share of

the conversation. Congratulations, spoiler alerts and world record references were among the topics discussed. Through social

media researcher NM Incite -a Nielsen/McKinsey company-, we took a look at the daily buzz trend for these athletes from the

start of the London 2012 Olympic games stretching through one week after the closing ceremony.

Ryan Lochte wins first

US gold medal, Michael

Phelps finishes 4th

@BarackObama: Congrats to Michael Phelps for breaking the all-time

Olympic medal record. You’ve made your country proud. -bo

Congratulations Ryan Lochte

for getting silver in the 200m

Usain Bolt wins gold medal in men's 100m

final setting new Olympic record in race

Jamaica's Usain Bolt becomes the 1st man

to defend the Olympic 200m men's title

Source: NMncite: Dates: July 27, 2012 through August 19, 2012; Buzz Volume represents individual posts online that mention selected keywords/names on Blogs, Message Boards/

Groups, public post on Twitter and Facebook, Video and Images sites and news websites

*

*

*

MLB On The Rise In Mobile And In The Mid-Atlantic

Source: Mobile NetView: P18+

Source: Arianna: For the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area, ratings for each club

are the result of aggregating both the Baltimore and Washington DC market ratings.

MLB Fans Really Go Mobile In 2012

During the MLB regular season, more fans ac-

tively engaged with baseball on their mobile

devices than ever before. In July, more than 5

million smartphone users visited MLB.com on

their phone, which is up 130 percent from the

previous year.

While Stephen Strasburg sat out the last month of the

regular season, Washington DC households stayed

tuned in as the Nationals made their late season playoff

run. A look at Washington Nationals viewership during

the regular season showed record ratings among house-

holds.

The 2.2 household rating is the highest average rating for

the Nationals since they moved from Montreal in

2005. Looking at a year-over-year analysis (through

October 3rd, 2012), households tuning in for Nationals

games in the Washington, DC designated market area

(DMA) doubled. In addition, tuning for Nats games has

increased 33 percent from June 1st to the end of the

regular season.

In the greater Baltimore-Washington DC metropolitan

area, although the Nationals gained 57 percent more

viewers than last season, the Baltimore Orioles are still

“king” with an average of 40,000 viewers per game this

season.

In The Mid-Atlantic, Winning and Ratings Go Hand-in-Hand

GAMES

College Football Owns Saturday Night

Top 2 Full Programs Through The First 5 Weeks Of The Regular Season

Source: Galaxy Explorer: Saturday Prime Ranker P2+ (Live+SD)

The NFL Season Is Off To Another Great Start!

More college football games are being picked up in primetime than ever before. Ten years ago there were four games total air-

ing in primetime on broadcast networks during the regular season. In 2012, through Saturday, October 6th, 13 games have al-

ready been featured in primetime across 4 major broadcast networks.

Through the first 5 weeks of the regular season, college football won Saturday night four out of five times. How long can NCAA

football keep the number one rating streak for Saturday night alive?

Spotlight: Birmingham

On September 1st, 85%

of all households

watching primetime TV

in the Birmingham

DMA tuned into college

football.

Source: Arianna: Games include Michigan/

Alabama on WBMA, Auburn/Clemson on ESPN,

Hawaii/USC on WBRC)

In its opening week, 105.9 million viewers watched at least six minutes of the seven NFL telecasts. The Super Bowl Champion New York Giants kicked off the NFL season at home on Wednesday, September 5th -- the same night as the second day of the Democratic National Con-vention. The Giants opener was against the Cowboys and although this match-up is always a compelling story, this year the “bigger match-up” was the Giants/Cowboys vs. Bubba (Bill Clinton) as he delivered the keynote speech that evening at the DNC just as the second half of the game was kicking off. Although the NFL barely lost the showdown to Clinton it still averaged 23.9 mil-lion viewers, which was up a whopping 77 per-cent when compared to the 2008 kick-off game, where 13.5 million viewers tuned in on average to watch the Giants vs. Redskins, which was the same night of the RNC featuring John McCain.

Source: National TV Toolbox/Arianna; The 7 telecasts for the Opening Weekend includes the NBC NFL KICKOFF GAME (9/5), CBS NFL SINGLE GAMES (9/9), FOX NFL REGIONAL GAMES (9/9), FOX NFL NATIONAL GAMES (9/9), NBC SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL (9/9), ESPN MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL (9/10 - CIN/BAL) and ESPN MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL (9/10 - SD/OAK); COPYRIGHT 2012 NIELSEN MEDIA RESEARCH – LIVE+SD; DNC aired on 7 networks from 10:00-11:30pm EST. TV methodology--sum of average audience across the networks that aired common, live coverage from 10:00pm - 11:30pm (ABC, CBS, CNN, Current TV, FOX News, MSNBC and PBS)

.

The NFL (Continued)

TV Ads Score in the NFL Kick-Off Game: NFL Viewers Remember And Like What They See While the start of the NFL regular season always generates excite-ment, the ads airing in this year’s kick-off game on NBC between the Giants and Cowboys scored well, too. On average, this year’s ads scored five points higher in likeabil-ity than those that ran in last year’s opening face-off between the Saints and Packers.

Source: Nielsen Brand Effect: Likeability Linkage = % of viewers who recalled the ad + brand +

liked the ad a lot or somewhat

UFC On FOX...And It’s Evans/Davis By Submission!

Since joining the Fox family, the overall average viewership of UFC live broad-casts increased 36 percent over last year. In terms of ad effectiveness, the event on August 4, featuring Shogun vs. Vera, had the highest general recall among viewers with 53 percent re-calling the ads. However, during the broadcast that featured Evans vs. Da-vis , 79 percent correctly associated the brands with the advertisers, with 5-Hour Energy and Harley Davidson claim-ing the most recall.

Fun Facts

In addition to following their favorite MMA Fighter, people who visit UFC.com are also 11 percent more likely to go jogging

for physical fitness, 11 percent more likely to powerlift and 10 percent more likely to participate to play basketball than the

general population over the age of 17. Might there be future Olympic medal hopefuls among these fans?

Source: @Plan Release 2 2012

Source: Nielsen Brand Effect: General Recall = % who remembered the ad (also referred to as breakthrough

or ad recall); Brand Recall = % who remembered the ad AND attributed it to correct advertiser (brand);

Brand Linkage = Among viewers recalling ad, % who correctly associated with Advertisers

Nielsen Sports Extra

African-Americans: Still Vital, Still Growing 2012 Report: http://www.nielsen.com/content/corporate/us/en/insights/

reports-downloads/2012/african-american-consumers--still-vital--still-growing-2012-repo.html

State of the Media: Cross-Platform Report 2Q 2012: http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/reports-

downloads/2012/state-of-the-media--cross-platform-report-q1-2012.html

Introducing Boomers: Marketing’s Most Valuable Generation: http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/reports-

downloads/2012/introducing-boomers--marketing-s-most-valuable-generation.html

Check out other insight reports from around Nielsen:

For more information contact:

Stephen Master

Senior Vice President of Sports, Nielsen

(646) 654-4577 Stephen.Master@nielsen.com