3-10-14
Katz Sports Marketing VP/D.O.S. Lauren McHale did not hold back about her feelings toward advertising agencies and how they treat play-by-play sports. "Agencies really bastardize our products," she said. Play-by-play sports, especially for major league teams, has become big business. It's a huge expense for radio stations and many bidding wars have broken out for the rights to broadcast games. In addition to taking a shot at agencies, McHale was very critical of PPM. "Arbitron [which is now owned by Nielsen] completely missed the mark. They spent a lot of time getting checks from us but not a lot of time explaining that the play-by-play listener was staying longer than 10 minutes.
McHale says advertising agencies need to understand play-by-play is a premium product. "They are so focused on the premium in the price, they lose sight of what the client is trying to achieve. I can't blame agencies. That's what they are hired to do, to look for premiums. Play-by-play is not only about ratings. It's the 800-pound gorilla in the room." McHale says this needs to be addressed. "It's not an exact science. If we're good at what we do, we can show them play-by-play is a premium product."
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