Forum:Analysis of the relative income streams of the National Football League and international rugby union


 * To big a task to add up the cost of TV market ad time in the various RWC competitors and do conversion rates? then add up the same cost in the remaining wp:Rugby Union TV markets? then add up costs outside the Rugby Union (you could count the more affluent major markets and leave out the piddly-ass minor shit if its too laborious). This is not rocket science, and yo9u do actually get paid if you can sell something, other than a dream of colonizing the moon or mars in 50 years.  nobsModerated 01:56, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Why would anyone want to do such a thing and why would anyone care. You need to get over this weird rugby obsession. AceModerator 02:11, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh cool, I'm on First World too, much cooler than Second Life, Third Wheel and Fourth Meal. RachelW (talk) 01:58, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Have you seen this guy's shit on the Third World? nobsModerated 02:05, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Rob, it is your own pet hypothesis that the sole measure of the worth of a championship is in the ad dollars it generates. If this is the metric you choose, then surely you should do the fucking work.  As for myself, it sounds like a perfectly pointless exercise.  I'll wager I'm not alone in that judgment. Phiwum (talk) 02:11, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Newsflash: Rugby is entertainment, not sport. If you want to prove you have cajoonies or sumpthin', join the Marines. Go to Afghanistan. nobsModerated 04:04, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Now you are confusing war with sport, which is worse than confusing sport with entertainment (which it, ideally, is of course). Rugby is a sport.  Hunting isn't.  War isn't.  04:59, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * And Rugby is entertainment. So is football. What's your point, Rob? Turpis 3:16 (talk) 05:07, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Brilliant wit, as usual! My, but that was an entertaining riposte!  Completely fucking beside any relevant point to be seen here, but oh so darned humorous.  Phiwum (talk) 04:06, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Of course it's entertainment; the name of the game s 'take the public's money'. I can see where this is news for those making the transition to the First World. nobsModerated 04:20, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * So Rob, you say "a 30 sec spot is US $3.5M... My guess, ad rates [for Rugby World Cup] are not even half, and probably pitifully less than that." Well, we all know your guess is worth 2 things: jack and shit. So why don't you ret to come up with some figures to back that up. I'd guess Rugby is more expensive, you know why? Because it has, as you say, 3 times the viewership and viewership is what they base the goddamn ad prices on. Also, the fact that you'd have to buy ad space in dozens (hundreds?) of different markets throughout the globe, rather than just one American network, seems to indicate that yes, you'd have to spend one metric fuckton on money to place an ad that everyone watching the Rugby World Cup would see. What this has to do with lightyears and gravity is beyond me. Turpis 3:16 (talk) 04:36, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * The RWC is 64 games consisting of 96 hours, or 5760 minutes of broadcast time. By contrast, the Superbowl is 60 minutes of broadcast time. While stats are admittedly hard to come, this site says the 2006 Rugby Cup generated $1 billion in ad revenue compared with the 2009 Superbowl which generated $213 million. This means every 1 minute of broadcast time the Rugby Cup generated $173,600, whereas the Superbowl earned $3,550,000 per minute. Case closed.  nobsModerated 05:00, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I assumed we were talking about just the final game of the World Cup, as that's as close as you can get to the equivalent of the Super Bowl (each being the final game that decides the winners, or else we'd have to include the NFL playoffs as well, or even the entire season). If you want to compare every game of the Rugby Cup to just the one game of the Super Bowl then we're really getting into apples and oranges territory here. Do you have figures for those? Turpis 3:16 (talk) 05:06, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I've said it before, I'll say it again. There's no way anyone with the mental faculties to edit a wiki could be this dumb. Rob's trolling is boring, and RW's feeding of this troll is even more boring. PACODOGwoof, bitches 05:16, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * The Super Pooper Bowl will run 3 to 3.5 hours of broadcast time. For sixty minutes of actual "play". Get your facts and all.  05:18, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * You're right. Adjustment have to be made. To answer Dick, This report says $9 billion. 16 games in a 16 week season is 256 games (plus playoffs). By far the most of this comes TV revenues, with a small fraction from sale of hats & tee-shirts and stadium revenues such as tickets and hot dogs. Wikipedia says 55% of TV revenues go to the salary cap, so the exact figure can be figured that way, too. Over a four year period, the NFL would earn $36 billion, whereas the Rubgy Cup only $1 billion in the same period of time. nobsModerated 05:32, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm surprised no-one has had a red flag raised by the 2006 world cup ad revenue citation that Rob keeps mentioning. DamoHi 05:38, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Using wp:National_Football_League, $127 million salary per team x 32 teams = $4.064 billion = 55% of total TV revenues = $7.389 billion total TV revenues x 4 years = $29.55 billion, compared to the Rugby Cup earning $1 billion in the same time. nobsModerated 05:55, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * So the NFL screws over advertisers in a captive, limited market. This makes yank football a better sport how? -- PsyGremlin  06:00, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't understand the point here anyway. Besides, I prefer cricket to rugby. AceModerator 06:05, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * The point, Ace, is earning money. I know, too deep a concept while you're transitioning to a money economy from the hunter-gatherer state, so we'll be patient. Now, if the RWC generated $1 billion in 96 games, that is roughly $10 million per game; Yahoo answers cite the University of Ohio as a typical example of an American collegiate football game, saying they gross $64 million per game, and profit $28 million. So we all see what league the RWC is in. nobsModerated 06:12, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * What the fuck do I care about advertising revenue? I don't watch rugby or football. AceModerator 06:17, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * This just goes to show how difficult comparisons are, especially when you start comparing a yearly event with one every 4 years. In any case, I thought the discussion was the cost of a 30 second ad that would be seen by every viewer of the Super Bowl with a 30 second ad that would be seen by every viewer of the Rugby World Cup final game. That's about as equal a comparison as you can get (though total viewership would be a much more useful figure, you seem bent on the advertising angle. So be it). You haven't furnished any figures for the latter, and I imagine it would be difficult to do. Totals don't work well because there is probably an order of magnitude more ads during American football than during rugby, which only contradicts your assertion that football is a sport and rugby is entertainment. So, come back when you find an approximate figure for how much it would cost to run an ad in every market in which the Rugby World Cup final game is shown, and we'll see how it compares to the $3.5 million or so for the Super Bowl. Until then you're just playing numbers games. Turpis 3:16 (talk) 06:14, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * This is by far the dumbest thread on Talk:CPWIGO I've read in a while. I like American Football. I live in the American South. Who fucking cares? "My sport is better than yours." Give me a fucking break. PACODOGwoof, bitches 06:15, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * This is by far the dumbest thread on Talk:CPWIGO I've read in a while. I like American Football. I live in the American South. Who fucking cares? "My sport is better than yours." Give me a fucking break. PACODOGwoof, bitches 06:15, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

All we can do is take gross ad revenues over a four period divide by the number of games. For the RWC, it is $1 billion / 96 = $10 million per game; for the NFL it is $29.55 / (256 regular season + 11 playoff games x 4 years) = $28.7 million. Close enough. So evidently some US colleges approach NFL revenues, too. nobsModerated 06:28, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I still don't know why you care about these figures, they're meaningless. Even if you wanted to pretend it's some sort of objective mathematical proof of what sport is The Best, it just doesn't work. Even if all else is equal, the fact that sports like football and baseball are much more geared towards TV advertising just shows that more ads = more revenue. As if we didn't know that already. Rugby is more popular than American football, as it has more worldwide viewers. Does that really mean anything? No. Association football (ie "soccer") is more popular still. Is it an objectively "better" sport? No. Personally, I enjoy an American football game now and then, but find soccer pretty boring. Does that have anything to do with how much each sport makes from advertising? Not at all. Give it a rest. Turpis 3:16 (talk) 06:36, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

--DamoHi 06:48, 1 February 2012 (UTC) (although I do enjoy watching Rob troll himself.)
 * Formula One (one my favourites) is one of top earners. AceModerator 06:45, 1 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Jesus, Rob. I've said it before but it's probably worth repeating. You're turning making-a-fool-of-yourself into an art form. Ajkgordon (talk) 09:18, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Nobs exemplifies why many in the rest of the world resent certain aspects of American culture - life is about more than making money! 09:27, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * To be honest, all this is pointless because it assumes a US model of TV advertising. (big shock, US conservative assumes a US-centric view). The RWC is a bit of an anomaly in the UK - it was shown on ITV (with ads). Most Rugby is shown on the BBC and generates precisely £0 in TV ad revenue. Worm (talk) 10:52, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Ok, I'll explain the significance. The $28 million per game figure for the NFL is based upon a formula of 1068 (256 regular season + 11 post season) games over 4 years. If the RWC where to allow greedy television executives to manipulate its rules, as the NFL has, to allow for 96 games per year, it would play 384 games over 4 years and produce $4 billion. So while the NFL has reached a mature state and can't really produce more (other than allow the greedy evil TV's execs to leapfrog the Pro-Bowl to the week before the Superbowl for higher ratings), the RWC shows a higher potential for growth at 400%. This is common throughout the Second and Third World. Plus the added incentive the workers Rugby players are willing to work for $2 a day. nobsModerated 13:06, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * No, Rob, that's not significant. "If they held the World Cup every year instead of every 4 years they'd make more money. But they don't because they're 'Third World.'" Do you ever get tired of displaying your stupidity in such a blatant manner? Did you know that if hey held the Super Bowl every week they'd make 52 times as much money by your logic, and therefore they have the capacity for 52x growth, so the NFL is a Third World institution? Can we move please move this discussion to Forum:Do retards know they're retarded?. Turpis 3:16 (talk) 13:46, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Is this an argument that the rest of the world needs to take up American football over rugby, or what? Because if it's a purely financial argument then it's one about business models, not sports. And as pointed out above, F1 is the way you want to go there. Scarlet A.pngtheist 13:49, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Please tell me you're not looking for anything like a thesis statement from a Rob Smith rant. The argument is whatever Rob wants it to be about at any given time (it will not doubt shift to communism and/or Chip Berlet momentarily) and will change track on a dime every time Rob is thoroughly pwned (ie often). Turpis 3:16 (talk) 13:53, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I didn't relise there was an argument, I thought Rob was just stating numbers he wasted time finding. -  π    13:57, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * It all started as a pissing contest and Rob's trying to win by saying that "evolved" sports make more money which seems to be exactly how you shouldn't measure sports. Jack Hughes (talk) 14:06, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Exactly, so when attendance and viewership stats did not back up Rob's hypothesis, he decided to switch to a more capitalist model, which might have some merit on some level. The problem with that is it's supposed to show the relative value people give to something based on how much they spend on it, which is fine, but doesn't work for a broadcast model in which all the viewers (except those actually in attendance) are watching for free. Corporations, based on how many people they think will watch and how likely they are to buy their products, pay, which simply means whatever sport can squeeze in more opportunities for ads will come out ahead there. It really doesn't reflect the value the viewers put on the sport at all. You can make that case for ticket prices to an extent, but that's a tiny fraction of the market. Turpis 3:16 (talk) 14:14, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * So really, it's more a reflection how on gullible and ridiculous the fans are in how much they'll pay to wast 2-3 hours of their lives on a weekend. Scarlet A.pngsshole 14:16, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Completely, but again, only for actual attendance. We at home get to watch for free at the mere cost of sitting through a slew of commercials (during the Super Bowl the commercials are some of the best parts) so it's not a bad deal. The amount generated is more a reflection of how stupid the corporations think the viewers are that they'll be swayed by some actors on TV. Pretty stupid, apparently. Turpis 3:16 (talk) 14:22, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * "Value" is what people will pay for it. That's it, really, you can't really deduce anything more than that. Do you really think Facebook is worth $100 billion? It's just code, after all... Scarlet A.pngpostate 14:24, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Absolutely. That's all it tells you, but that is something, and you have the potential to use actual figures to make your point with it, though the point doesn't necessarily have any relevance. Then you have Rob's making shit up and playing with numbers, which tells us only what an idiot Rob is. Turpis 3:16 (talk) 14:29, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Just to step in here and show my e-penis of geeky trivial knownledge off: What an ad on television costs is normally deduced by the rating of the year before relative to what other channels got in ratings and what the people that want to put an ad up are willing to pay for it. If the channel couldn't sell at the price they wished for they will lower the price until the can sell that thing. Also, and this goes out to Rob specifically, not every single 30 seconds cost the same. You would never pay the same price for a 30 seconds 2 minutes before the end of broadcast than the last spot during halftime. And the price of 3.5 million per 30 seconds is always given as the price during halftime. That doesn't mean that you have 3 hours of such continious revenue, in fact you have the complete opposite of a short very high peak of a price during halftime with, relative to halftime-ads low prices on the other ends. If one really wanted to look at sports events with the most revenue (which isn't completely besides the point for people that studied media studies and the industry itself) one would have to sum up all the prices of each ad (have fun collecting that data) deduce an average but still highlight the peak and the low point while if working on an international scale you would have adjust for the size of the market (percentage of households with a TV or other means to see these ads, and don't forget that you have to adjust for the fact that many visit a party for this kind of event, so you'd have to get the average size of such a party from some weird as shit kind of statistic) or the outreach of the specific channel (network system fucks you over on this one). It's much more complicated that one might think.
 * Also, sport events don't make their money from the ads during the broadcast, that is where the channel get it's money from. The actual sporting event makes this money by selling licenses to those channels. These kinds of licenses are normally auctioned off to a selected number of channels or given long-term planning with a single channel/network behind closed doors. The NBC back in 2008 with the Olympic Games fell flat on their face with this, they paid so much money for the Beijing Games but couldn't get the ad revenue so that they had to end the Olympics with a lose of several million dollars. The IOC couldn't give less than a shit about this. -- 15:31, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Incidentally, for a real football team like Man U only around one third of revenue is from broadcasting. Think of all the kids world wide that wear Rooney replica kit. Jack Hughes (talk) 16:03, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Holy shit! I never knew ManU was sports event! I always thought the were a sports club! /snark -- 16:19, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I wasn't getting at you, or your incisive comment on advertising. I was remarking that Rob's concentrating on advertising revenue was only seeing one third of the picture. Moreover, it's the third seen by the armchair fan, the one who doesn't go to matches (gate receipts) or buy the replica kit (merchandising). Jack Hughes (talk) 17:48, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, the discussion was still about sporting events, though… -- 19:14, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure a replica kit is something the aliens use to blend in with us humans. I don't know what that has to do with sporting events. Turpis 3:16 (talk) 18:51, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * What I'm amazed at and no one has picked up on, if 1000 games in the NFL produce $29 billion over 4 years, and 400 games in RWC could produce $4 billion over the same time, 1000 RWC games could produce $10 billion over 4 years. The NFL has reached its optimum level; the money grubbing TV promoters & bosses want a 17 week schedule (already built in with the byes) but the players are resisting. It is just physically not possible now. But the RWC has enormous potential for growth, if the same TV promoters can get a hold of it and do for them what they've done for the NFL. nobsModerated 20:38, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Alright, I'm out of my element, here, I admit, as I know very little about footie or rugby, but isn't the world cup the championship tournament, sort of like the playoffs in American sports? Aren't games played for several years and the ones who do best qualify for the World Cup? You seem to think no one's playing rugby or football for 3 years and then the World Cup comes along, and you think they should extend games into those 3 sabbatical years. Well, I'm here to tell you they do play, they do generate money, it just isn't the World Cup. You could say the same thing about the Olympics. Imagine Olympic games every year. People would get damn sick of it anyway. Turpis 3:16 (talk) 20:45, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Several years ago the NFL turned the game over to the TV promoters to exploit revenues. The TV networks produce the schedule, iow, schedules used to be determined by who beat who last year and so on, now the network promoters determine who plays who based on maximum revenue. Flex-scheduling was introduced, meaning the kickoff time can be varied late in the season, and they want to be able to change up who plays on Monday night, for example. Thursday nite games have been added. Actual playing rules have been tweaked, for example the 35 second clock, and out of bounds rules, kickoff rules, instant replay, all to accommodate maximum broadcast revenues. nobsModerated 20:56, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I must admit that I've only skimmed this but I find it baffling. Could someone simply explain what point is being debated and why it should matter? --BobSpring is sprung! 21:08, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Mostly irrelevant, as usual, Rob, but mostly accurate, I guess. Though who plays whom is determined by a formula, not by who'd draw the best ratings (which games are the prime time, network games are determined by projected draw, at least to an extent, but whatever teams are matched would play each other regardless). If your point is that the NFL is more geared towards TV viewers than rugby, then you could have saved us a lot of time and said that to begin with. No one would have contradicted you. Turpis 3:16 (talk) 21:09, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Rob, the problem is that for some reason - probably trolling Ace - you're equating the annual super bowl with a four-year world cup, thinking they operate in isolation. You're forgetting to include the Six nations, Tri-Nations, Lions tours, Currie Cup, Celtic Cup, Heineken Cup, etc, etc. But you know what the ultimate question is? What's the big fucking deal? Revenues do not make a sport better than another. Maybe Yank football is wildly popular in the US... because it's geared to the US mentality. Micro-seconds of action, followed by ages of nothing, sort of inline with your attention span. So is baseball, so is basketball, so is ice hockey. After all, yours is a nation that cannot grasp how a cricket game can last for 5 days and end in a draw. For you easy nice, easy good, not have to think, look America, here's 27 channels of American Gladiators! You are free to think as we tell you... -- PsyGremlin  21:14, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I still fail to see how this is a troll of me. I don't watch rugby often and enjoy cricket and F1 far more than rugby. AceModerator 21:15, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Rob's just trying to find an actually quantifiable manner in which American football beats rugby (not that any statistic is really meaningful). Not able to do it in viewership or attendance or anything, he's gone on to ad revenue. Fine. Per game the NFL season likely beats just about every other major sport in this measure (though you're still not using good figures, Rob). I don't know what he hopes to accomplish from this except show some numbers that benefit his side.
 * As for what sports reflect American mentality, it's hard to say. Football does have short spans of intense action, often followed by longer periods of nothing, but I don't know how relevant that is. Personally, I'd take that over the last World Cup final, which was 90 minutes of guys kicking a ball back and forth, never once getting it where they wanted it to go. Basketball, however, is quite different than either. The action doesn't stop after a 10 second play, but they score so often it's impossible to get excited when they do. I guess I like sports where the teams score every now and then, but not so often that it's boring. That's why the only sports I ever watch are American football or baseball (neither very often, and the latter very rarely indeed). And put in the the column of people dumbfounded by a game going on for 5 days and ending in a draw. Turpis 3:16 (talk) 21:48, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Who. The. Fuck.  Cares.
How is this relevant to anything? Osaka Sun (talk) 21:37, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Rennie McGreet (talk) 21:45, 1 February 2012 (UTC)