Loretta Hunt of Sherdog.com is reporting that commercial ad slots have sold out for Fedor vs. Rogers on CBS:
“I’d say this was probably a quicker sellout than the EliteXC shows,” said Kahl, who added that the addition of top-ranked heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko has piqued interest in “premium advertisers” from the auto, movies, and video gaming genres.
Aside from ratings, advertising sales are a second way that networks can gauge interest in its programming. Kahl said that other sporting events on CBS usually complete their advertising sales a day or two before air date if that.
Among those scheduled around the live broadcast, EA Sports will unveil a preview of its MMA game due out in 2010.
Payout Perspective:
Hunt’s reports on the status of CBS ad sales have proved quite complementary to MMAPayout.com’s discussion about the role that MMA content can play in helping networks attract desired demographic for their advertising clients.
The household average for the CBS show isn’t likely to be stellar, but as CBS’s Kahl points out in her conversation with Hunt, it’s the M18-34 and M18-49 ratings that are of the utmost importance. The ratings battle will be won not by overall viewership, but by the perceived quality of that viewership.
CBS and Showtime have done well to promote the fight in many capacities – although they’ve left room for improvement – and that should reflect on Saturday night’s results.
That is very very good. I’m assuming that their quality of advertisers will be better than EliteXC’s.
Excellent news indeed.
I’m still very curious over where Strikeforce is getting all their money to sign the talent they’ve accumulated thus far.
Showtime events have are commercial free so that’s out of the question but I wonder if the promotion gets a cut of any of this advertising revenue from CBS.