Analysis of ESPN2's EPL TV Viewing Figures, 2009-10

Editor’s note: As a follow-up to the recent article about ESPN2’s number of viewers for Premier League games it has shown so far this season, I asked EPL Talk readers if anyone would be interested in analyzing the data more closely. New York City resident LD Montejo responded to the call and has produced these very eyeopening observations and charts below. Soccernomics, eat your heart out!

Notes: For the charts, click on any of them for a larger version of the image.

Here are the observations and insight into ESPN2’s Premier League TV ratings for the season thus far:

Comparing ratings between different Day/Time broadcasts:

It is pretty clear the broadcast at 10:00 AM on Saturdays has performed better overall. The early morning broadcasts on Saturday (7:30 AM) have seen a constant increase in ratings over the past 2 months (up from about 200k to 350k).  In general, rating for Monday afternoon broadcasts have steadily declined from its initial rating (from about 400k to about 140k). The only broadcast on Saturday at 8:45 did relatively well (about 325k).

The general trends suggest that the 7:30 AM broadcast on Saturday morning is becoming increasingly popular and should become the most highly rated broadcast of EPL on ESPN2.

Comparing ratings between teams in the top 4 and those outside the top 4:

So far there have been 16 broadcasts where at least one of the teams is one of the traditional top 4, and 14 broadcasts where both teams are outside the same top 4. Matches featuring top 4 teams have done only slightly better on average (average=283k) than matches of teams outside the top 4 (average=240k). However, the variation in rating is much larger among matches featuring top 4 teams (standard deviation = 71k) than among matches not featuring a top 4 team (standard deviation = 53k). In fact, performing an ANOVA statistical test on the data shows that the ratings between these two type of broadcasts are not statistically significant, which is unexpected.

Rating when a high profile American is playing:

The average rating from matches featuring a high profile American (i.e. Landon Donovan, Clint Dempsey, Jozy Altidore, etc.) is 266k, whereas the rating for those matches without at least one high profile American is 261k. Based on statistical test we can safely say there is not a correlation between rating and the presence of at least one high profile American.