Reach Local Fans on Midco Sports Network®
By Jason Dunham
Sports Advertising Sales Strategist
Sports draw us in – emotionally investing us in every game, every signing day, every nail-biting win, every championship run. Season after season, Midco Sports Network® captures this raw emotion, serving our local markets with the live sports and content they love and cannot find anywhere else.
MidcoSN® was launched with a simple mission in mind: to be a celebration of local and regional sports, providing fans in the Dakotas, Minnesota and Kansas with the coverage of their favorite hometown teams. MidcoSN is – and always will be – a celebration of sports. Our viewers are true fans of the game with personal connections to the teams and universities that we broadcast – and they love.
For businesses, advertising on MidcoSN can mean reaching dedicated, local fans that value hometown connections – and here’s why.
Since 2015, live event productions have increased 87% with overall viewership up 132%, totaling 1.7M households for the 2018-2019 season. This past season, MidcoSN saw a 24% increase in average household viewership from 2015 to 2019, driven by more live event productions, best-in-class broadcast quality and, of course, great games.
There are all kinds of numbers and percentages to toss around, but what does it all mean for your business?
Fans and viewers who are emotionally connected to programming are also more likely to respond to advertiser messages. In fact, fans remember your business better when you advertise during live sports and 65% of viewers occasionally look up information about a product they see advertised while watching a show.
Beyond traditional advertising messages, MidcoSN also offers unique and customized sponsorship programs that put your business’ brand on display in your community. Taking a deeper look at collegiate-level sponsorship, you’ll find that 85% of college football fans say they would consider a company’s brand, products or services for the first time when that company sponsors an event they follow.
MidcoSN partners with regional universities to deliver premier NCAA Division I competition, providing sponsors with unmatched exposure and connections to these top athletic programs and institutions. Additional local sponsorship opportunities are available for the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference, high school sports and other events from rodeos to auto racing.
As the 2019-2020 sports season approaches, MidcoSN continues in its mission to be the go-to network for super fans in our coverage region, drawing fans in, striving to entertain and keep them coming back for more. A partnership with MidcoSN can deliver a captive and motivated audience – one that wants to do business with your business.
Jason Dunham has been in sports marketing and management for more than 19 years, joining Midco in January 2019 as a Sports Advertising Sales Strategist. Prior to Midco, Dunham was a partner at a Twin Cities-based sponsorship and marketing agency, where he focused on sponsorship representation, activation and operational planning for events, teams and sports conferences. Dunham is a native of Minot, ND, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in marketing and business administration from Minot State University.
Jason Dunham has been in sports marketing and management for more than 19 years, joining Midco in January 2019 as a Sports Advertising Sales Strategist. Prior to Midco, Dunham was a partner at a Twin Cities-based sponsorship and marketing agency, where he focused on sponsorship representation, activation and operational planning for events, teams and sports conferences. Dunham is a native of Minot, ND, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in marketing and business administration from Minot State University.
Viewership information provided by TiVo. Households (HHs) views: Number of unique households with a view of at least one minute of the telecast. Live viewing only. Number is estimated across all of Midco basic cable subscribers based on results from the data subset. Data subset includes approximately 35% of our cable subscribers across all of our markets, excluding Minnesota and Kansas. Season viewership is the sum of all live event HHs viewership so duplication may occur. Past performance does not guarantee future results.
PwC: PwC Consumer Intelligence Series: I Stream, You Stream, Q42017
Nielsen Npower, Q22015-Q22016
McKinsey: We Are Wrong About Millennial Sports Fans, Q42017
Nielsen: The Nielsen Total Audience Report, Q22018
AdMall® AudienceSCAN®: College Football Fans, 2019.
Nielsen: Fields and Fairways: College Football Fans are Saturday’s Stars, Q32018
Facebook: The Changing Profile of Sports Fans Around the World, Q12019
Nielsen: Driving Brand Engagement and Co-Viewing on Linear TV with Out-of-Home Audiences, 2019