Choosing the most popular NFL games in a local TV market

Abstract

This paper models the TV audience for NFL games in a market without a local team. The model is estimated using all NFL games shown in the Salt Lake City market over the last 10 years. Team popularity varies season to season, with fans preferring high-scoring close games between good teams. The primary motivation of the model was to advise the local station in week-to-week selection of high TV audience games from the slate of FOX games. In 2013 the most popular team was the San Francisco 49ers and the local station broadcast more of their games than any other team. While the predictions offer modest discrimination between popular games, the predicted error precision must be reduced to compete with local station expertise. Reviewing the prediction performance in 2013 reveals insight into strengths and weaknesses of predictive analytics in business decisions.