We are in third place in our own division now.
Plenty of time to regain team confidence and health.
But no time like tonight to get back on a better pace of play on the road.
Focus must be on defensive systems; on our penalty kill and our power play.
And on over all team chemistry and vigor and energy for all 60 minutes.
An important away game this evening; tune in on Comcast Sportsnet and wish us well. Thank you.
Sports programming has emerged as key content for networks. It is real time – drives big audiences and great viewer passion.
ESPN is king. All sports. All the time on television and the web. They own rights to broadcast NFL, NBA and MLB games! They have video galore. They have scale.
Comcast SportsNet is focused. Drives lots of attention locally because they own the rights to broadcast the Capitals and Wizards games. They leverage our programming and viewer habits to then cover all sports deeply and locally. They are good at what they do. Comcast now owns NBC and the local DC NBC affiliate. I don’t understand why they don’t give the Caps and Wizards extra ordinary attention and drive creatively as a way to create a deeper sports networking operation. They own our rights.
The blogosphere specializes in passionate coverage. All the time in real time. It is booming.
Our teams themselves have become content factories. Pumping out stories and videos and using our own means of distribution.
Twitter users update scores and talk about what is happening- live and in real time.
Local television news gives short shrift to local sports. 2 minutes per broadcast. A super market approach to info shopping. It is appointment oriented- at 6PM, 6:30PM or 11PM. But we live in a real time world. That is all taking its toll on local news and their business model.
See this set of articles. It fore shadows even more changes in the info and content industries in local markets.
NBC is changing, WUSA channel 9 is changing.
What is next?
In a batch of recent research, we asked our fans and customers how do they receive information about our teams.
The top five sources of information gathering were identified by more than a majority of fans in this order: Our team websites; Comcast SportsNet; The Washington Post; my blog Ted’s Take; and team emails and mailings and in-arena communications.
These five sites and media are the starting points for fans and most fans don’t go past this grouping of sites for information. The drop off is dramatic in terms of how far and deep fans will go to find information.
I remain committed to communicating far and wide and treating all media outlets with respect and with transparency. I believe in the long tail and believe in democracy of information flow. Social media is starting to creep up in the rankings but I was surprised to see that these sites such as Facebook and Twitter and some blogs are still in a smallish minority of how most people gather information about our teams. I would like to encourage more participation and the driving of traffic to more blogs and more individual Twitter feeds and will try to figure out a way to be more supportive.
Google remains high in terms of relevance and driving clicks and people to specific information.
Yesterday I went on our own website to do an hour and ten minute interview with Mike Vogel. I tried to answer many fan generated questions. I have received and read more than 1,000 emails since our season ended. I believe I have responded to more than half of those emails.
Here is the link to the video interview.
I also conducted a 60 plus minute season ticket holder telephonic session with Wizards season ticket holders yesterday. I answered questions live from our customers. I have also received and read more than 500 emails from fans of the Wizards since the season ended and we conducted the draft lottery and redesigned our look and feel and new uniforms.
I want to thank you all for listening; for caring; for communicating; and for participating. That is very nice of you.
Thank you. If you can’t attend a game in person it is great that you are tuning in. And our road games tonight and tomorrow I expect will be off the chart and I also predict strong ratings when we play Philadelphia next week. Thank you Comcast SportsNet for being such a great partner. Please click here.
Thank you so much for your time and your interest.
We are well into renewal periods for the Caps and we just passed the 82% mark. I would expect us to be at more than 95% again this season when the deadline hits. I will provide more info on renewals as we get closer to the deadline. I am requesting that people please take the deadline seriously as we have a strong backlog of interest from people that wish to buy new season tickets. Thanks again. Go Caps!
Thank you Comcast SportsNet for the great support.
I believe these new shows will make people happy and more informed.
Tune in before every Caps and Wizards game.
I love it - you love it – our teams love it - and we love Comcast SportsNet for doing it for us and for you! Thank you. Comcast is a great partner and a great producer of sports programming for our fans. Click here and enjoy!
Read this one. All Calder Cup games are on TV. Go Bears! Thank you Comcast.
We asked. We cajoled. And they responded. This is fantastic news - Bears Finals on television.
See this release for details. I am thrilled that Comcast is doing this for our fan base and for the Hershey Bears franchise. Thank you and thanks to all that emailed and called on this matter. Great news all around!
Comcast SportsNet pulled big numbers last night for the Capitals vs. Penguins game. We were rated at a 3.3 household rating with a 6.5 rating with men in the 25 to 54 age range.
Kudos all around. Go Caps!
We must generate some good ratings on television as VERSUS and Canadian TV are broadcasting a lot of Caps games this coming season. We will be on VERSUS seven times and on national TV in Canada 17 times.
All of our games, as is our way now, are televised. Thanks Comcast SportsNet. We have come along way in terms of broadcast exposure over the last 10 years, haven’t we?
Click here for the news release regarding our national TV exposure. Go Caps!