No Longhorns competing in Olympics, but Austinites still glued to TV coverage
With the curtain closing this weekend on the Pyeongchang Games, one of the most unexpected TV love affairs will pack up its skates and skis for the next four years: Austin and the Winter Olympics.
Austin has been one of the top 10 U.S. television audiences for the Winter Games.
The list of powerhouse TV mar- kets for these Olympics has all the other usual suspects — winter sports cities such as Salt Lake City, Denver, Milwaukee and Seattle are the top four. And then comes No. 9 on the Nielsen ratings list: Austin.
Austin and San Diego are the only two Sun Belt cities in the top 10 for NBC’s prime-time shows.
“We are the champions of the South,” KXAN General Manager Eric Lassberg said. “The other toprated cities you’d mostly expect. We are the surprise.”
How big a surprise? On several nights, more Austinites watched the Olympics than any 2017 Longhorns football game. A typical Olympics night has pulled ratings here three or four times larger than UT basketball games, accord-
ing to Nielsen numbers. And that’s despite not having a single Austin athlete in the 2018 Games. “Austin is an eclectic city. We’re just different,” said Valerie Scott, watching the Olympics with friends this week at Cover 3 downtown. “Maybe we just like to live vicariously through the winter athletes, doing all these things we can’t do in Austin.”
University of Texas professor Joel Lulla, who teaches sports and media classes in the UT Moody College of Communications, points to the thermometer.
“It could have a lot to do with the awful weather here this winter,” Lulla said. “Normally people go out, but we’re a little soft, so you have people staying home in front of their TV sets. Let’s face it, we’re spoiled here.”
Yet it’s not like the rest of Texas has Winter Games
fever. Dallas/Fort Worth is ranked 41st with a 12.8 Niel- sen rating, Houston is 43rd at 12.7, and San Antonio is 51st at 11.5. Austin is averag- ing a 15.2 rating.
“The ratings are a little bit surprising, but we continue to have a lot more people from the North and Northeast move down here,” Lulla said. “They are your more typical Winter Olympics audi- ence. Also, the Olympics are an upscale event, and Austin is an upscale town.”
Lulla said that one of his recent students, Rachel Thompson, is a writer for Mike Tirico’s NBC prime-time Olympics show. She might be this city’s best connec- tion with the games.
Austin’s Olympics viewing this month has skied as high as a 21.5 Nielsen rating and has been in the top 10 nine times and in the top five three times, including No. 3 on Feb. 16 and No. 4 for Thursday’s women’s figure skating.
Austin’s worst finish: 21st on Valentine’s Day.
“Well, I just saw where we were ranked as one of the most romantic cities, so I guess we took a break that night,” said Kathy Conley of Round Rock, watching the Winter Games at Third Base sports bar in Round Rock.
Austin does not score well for most big sports events, unless a Texas team is involved. Despite the presence of native-son quarter
back Nick Foles in the Super Bowl, Austin was only 49th in TV viewing of the NFL finale, and it ranked outside the top 20 for the last NBA Finals and NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
“Looking back, Austin was fourth for the Rio Summer Games (2016), so maybe it’s not a shock it’s done so well during the Winter Games,” said David Barron, longtime sports media columnist for the Houston Chronicle. “The lack of a major league sport is a factor, too.
“I am surprised the NBA doesn’t cut into viewing as it does in San Antonio, Houston
and DFW, but maybe Spurs interest in Austin doesn’t emerge until the playoffs.”
KXAN sent weekend anchor Erin Cargile to South Korea and is reaping the benefits.
“We’re the highest-rated news station in town, easily, and constantly promoting the Olympics inside those newscasts,” Lassberg said. “We’ve added the ‘Olym
pic Zone,’ a half-hour program leading into the primetime broadcasts. We used to have ‘Wheel of Fortune’ in that spot. The ‘Olympic Zone’ adds to the storytell
ing. A lead-in is key to anything in our business. Having Erin there is part of the appeal, too.”
Beyond that, Lassberg points to demographics.
“Austin has become a diverse, international market with a higher-educated audience,” he said. “The Olympics tend to gravitate toward that crowd.”