While the two head into this year’s Masters Tournament with Tiger netting four career wins at Augusta and Mickelson with three, it’s the golfer dubbed “Lefty” who has a comfortable lead in Nielsen’s N-Score with a 75 compared to Woods’ 41.

Woods shows a commanding lead in N-Score’s awareness category, with 73 percent of consumers being aware of the Woods brand, though only 17 percent say they like the 14-time major championship winner. Only three percent of respondents thought the golfer was “down to earth.” Conversely, 52 percent thought Mickelson was appealing.

Both golfers are able to drive ratings, however. Mickelson’s Masters win in 2010 drew 13.7 million viewers, while Tiger’s win in 1997 attracted the most viewers in recent history: 15.8 million people tuning in.

“Although Tiger Woods continues to draw viewers and just won his first tournament since his off-the-course issues arose in 2009, he is still challenged from a marketability standpoint. His appeal numbers have not recovered, and he is still a polarizing figure,” said Stephen Master, VP, Sports for Nielsen. “It will be interesting to see if another green jacket at the Masters this year can win back the favor of the public and corporate America.”

Methodology
Using the combined research expertise of Nielsen and E-Poll Market Research, N-Score is an in-depth look at a sports figure’s overall endorsement potential, factoring in the attributes and demographic measures that align brands with endorsers. Each individual N-Score National survey is administered to 1,100 people within that panel via the Internet. The sample is representative of the general population based on gender, income, age, and education. Awareness, as noted in the Wire post above, is determined by showing half of the survey participants a picture of the athlete and half the athlete’s name. Appeal is the percentage of participants aware of the athlete who say that they like an athlete or like an athlete a lot.

Patrick proved to be TV ratings gold for the NASCAR Nationwide Series in 2011. The 12 races she participated in during the 2011 circuit had 17 percent higher viewership than the ones she didn’t race in, with an average viewership of 2.1 million.

Patrick’s popularity carries into social media as well. In looking at pre-event Daytona 500 buzz for five big-name drivers—Carl Edwards, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Jeff Gordon, Trevor Bayne and Patrick—Patrick accounted for 11.5% of all buzz about the Daytona 500 in 2012, according to NM Incite, a Nielsen/McKinsey company. This was the highest of any of the drivers measured.

A major endorsement star, Patrick is known by 30 percent of the U.S. population, according to Nielsen/E-Poll N-Score. The average awareness level of an auto racing athlete is 9 percent, as is the average awareness of a female athlete, so she is well above the curve. Her N-Score is 115, earning her “Superstar” status in the N-Score system, behind only Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and Jeff Gordon among active race car drivers.

Of the 144 brands that have advertised during the Super Bowl over the past five years, only a handful of companies have had a presence in every one. From 2007-2011, these seven have earn honorable mentions for being the most resilient Super Bowl advertisers—Budweiser, CareerBuilder, Coca-Cola, Doritos, E*Trade, GoDaddy.com, and the NFL—and five also hold the distinction of being among the ten best liked Super Bowl ads of the past five years.

Only ad executions during Super Bowl airings from 2007-2011 considered. The Likeability Score is the percentage of TV viewers who report to like “a lot” an ad they were exposed to during the normal course of viewing TV (among those recalling the brand of the ad). These scores are then indexed against the mean score for all new ads during the period (Likeability Index). 100 equals average.

For example, with a Likeability index of 179 the top ranked NFL ad has proven to be 79 percent better-liked than the average Super Bowl commercial during the past four-week period.

Source: Nielsen

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Patriots have more online visitors, but Giants fans run up web stats

During the run up to the playoffs in December 2011, the Patriots had 644,000 unique visitors to their official website, topping the Giants’ 574,000 visitors. However, Giants fans were more engaged when visiting their team’s website, viewing nearly twice as many pages (17 page views per person) compared to Patriots visitors, and spending over 10 minutes each on average.

Super Bowl buzz: Giants fans cheer more for team, Tom Brady is MVP of social media

Fans’ excitement throughout the playoffs carried over to social media. The Giants had more buzz about their team each week, with a 59 percent share of buzz compared to the Patriots’ 41 percent of buzz volume on blogs, message boards/forums, public posts on Twitter and Facebook and online news posts.  But Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady surpassed Giants QB Eli Manning, with nearly double the amount of buzz.

TV sports advertising is dominated by a few big spenders, with the top 10 — led by AT&T, Bud Light, Verizon Wireless, McDonald’s and DIRECTV—accounting for roughly a quarter (26%) of the total spend during that time period.

The increase in TV ad spend mirrors a similar increase in the amount of live TV sports content available on TV and cable. There were more than 42,500 hours of live sporting events on national broadcast and cable TV in 2011, a five percent increase over 2010.

• For more insights on sports and media, download Nielsen’s State of the Media: Year in Sports.

The Cardinals and Milwaukee Brewers took the second and third spots for cheering on their home teams—from the comfort of their couches. During the regular season 8.9 percent and 7.9 percent of households tuned in, respectively, and they continued to see strong viewership numbers during the playoffs as well. During the playoffs, the Cardinals garnered the highest household rating of any market (26.2%), while the Brewers held onto the third spot.

“The Phillies’ high-profile acquisition of pitching ace Cliff Lee last winter built incredible team buzz and the fans definitely tuned in,” said Stephen Master, VP of Sports, Nielsen.

Just as they did on the field, some teams did better on television this year vs. last year. During the regular season, the Milwaukee Brewers jumped to the third spot after a 63 percent yearly increase in local ratings. The Cleveland Indians saw a whopping 105 percent increase in their local market rating compared to last year, bringing them to the eighth spot in the overall rankings.

In terms of sheer volume of households tuning in, however, no one can beat the New York Yankees. The Yankees had roughly 323,000 local New York City households tune in to their 2011 regular season games and an astounding 918,000 households tune in to their playoff games.

With the World Series starting tonight, Rangers fans will face steep competition against the enthusiastic Cardinals fans. In this year’s playoff games, roughly 26 percent of St. Louis households tuned into the games, while in Dallas, only about 17 percent of households tuned into the locally televised Rangers games.

“Although the AL Rangers are favored to win their first World Series in franchise history, fan loyalty has definitely been stronger in the NL this season. Combining the local ratings for the regular season and the first two rounds of the playoffs, Philadelphia, St. Louis and Milwaukee rank as the top three markets for tuning in to watch and support their local team.”

On October 4, at Advertising Week, Nielsen hosted a panel discussion on “How Mobile is Changing Sports Media & Marketing.” One panelist dubbed the mobile phone the “first screen” because it’s always on and—more importantly—it’s always with you. For sports fans, that means instant score updates, fantasy sports at your fingertips and connecting with your favorite teams and athletes via social media, all without leaving the stadium, the train or your favorite armchair.

Jonathan Carson, Nielsen’s CEO of Digital moderated the discussion. Below are some highlights from the panel.

Jonathan Carson: We’ve said that mobile is the perfect platform for sports and sports apps are perfect for mobile. Can you elaborate on that?

David Coletti, VP, Digital Media Research & Analytics, ESPN: The perfect marriage is between mobile and sports. We see data that backs that up… The past two NFL Sundays, we had 10 million people use our mobile sites and 13 million using espn.com. In September, usage of ESPN’s mobile sites and applications represented 4.5 billion minutes of usage. All of that shows the power of the platform… and the market is far from saturated.

Clark Pierce, SVP, Digital Content, Fox Sports: We did research earlier this year that showed people go to their devices at least 100 times per day.

Doug Smoyer, VP, Business Development, New York Giants:

Super Bowl XLII was four years ago but “eons ago” in terms of mobile. After the Eagles game two weeks ago, the Giants shared a picture of the team in the locker room following the win. In just two hours, the picture received more than 40,000 “likes” on Facebook. It was incredible.

Jonathan Carson: What is it about mobile that changes the game?

Rob Master, VP, Media, Unilever: We are rethinking the model of the best available screen. Interaction goes well beyond that biggest screen… figuring out the best content, best message, best place.

Jonathan Carson: How does simultaneous usage, particularly for sports, impact your businesses?

David Coletti, ESPN: We launched ESPN XP to measure ad effectiveness across platforms. When you look at the different objectives that an ad campaign might have… each media pulls different levers. It’s about how we best mix your media. Creative in context is vitally important.

Rob Master, Unilever: Unilever has been marketing more to men thanks to the launch of several men’s lines, including Vaseline Men, Dove Men+Care and Axe (“helping guys in the mating game”).  Men and sports are a nice combination, marriage… We follow where our consumer goes. For sports, if we do it right with the right content, we win.

Jonathan Carson: How does mobile change your approach to sports marketing?

Mark Rooks, Sr. Director, Sports Marketing, Pepsi

We are always looking for new ways to engage consumers. Pepsi recently partnered with IntoNow. Around the launch of our MLB Field of Dreams ad, we asked consumers to use their mobile device to identify our ad, consumers were then sent cool interactive content and value offers. Mobile and social are also affecting how brands look at celebrity sponsorships. We now always look at a celebrity’s social activity and following. A second- or third-tier athlete who is incredibly active online can be a very efficient choice.

Jonathan Carson: Are you facing any particular challenges in the mobile space?

Doug Smoyer, New York Giants: Not every marketer is built or equipped the same… People don’t know what they want. They just know they want it.

The conversation might not always be what you want it to be. The Giants partnered with Walgreens for a flu shot campaign. After a loss, they received some negative comments during the campaign. If the team’s not performing well, you need to expect that.

Jonathan Carson: What’s coming up?

Rob Master, Unilever: How do we deliver more specific and relevant content by screen?

David Coletti, ESPN: It’s critically important that we have the power to measure… It unlocks more spending.

Clark Pierce, Fox Sports: We plan to work more with Facebook and Twitter. Also, the development of the HTML 5 platform will be interesting, specifically the security of video. This can create competition. Does a content provider develop an App and an HTML5 site or both?

Mark Rooks, Pepsi: Continued penetration growth and scale as well as contextual opportunities.  Being able to deliver our content the right way at the right time and location.  So for example, being able to recognize a fan in a stadium and reward them real time with experiences, content or product offers.

Doug Smoyer, New York Giants: The key is how we activate. For 2012, the goal it to find the right brand to go and activate a Foursquare partnership … a retail partner in the city of New York.

“New Zealanders take their Rugby very seriously as can be seen by an unprecedented audience of viewers who watched at home, at a friend’s home, in a pub or at one of the many outdoor venues set up for the tournament. To establish live viewing of the game both in-home and out-of-home and for the opening ceremony, Nielsen conducted a special survey of all individuals (15+) in their 500-home Television Audience Measurement panel,” said Claire Harris, Managing Director of Nielsen Television Audience Measurement in New Zealand.

The Rugby World Cup is the third biggest international sporting event after the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup. 80 nations compete in qualifiers over 3 years for 20 spots in the final competition. The match between the 2011 Host nation’s team, the New Zealand All Blacks, and the Pacific Island nation of Tonga, was the first of 48 matches to be played and televised over the ensuing six weeks. The 2011 qualifying teams also include Australia, England, France, Italy, South Africa, United States, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, who are all competing for the holy grail of International Rugby, the Webb Ellis Cup.

“It was a perfect day for the Opening Ceremony and inaugural match of the tournament, and there were numerous outdoor venues to watch the game with crowds exceeding all expectations.

“The massive audience for the opening game illustrates the power of television in making such a wonderful event accessible to sports fans right across the country,” Harris added.

The study also showed that people viewing out-of-home were more likely to be male, younger and from Auckland.

And an oft-discussed quarterback can lead (or follow) his team to buzz dominance as well. Half of the top 10 quarterbacks by N-Score were on the top 10 teams with the most buzz; however, there are a number of players and teams where no connection appears. Tony Romo garnered slightly higher than the median quarterback buzz (1.8%) while the Dallas Cowboys were one of the most buzzed about teams with 5.8 percent of all online buzz mentions. Incidentally, the Cowboys also had the most unique visitors to their website on average.

High awareness of a player—as captured through the N-Score—can also be indicative of a player’s buzz. For players like the Eagles’ Michael Vick and the Steelers’ Ben Roethlisberger, their awareness and buzz are both high—yet their N-Score, which takes into account traits such as likeability, down-to-earth and talented—reflects negative public reaction to their activity off the field (13 and 16, respectively). Besides Matt Hasselbeck, all of the top 10 quarterbacks by N-Score received high online buzz.

Players with lesser awareness can also become buzz generators online. Alex Smith and Mark Sanchez, who were nationally known by just four and 16 percent of the population, respectively, had a tremendous amount of player buzz—higher than three percent of all quarterback buzz. Sanchez may benefit from his association with the Jets, the NFL’s most buzzed about team.

“Buzz for the NFL has ramped up this summer as the lockout-shortened off season created a flurry of trades and free agent signings that gave fans plenty to talk about. We’re closely watching to see how all of this excitement in August translates to TV ratings in September. Roughly 18 million Americans tuned in to nationally broadcast NFL games, on average, during the 2010-2011 season,” said Stephen Master, Vice President, Sports for Nielsen.

Masters continued, “It will be interesting to see how fans respond to controversial players, such as Michael Vick, this season. His strong performance on the field was rewarded with a $100 million contract, but he’s still a polarizing figure nationally with a higher than average number of Americans expressing dislike for him, according to the N-Score.”

Among NFL teams, the NY Jets generated the most online buzz during the off-season from blogs, message boards/groups, Twitter, Facebook, and online news posts. “America’s Team,” the Dallas Cowboys continue to generate national interest in online discussions, although they were topped by their rivals, the Philadelphia Eagles, who led NFC teams and were second in overall pre-season buzz. The NY Giants, and their regional rival, the New England Patriots, round out the top five teams with the most pre-season buzz.

An abbreviated off-season due to the NFL lockout sparked a flurry of free-agent signings and trades of popular players, and generated considerable online buzz among sports fans.  Looking at players who have changed teams ahead of the 2011 season, Reggie Bush received the most buzz during the off-season with 194k mentions. Comparing buzz about NFL players who joined new teams through free-agency or trade in recent weeks, Plaxico Burress led this group of players with more than 13k mentions during the week of July 31 – August 6, followed by Reggie Bush, Nnamdi Asomugha, Chad Ochocinco, and Donovan McNabb.

One in four active web users in the US visited sites in the Sports category, which amounts to 42.5 million Americans during the most recent week (ending July 31).  Compared to weeks during the off-season, the NFL’s network of sites more than doubled their audience, a 258 percent increase in unique US visitors during the first full week after the NFL lockout ended.

As US sports fans go online for the latest news and stats, Yahoo’s network of sports sites was their top destination during the week of July 31. ESPN.com and FoxSports.com websites were also popular destinations for US sports fans in this most recent week. Historically the months of August and September are the busiest for sports sites, so this may provide another preview of the season to come!