The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2025
TyC Sports' 30th-anniversary film celebrates the fans who stay when the rating is low
Niche-sports channel TyC Sports stops apologizing for low ratings: a film celebrating the moments nobody watches, redefining its weakness as its identity.
TyC Sports · Mercado McCann
What it had to solve
As Argentina's pioneering sports-cable channel turns 30, the industry measures value by audience peaks — World Cup finals — while TyC Sports' identity actually lives in niche disciplines and modest broadcasts whose ratings barely register on the meters.
How it works
TyC Sports has been the heartbeat of Argentine sports television for three decades, carrying everything from World Cups to the most obscure national disciplines. But attention — and advertising — follows the ratings, and most of what makes the channel distinctive scores poorly: the modest competitions, the odd hours, the matches a nation mostly ignores.
For its 30th anniversary, agency Mercado McCann refused the obvious nostalgia play. 'Rating' did the opposite of celebrating audience peaks: it highlighted the moments when screens registered low numbers, and the emotional weight those moments still carry for the fans who were there. The message reframed the channel's whole position — real support for Argentine sport transcends the viewer count.
The film turned the channel's archive into its argument: intimate, less-massive moments loaded with passion, shown as the proof of a bond that peaks never describe. Launched 25 July 2025, it was an idea the agency's creative director Santiago Gonzalez Llanos called 'hecha a pulmón, pero con mucho corazón' — built with guts and a lot of heart.
The bet paid in recognition: at El Ojo de Iberoamérica 2025 (13 November), 'Rating' took the Gran Ojo Sports — the festival's top sports-craft prize — alongside an Oro in Marca Local and a Bronze in Film, and the jury president, Gonzalo Vecino, praised precisely the conversion of a weakness into a 30-year celebration.
Why it lands
- Reframing the weakness (low ratings) as the identity (loyal fans) converts embarrassment into equity — a message the mass channels cannot copy because they abandoned those moments.
- Anniversary campaigns usually celebrate history; this one celebrated the present relationship, so it felt like a statement about the future, not a cake with candles.
- By giving the least-seen broadcasts the dignity audiences reserve for peaks, the campaign engaged exactly the emotional space that audience metrics never capture.
- The jury's verdict — turning 'lo que parecería una debilidad' into the campaign — shows the reframe was legible to the industry itself, not just to consumers.
What it did
Won the Gran Ojo Sports at El Ojo de Iberoamérica 2025 plus an Oro in the Marca Local discipline and a Bronze in Film; the jury president highlighted that the campaign converted a perceived weakness into a 30-year brand story. TyC Sports was also named Mejor Anunciante Iberoamérica 2025.
What you can take
When your honest numbers are your embarrassment, don't hide them — reframe the metric your industry worships: the fans who stay when nobody is watching are the story.
Since then
At the second ceremony of El Ojo de Iberoamérica 2025 (13 November, Buenos Aires), 'Rating' claimed the Gran Ojo Sports under jury president Gonzalo Vecino, who publicly framed it as converting a perceived weakness into a 30-year celebration. It also earned an Oro in Marca Local and a Bronze in Film, while TyC Sports was honoured as Mejor Anunciante Iberoamérica 2025. No rating or viewership figures were published with the win, so the case rests on the creative reversal itself; the reframe nonetheless gave Argentina's ad industry a fresh reference for owning marginal numbers.
Sources
- Mercado McCann gana el Gran Ojo Sports por 'Rating' de TyC Sports
- Mercado McCann gana el Gran Ojo Sports por la campaña 'Rating' de TyC Sports
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