Monday, June 7, 2010

Despite The Stiff Competition, Stanley Cup Finals Ratings Show Promise With Overnight Numbers

The NHL has no chance of even thinking about competing and beating the NBA Finals in ratings, but, the NHL can certainly compete against themselves and still post very good numbers. If that was the NHL's goal, then mission accomplished because even though it does not hold a candle to Celtics-Lakers, the NHL did pretty damn good last night. From Puck The Media
Last night’s Game 5 broadcast on NBC of the Blackhawks 7-4 victory over the Flyers drew 5.95 million viewers and a 2.2 among adults 18-49. The game peaked from 9:30-10:00 PM ET with 6.91 million viewers and a 2.6 in the demo. The numbers are up 39% in viewers and 38% in the demo from 2009′s Game 5, which aired on a Saturday night against no competition from the NBA. The game drew a 26.0 rating in Chicago, and a 19.7 in Philadelphia.

If the final viewer numbers hold up, it would bring NBC’s average up to 5.4 million viewers for their three games of coverage of the series. That’d be up from last year’s three game average (which, mind you, contained two Saturday telecasts) of 4.6 million for Games 1, 2 and 5 by 15%. Overall, the move to Sunday night – despite being pounded by the NBA – can be looked upon as a relative success.
Some people may tend to think otherwise, but I do not see the NBA as a big deterrent of hockey ratings. Sure you lose some casual sports fans on days like this, but overall I think the NHL and the NBA have largely different fanbases. A lot of hockey fans I know do not like basketball very much, and while I can say that I thoroughly enjoy college hoops, my detest of the professional game has been well-documented. In essence, hockey fans are going to watch hockey, and basketball fans are going to watch basketball. At the same time, a lot of the ratings success the NHL, Versus, and NBC has seen this year, especially in the finals, has to do with the markets and the teams that are playing. For all the talk and hype about Crosby, Ovechkin, etc. and how awesome they are for ratings, it is the Philadelphias, Chicagos, and other big market cities that are needed for an NHL ratings homerun. It's not the names or the superstars that drive the ratings, it's the big markets. The NHL has that this year and the numbers illustrate it.

1 comment:

  1. Has Bettman hired you? And we all know those numbers are halved and probably worse if this is a Nashville/Buffalo final. Needing the big markets to post a number has led to the fix baseball is in. I don't want that to happen to hockey.

    ReplyDelete

Read the Commenting Guidelines before commenting.