Stanley Cup game sets record low

[bpatrick]

Saw in my local paper this morning that Saturday's
Ottawa-Anaheim Stanley Cup game managed only
a 1.1 rating nationally, the lowest rating for a single
telecast on NBC since a repeat episode of "The West
Wing" on July 23, 2005, which also received a 1.1.

Well, at least it isn't sweeps week.

 

[easttxtv]

So strange how hockey can't get a break at all in ratings this season...has (almost) everyone given up on the sport?

 

[Rollo-Smokes]

So strange how hockey can't get a break at all in ratings this season...has (almost) everyone given up on the sport?

Let's remember a few things here.

First, the game was played on a Saturday night. Enough said.

Second, there's a Canadian team involved. Sadly, no interest there.

Third, the Anaheim Ducks, despite being based in the Los Angeles market, aren't the Kings. Nor are they the New York Rangers or the Detroit Red Wings, perhaps the only two American NHL teams that could guarantee a higher rating for a Stanley Cup games. You could throw in the Boston Bruins, and perhaps the Pittsburgh Penguins in there as well (thanks to Sidney Crosby, the NHL's answer to LeBron James), but the Rangers and Red Wings are the teams that would have certainly been a dream matchup for both the NHL and its television partners, the CBC included. While the ratings wouldn't have been momumental, they certainly would have been big for hockey-on-American television-standards.

Of course, NBC does very little in the way of promotion to get potential viewers interested in watching. I have never questioned that here is interest in hockey, and it's all on a regional standpoint. Unless something changes, national audiences at large just won't care. For different reasons, I feel the NBA is slowly going that route as well.

 

[BDBopper]

I must be one of the only few who think the Canadien team adds to my interest in watching. Hockey is a traditional Canadien sport. It's about time one of their teams wins the Championship in THEIR sport.

Also the fact that not all the games of the Stanley Cup Finals not being on NBC has got to hurt.

The strike a few years ago has set hockey back decades in this country. There's only one network that would plug Hockey to death and that is ESPN/ABC. Without them Hockey is done for on TV here.

 

[KML0224]

It also has to do with auto racing being so popular in the US. The big four here are football, baseball, auto racing and basketball, although that order can vary. Also, this is further proof that the NHL should have never left ESPN, which blows away Versus in terms of homes.

 

[txchipk]

Saw in my local paper this morning that Saturday's
Ottawa-Anaheim Stanley Cup game managed only
a 1.1 rating nationally, the lowest rating for a single
telecast on NBC since a repeat episode of "The West
Wing" on July 23, 2005, which also received a 1.1.

Well, at least it isn't sweeps week.

Saturday's first game had 1.7 million viewers. It improved to 3 million viewers Monday.

 

[txchipk]

It also has to do with auto racing being so popular in the US. The big four here are football, baseball, auto racing and basketball, although that order can vary. Also, this is further proof that the NHL should have never left ESPN, which blows away Versus in terms of homes.

Except the NFL, all the sports have been in a decline. Unless people tune in to watch Lebron play, the NBA finals will likely break a new record low this series with two non-big market teams playing (recent finals with the Spurs are the current low marks...with them there again and continued decline in audiences watching TV, it will be a surprise if this year's final isn't close to a record low). A Sunday NBA game on ABC actually lost to a NHL game on NBC several weeks ago. So, it's not just the NHL. It just had the lowest to begin with having been so historically regional. The others are slowly catching up (or down)...

 

[ShawnHill1]

Well, as I'm writing this, the Anaheim Ducks just won the Stanley Cup...congrats to them. I'm not a hockey fan, or at least fan enough to follow it closely, but it's nice to see a local team win it all.

 

[DToTheJ]

The strike a few years ago has set hockey back decades in this country. There's only one network that would plug Hockey to death and that is ESPN/ABC. Without them Hockey is done for on TV here.

Interesting observation: If Arena Football (which effectively replaced hockey on ESNBC) gets a better rating than hockey, is it curtains for the NHL?

 

[toby]

The NHL holds a lot of the blame for alienating many fans with labour problems, stupid rule changes and of course management that makes Bud Selig look good.

 

[aarontabr]

Baseball has been in decline ever since the TV was invented. It's so boring to watch on TV. I'd rather see a live baseball game.

 

[bpatrick]

Usually there are several things going on on the
baseball field at one time. The human eye can
take them in; the camera can focus on only one
thing at a time. That's why seeing a game at the
stadium is so much better than watching it on the
tube.

One sport that has benefited ratings-wise is golf--
provided Tiger Woods is there and in contention on
weekends. If he's absent, or too far down to catch
up, people wind up just as bored as you (and I) do
watching baseball.

 

[KeithE4]

So, what does the NHL want to do to revive sagging interest in non-Northern markets? Expand into Kansas City Las Vegas - cities that probably couldn't give a rat's a** about hockey. That's the latest rumor, along with the Nashville Predators moving to Hamilton, ON, which at least makes sense.

They shouldn't expand - they should contract to 16 teams. Keep the "Original Six" (NY, Boston, Detroit, Chicago, Toronto, & Montreal - which were only "original" and "six" from 1942-1966), the five remaining teams from the 1967 expansion (St. Louis, Philly, Pittsburgh, LA, & Dallas, which would be returned to Minneapolis), plus Vancouver, Edmonton, Ottawa, Colorado, & merge the Islanders & Devils for a second NYC team.

That means NO American teams south or west of St. Louis other than LA - and the Kings' need to exist is only for a TV deal that probably would require a team in Los Angeles (East Coast-centric ESPN being an exception to this theory).

Keeping most of the teams in the NE, midwest, & Canada would get the league back to its core audience. They could then rebuild what they had 30 years ago and can take it from there. Not only that, but with the emphasis on the NE and midwest, ESPN probably would have a renewed interest in carrying the games.

The Anaheim Mighty Ducks won the Stanley Cup, and nobody gives a flying you-know-what. That tells you all you need to know about what's left of the National Hockey League. Expand? They have to contract or die, IMHO.

 

[EnbyCee]

The strike a few years ago has set hockey back decades in this country. There's only one network that would plug Hockey to death and that is ESPN/ABC. Without them Hockey is done for on TV here.

Interesting observation: If Arena Football (which effectively replaced hockey on ESNBC) gets a better rating than hockey, is it curtains for the NHL?

I think Arena Football already often gets better ratings than hockey. I don't think "curtains for the NHL" is possible, given the passion for the sport which still exists in Canada (despite the fact that the idiot currently sitting in the NHL commissioner's office hates Canada and wishes every Canadian team except Toronto and MAYBE Montreal would fold or move to Las Vegas or Houston) and in a handful of US cities. But some sort of radical contraction on the lines of what Keith suggested may be needed.

 

[txchipk]

The strike a few years ago has set hockey back decades in this country. There's only one network that would plug Hockey to death and that is ESPN/ABC. Without them Hockey is done for on TV here.

Interesting observation: If Arena Football (which effectively replaced hockey on ESNBC) gets a better rating than hockey, is it curtains for the NHL?

No, for all its ability to shoot itself in the foot, the NHL generates $2B in revenue and most of the teams generate a profit.

If the Predators just sold for $200 million and the previous owner claimed it was just breaking even and still got that price, it's not curtains yet for the sport.

 

[txchipk]

So, what does the NHL want to do to revive sagging interest in non-Northern markets? Expand into Kansas City Las Vegas - cities that probably couldn't give a rat's a** about hockey. That's the latest rumor, along with the Nashville Predators moving to Hamilton, ON, which at least makes sense.

They shouldn't expand - they should contract to 16 teams. Keep the "Original Six" (NY, Boston, Detroit, Chicago, Toronto, & Montreal - which were only "original" and "six" from 1942-1966), the five remaining teams from the 1967 expansion (St. Louis, Philly, Pittsburgh, LA, & Dallas, which would be returned to Minneapolis), plus Vancouver, Edmonton, Ottawa, Colorado, & merge the Islanders & Devils for a second NYC team.

That means NO American teams south or west of St. Louis other than LA - and the Kings' need to exist is only for a TV deal that probably would require a team in Los Angeles (East Coast-centric ESPN being an exception to this theory).

Keeping most of the teams in the NE, midwest, & Canada would get the league back to its core audience. They could then rebuild what they had 30 years ago and can take it from there. Not only that, but with the emphasis on the NE and midwest, ESPN probably would have a renewed interest in carrying the games.

The Anaheim Mighty Ducks won the Stanley Cup, and nobody gives a flying you-know-what. That tells you all you need to know about what's left of the National Hockey League. Expand? They have to contract or die, IMHO.

Well, you can't have the Stars...besides, there is no need to move them back to Minnesota as they already got a expansion franchise.

Some of the southern teams have worked out...the Stars have been pretty successful in Dallas. For most of the seasons they have been there, they have outdrawn the Mavs. Prior to the lockout, they had a home sellout streak of over 230 games. Post-lockout and regularly getting bounced in the first round of the playoffs have hurt as the Mavs have taken the spotlight from them with their play (Mavs going to the Finals last year and its amazing regular season this year).

In Atlanta, the Thrashers have been outdrawing the Hawks. The Tampa Bay team had the 3rd highest attendance of all NHL teams the last 2 seasons.

So, not all of the southern teams are struggling like Miami. Some of the older and eastern teams have big problems. The bottom teams last season in average attendance were Boston, NJ, DC, Islanders, Chicago, and St Louis. Even Phoenix had better attendance than those cities...

With the season over, the Dallas Morning News' Stars blog is killing time with this subject...10 ways to fix the NHL: http://stars.beloblog.com/.

 

[arnoldevns]

They shouldn't expand - they should contract to 16 teams. Keep the "Original Six" (NY, Boston, Detroit, Chicago, Toronto, & Montreal - which were only "original" and "six" from 1942-1966), the five remaining teams from the 1967 expansion (St. Louis, Philly, Pittsburgh, LA, & Dallas, which would be returned to Minneapolis), plus Vancouver, Edmonton, Ottawa, Colorado, & merge the Islanders & Devils for a second NYC team.

That means NO American teams south or west of St. Louis other than LA - and the Kings' need to exist is only for a TV deal that probably would require a team in Los Angeles (East Coast-centric ESPN being an exception to this theory).

Keeping most of the teams in the NE, midwest, & Canada would get the league back to its core audience. They could then rebuild what they had 30 years ago and can take it from there. Not only that, but with the emphasis on the NE and midwest, ESPN probably would have a renewed interest in carrying the games.

The Anaheim Mighty Ducks won the Stanley Cup, and nobody gives a flying you-know-what. That tells you all you need to know about what's left of the National Hockey League. Expand? They have to contract or die, IMHO.

I won't disagree that contraction would help, but getting rid of Dallas would be a huge mistake. Not only is it one of the largest TV markets and metro areas in the country, but the Stars are very popular and have done a great job at making the sport itself more popular here. When the Stars arrive in 1993, there were a handful of rinks where a few people occasionally played hockey. Today, the Stars themselves own 6 hockey centers where thousands of kids and adults play in dozens of different leagues. There are hockey rinks and leagues at probably a dozen other places in the DFW area. There are at least 70 high schools in the DFW area that field hockey teams and compete at both the varsity and JV level. There's a junior league team (the Texas Tornado) that's won the NAHL crown three times. The Tornado regularly draw 3-4,000 folks a game. The sport is big here and growing rapidly. The NHL has many problems, but having a team in Dallas isn't one of them.

So which teams should go? That's a tough call. The Florida teams and Nashville come to mind immediately. I'd ditch one of the NY teams or (as you suggested) merge the Devils and Islanders. I'm not sure about Carolina and Atlanta. Carolina's ownership of the Stanley Cup last year might have saved that market for hockey, but I don't know.

Contraction would help the bottom line for each team, but the larger issue of making the sport a truely national sport won't be addressed by this move.
To me, the NHL needs to find a way to promote the players and teams better to the general population. I'd do things like product placement on TV and in movies. Not just for the game, but for the players too. Maybe bring back the neutral ice regular season game showcase they used to do in cities without a franchise.

 

[KML0224]

Carolina? Please! I'm over it, yet there still are some people here in greater Hartford who hope and pray the NHL would come back here. Unless we build a brand new arena, it's not gonna happen. A ton of work has just been done on the Hartford Civic Center. There's now a 21-story luxury apartment building attached to the complex. We're trying to untangle the mess that is Madison Square Garden and their association with the HCC. Plus, the AHL Hartford Wolfpack, a New York Rangers affiliate, will be sticking around for a few more seasons. As for TV, only a handful of Wolfpack games ever get on. Lastly, the Wolfpack get very little TV coverage now. CBS channel 3 and WTIC-AM 1080, both of Hartford, seem to only care about U-Conn and their basketball or fooball programs.

 

[mjlarochelle]

The NHL is like any other large business. They are out of touch with reality, and have a high amount of confidence in something that everyone else outside that business (customers, observers) long ago figured out will never work. Just like the telenovelas on MyNetwork TV.

 

[txchipk]

It also has to do with auto racing being so popular in the US. The big four here are football, baseball, auto racing and basketball, although that order can vary. Also, this is further proof that the NHL should have never left ESPN, which blows away Versus in terms of homes.

Except the NFL, all the sports have been in a decline. Unless people tune in to watch Lebron play, the NBA finals will likely break a new record low this series with two non-big market teams playing (recent finals with the Spurs are the current low marks...with them there again and continued decline in audiences watching TV, it will be a surprise if this year's final isn't close to a record low). A Sunday NBA game on ABC actually lost to a NHL game on NBC several weeks ago. So, it's not just the NHL. It just had the lowest to begin with having been so historically regional. The others are slowly catching up (or down)...

To reply to my own post, sure enough the NBA Finals also have reached an all-time low. Thursday's game 1 was the lowest ever for a prime time Finals games. It looks like, thanks to "The Sopranos" finale, Sunday night's game had even fewer numbers. They are still numbers the NHL would love to have in the US...but among the coveted 18-49 crowd, the games are off by over 20% from last year (featuring much larger Dallas and Miami market teams) and off almost 50% from 2004 when the Lakers played in the Finals.