World Cup TV ratings

[lynx]

I think all hockey fans have to drop the idea about hockey getting big TV ratings in the US, it`s just never going to happen.

A Chicago-Boston final might pull in some comparable numbers with a non-LeBron NBA final but wait until there`s a Winnipeg-Ottawa final, nobody, and I mean nobody outside of Canada will care about that, and Bettman will smile on the outside but will be like Brad Pitt at an airport on the inside.

 

[Xokkeu]

I think all hockey fans have to drop the idea about hockey getting big TV ratings in the US, it`s just never going to happen.

A Chicago-Boston final might pull in some comparable numbers with a non-LeBron NBA final but wait until there`s a Winnipeg-Ottawa final, nobody, and I mean nobody outside of Canada will care about that, and Bettman will smile on the outside but will be like Brad Pitt at an airport on the inside.

Yeah but this did half an NHL regular season broadcast

 

[The CyNick]

Only the Olympics would give hockey the attention in the US. If the NHL would stop looking short term and think for its future, it would understand how immensely important the Olympics are but no, the NHL is an amateurish league that have shortsighted vision.

NHL has been involved with the Olympics since 98, covering 5 games. Two of those games were on North American soil. What long term positive impact have the Olympics given the NHL in the US or any other country for that matter?

Bared on the latest negotiations, the IOC is now asking the NHL to not only shut down their season, not only risk their assets, not only get no access to images or video of the event, but now want them to go out of pocket for expenses.

As a businessman if you are presented with an option that is nothing but risk and puts you out pocket, and has proven for nearly 20 years to provide no long term benefit, why would you do it?

 

[The CyNick]

I believe the 2014 final vs Sweden had 15 million viewers in Canada and the game was played at 2 - 5 am depending where in Canada you lived. The final in 2010 peaked at 26.6 million Canadians. In other words, for Canadians the World Cup is a minor blip on the radar vs the Olympics but well ahead of the World Championships. But then again that happens during the NHL Playoffs and many of the top players are not there.

You're a fountain of misinformation.

Game was 4pm in Sochi. Therfore it aired at 9am in the east and 6 am in the west. Plus it was a Sunday so you had a large audience.

Nobody expected Olympic numbers for this tournament. It's going to appeal to hockey fans, not to casual fans.

World Championship is a meaningless tournament, its like an exhibiting for players who missed the NHL playoffs. The WCOH is legit best on best.

 

[The CyNick]

Wow...my goodness...

Those ratings are terrible, they're some of the worst we've seen the entire tournament...so much for my prediction about a relative rise in ratings, the last USA game got less viewers than ESPN2 sportscenter reruns at 3AM...

Why would anyone expect a large number for a game where the US is already eliminated? The game against Canada did a very good number. If the US had managed to make the finals, say against Canada, there's a good chance it would have pulled over a million viewers on ESPN, which would have been a massive success. It's pro sports, you don't always get the result that's best for business.

 

[The CyNick]

30 billionaires are very good at what they know best: making $$$. Their interest in growing the game is directly related to how much it can earn for them. Growing the game (as in enticing more fans and people to take up the sport by having increased exposure & better quality hockey) doesn't have a direct, immediate consequence of earning more $$$ and therefore they're not involved in that.

They have been involved in the Olympics for 20 years. The issue is they havent seem ANY short OR long term gains from it. So why do it?

 

[The CyNick]

And Bettman can go ***** himself for the team North America concept

Its been one of the most successful aspects of the tournament.

 

[The CyNick]

If I'm Gary Bettman and the NHL brass, I'm calling a meeting with USA hockey and ripping them a new one behind closed doors.

I don't think you understand how anything works.

Bettman would get laughed at if he tried to rip USA hockey a new one.

 

[Jussi]

You're a fountain of misinformation.

Game was 4pm in Sochi. Therfore it aired at 9am in the east and 6 am in the west. Plus it was a Sunday so you had a large audience.

Nobody expected Olympic numbers for this tournament. It's going to appeal to hockey fans, not to casual fans.

World Championship is a meaningless tournament, its like an exhibiting for players who missed the NHL playoffs. The WCOH is legit best on best.

Must be annoying for you that the former is far more popular in the world and even on this board.

 

[The CyNick]

"Good ratings" what world are we living in where those were "good ratings"? They were better ratings comparably to former games that doesn't make them "good ratings." The spike in ratings was due to the game being on ESPN and not ESPN2. Are you unaware of what viewership normal sporting events draw? They almost had as many viewers as the 3AM NFL primetime talk show. They got the primetime tv slot on ESPN with zero competition for sports viewership and turned in 200000 less viewers than the App State vs. Miami lunchtime battle of the unranked teams last Saturday in college football and even that's deceptive because the #1 game slots are always on ABC. You are very optimistic if you think ESPN will consider these good ratings like you do.

Pay more attention to regular ratings for ESPN during the week and get back to me.

If the bar you are setting is that the WCOH had to outdraw college football, then you are living in some bizzaro world.

The rating itself isn't as important as what ESPN promised advertisers. It would be logical that they would have looked at average numbers for hockey on NBC Sports and sold based on that. There's no logic in expecting a bunch of non hockey fans to watch just because it's country on country. The rating for the US-Canada tilt was well above the average NHL game, so that's a big win. What is a negative is that the US played poorly and didn't advance. But that's not a knock against the tournament itself.

 

[kabidjan18]

Why would anyone expect a large number for a game where the US is already eliminated? The game against Canada did a very good number. If the US had managed to make the finals, say against Canada, there's a good chance it would have pulled over a million viewers on ESPN, which would have been a massive success. It's pro sports, you don't always get the result that's best for business.

That was the US' elimination game. They had not been eliminated prior they had only played one game prior. The creation of team NA did not significantly raise any ratings but it did weaken or perceivably (more important) weaken the states team whose exit did crush ratings. You're missing the point. Regular season NHL games on NBCSN consistently draw an average over 350k viewers. A large portion of the games in this tournament did worse or significantly worse than that. Even the best game, a complete statistical outlier, barely improved over that figure by an 100% increase. That sounds like a lot but whether in context of other programmes or even in context of hockey itself an 100% increase on a mean for sports TV ratings is not incredible. And even if they did do 1 million viewers on time, which is about 20-25% of the viewership of a stadium series game, that offers no condolence to parties invested in the ratings success of these events. The ratings top to bottom and no matter how you slice it are poor. You can argue it's not because of the gimmicks. Trying to argue that the ratings themselves are good is not really a good bet at all.

 

[kabidjan18]

Pay more attention to regular ratings for ESPN during the week and get back to me.

If the bar you are setting is that the WCOH had to outdraw college football, then you are living in some bizzaro world.

The rating itself isn't as important as what ESPN promised advertisers. It would be logical that they would have looked at average numbers for hockey on NBC Sports and sold based on that. There's no logic in expecting a bunch of non hockey fans to watch just because it's country on country. The rating for the US-Canada tilt was well above the average NHL game, so that's a big win. What is a negative is that the US played poorly and didn't advance. But that's not a knock against the tournament itself.

I've been posting comparisons to weekday and midmorning at that ESPN ratings throughout...

They did not promise sponsors that most games would be less than the average NHL regular season game. Also, ESPN gets significantly more traffic and has significantly more carriers in the states than NBCSN, as well as more 24/7 broadcasters. There are intelligent people as you say they would have scales expectations. And the last part is the most laughable. They would consider a marquee matchup receiving better ratings than more meaningless matchups a "big win." So will these intelligent ESPN people also be surprised and call it a "big win" when Alabama/LSU pulls more viewers than App State/Miami? You really don't give ESPN people enough credit for their intelligence they don't regularly cover hockey that doesn't mean there's nobody at ESPN who knows USA/Canada is a bigger matchup that Czech Republic/Europe.

 

[Xokkeu]

Pay more attention to regular ratings for ESPN during the week and get back to me.

If the bar you are setting is that the WCOH had to outdraw college football, then you are living in some bizzaro world.

The rating itself isn't as important as what ESPN promised advertisers. It would be logical that they would have looked at average numbers for hockey on NBC Sports and sold based on that. There's no logic in expecting a bunch of non hockey fans to watch just because it's country on country. The rating for the US-Canada tilt was well above the average NHL game, so that's a big win. What is a negative is that the US played poorly and didn't advance. But that's not a knock against the tournament itself.

Yep and other than USA Canada it's all been below NHL averages

 

[Xokkeu]

Its been one of the most successful aspects of the tournament.

Of an unsuccessful tournament.

 

[Tonka]

Its been one of the most successful aspects of the tournament.

The only reason as a fan I bothered watching this tournament was because of the NA team. I only really cared to see Matthews's play in the tournament. But other than that, there was no incentive to watch this Olympic wannabe tournament.

 

[Aaaaaaaaaaaaa]

I have to be honest and say I could not possibly care less if not a single American ever watches another hockey game on TV as long as I live. It makes absolutely no difference to me whether they love our game or not.

Just as I would assume they could not give two flying ***** whether or not I watch NBA or NFL.

 

[Xokkeu]

I have to be honest and say I could not possibly care less if not a single American ever watches another hockey game on TV as long as I live. It makes absolutely no difference to me whether they love our game or not.

Just as I would assume they could not give two flying ***** whether or not I watch NBA or NFL.

All three leagues do

 

[Aaaaaaaaaaaaa]

All three leagues do

They do. I don't.

When I read people saying things like "oh no the ratings in the US are down", all I can focus on is how much I do not care.

It doesn't affect my enjoyment of the game. Why would it?

 

[Xokkeu]

They do. I don't.

When I read people saying things like "oh no the ratings in the US are down", all I can focus on is how much I do not care.

It doesn't affect my enjoyment of the game. Why would it?

As far as I can tell the thread title isn't "does fly4apuckguy care about tv ratings @

 

[Aaaaaaaaaaaaa]

As far as I can tell the thread title isn't "does fly4apuckguy care about tv ratings @

No, but people are commenting on the woes of poor ratings. I am the voice saying "Who the heck cares?" and I bet I am not the only one thinking it.

So ESPN only makes 86 billion dollars in revenue this year [MOD]

 

[Icicle]

ESPN doesn't deserve the views. It's a dying station anyway. This has nothing to do with the popularity of hockey itself.

 

[Bixby Snyder]

No, but people are commenting on the woes of poor ratings. I am the voice saying "Who the heck cares?" and I bet I am not the only one thinking it.

So ESPN only makes 86 billion dollars in revenue this year [MOD]

If you don't care why are you so worked up over it? [MOD]

 

[kabidjan18]

No, but people are commenting on the woes of poor ratings. I am the voice saying "Who the heck cares?" and I bet I am not the only one thinking it.

So ESPN only makes 86 billion dollars in revenue this year [MOD]

As meaningful as me going to a Team Canada thread and commenting "who the heck cares about Team Canada"...

 

[Senzilla]

Could ESPN snagging the US rights to the WCOH be a harbinger of a eventual return of the NHL to the network?

NBC Sports' current contract ends in 2021, and it's possible NBC might not renew. Granted it was the NHL that started the transformation of the OLN into NBCSN, but it would be cool to see the NHL return to ESPN and ABC after a 17-year absence (ABC currently only has one of the major leagues, the NBA, and unless ABC gets more sports events on their schedule the NBA could leave after the current contract is up in 2025).

Is there anyway that the NBC deal will allow the NHL to sell some games to ESPN, or is 2021 the soonest the NHL could ever be on ESPN or Fox?

 

[mjlee]

So I understand that the Sweden-Europe game is far from sold out and that there are actually 6$ tickets available. Terrible optics if there are a number of empty seat. I mean this is Toronto we are talking about, the home of hockey, where they will sell out anything hockey related. I guess even torontians have their breaking point.