One day before Versus earned its largest audience ever for the NHL All-Star Game, the network set another viewership mark for the league’s SuperSkills competition.
Coverage of the NHL SuperSkils competition earned a 0.7 U.S. rating and 1.183 million viewers on Versus Saturday night, up 40% in ratings and 35% in viewership from 2009 (0.5, 875K), and up 133% and 81%, respectively, from 2008 (0.3, 665K).
This marks the most-viewed NHL SuperSkills competition ever on Versus, and the most-viewed overall since at least 2003*.
For comparison purposes, last year’s MLB Home Run Derby drew a 4.0 and 6.418 million viewers on ESPN, and NBA All-Star Saturday Night drew a 3.1 and 5.441 million viewers on TNT.
Saturday’s SuperSkills competition and Sunday’s All-Star Game (0.8, 1.481 mil, click for more details) combined to average 1.340 million viewers on Versus, up 35% from 2009 (993K), and up 81% from 2008 (740K).
In other ratings news from All-Star Weekend, Friday’s NHL All-Star Player Fantasy Draft, in which All-Star team captains Nicklas Lidstrom and Eric Staal selected who would play for their respective teams, earned 624,000 viewers.
* Versus’ press release says the 1.183 million viewers for the NHL SuperSkills competition is the largest audience for the event since 2003. However, the same press release says the ’03 event drew 1.127 million viewers, a smaller audience than this year’s telecast. This indicates that Saturday’s telecast was not just the most-viewed since 2003, but the most-viewed since at least 2003.
(Versus press release)
