In a battle of the highest profile events at the 2014 Winter Olympics, USA hockey beat women’s figure skating head-to-head on Wednesday afternoon.
Live coverage of Wednesday’s United States/Czech Republic Olympic men’s hockey game drew 1.9 million viewers on USA Network, topping competing coverage of the women’s figure skating free skate on NBCSN (1.6M).
Adding in the 408,000 viewers who watched the Canada/Latvia hockey game on MSNBC, hockey beat figure skating by 44% from 12:00-2:30 PM ET Wednesday (2.3M to 1.6M). Keep in mind that USA Network and MSNBC are in more homes than NBCSN.
Overall, the three live events combined for 4.0 million viewers across USA, MSNBC and NBCSN Wednesday afteroon — the largest combined weekday audience of the Olympics on cable. Keep in mind the combined audience trails last Saturday’s USA/Russia men’s hockey match on NBCSN (4.1M).
(Wed. numbers from NBC Sports Group Press Box)
