Pens/Wings Game 1 sees 157% increase.

by Jon Lewis

18 years ago

Saturday night is not alright.

Jon Lewis

Jon Lewis has been covering the sports media industry on a daily basis since 2006 as the founder and main writer of Sports Media Watch. You can contact him here or on the social media websites X (Twitter) or Bluesky.

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Comments 14

Scott P. says:

18 years ago

I agree with the guy who said we should add in the Canadian ratings to get a better picture. Heck, Mark Cuban himself said that a year or so ago. He said the NHL had a self-image problem and that one way was to show people just how many fans the league has in North America. People don’t realize it but movie grosses include Canada, and nobody ever says “well, movie X did this amount of business but some of that was Canadian”.
odessasteps says:

18 years ago

I think hockey fans are content to live in their own little bubble.

I don’t think they are the ones who constantly feel the need to compare themselves to other sports, because they know how far down on the totem pole they are, no matter how great the sport is (or how great they think it is).

I realized a long time ago hockey will never have great ratings, due to demographics and geography and a million other reasons.

Any positive shifting of numbers is just that, no matter how small.

(same argument with futbol)
Anonymous says:

18 years ago

well, anonymous 4:06pm,U.S. ratings don’t take in consideration canadian viewers, so it would be unfair adding canadian viewers to U.S. ratings since we all know how popular hockey is in Canada.

And I don’t get why hockey fans are so obsessed about comparing NHL ratings to NBA ratings. Enjoy your hockey, exactly like hoops fans enjoy their basketball. I really don’t get why it’s always a basketball vs. hockey war all the time. To each its own.

Geez.
Anonymous says:

18 years ago

There’s no reason to compare the NHL to anything other than itself: because everything else is going to trounce it.

Let’s be kind and assume that you have not been here before (you registered just for the heck) and also that you have not read ANY of Paulsen’s comparative NBA/NHL postings before (believe me they do exist!)- that’s the only scenario in which your above statement carries any modicum of intelligent thought, otherwise, I’m afraid we have to conclude that the word ‘knucklehead’ is naturally one with which you are very familiar, you know, being given the name quite frequently by those unfortunates who know you best and are subject to your thinking. Touche!
tornace84 says:

18 years ago

Also, the NBA should air one of their Conference Finals on Broadcast. And I don’t mean 1 or 2 games on Saturday nights. They should take a book out of MLB’s page and alternate each year or have a flex schedule and choose the more appealing series.
tornace84 says:

18 years ago

I think the point here is that both games underperformed in terms of ratings. A shade over 2 million viewers for game 1 of your premiere showcase, featuring the best possible match up, is not impressive by any stretch. The rating is disappointing for the NBA as well. You should not lose roughly 25% of your audience from Game 2 when it aired on cable. However, Paul makes a strong point about when the game was aired. That is what hurt the NBA the most here. Saturday night is not a good night for network, especially Memorial Day Weekend. They should have either put the game Sunday afternoon, right after the INDY 500, (makes sense to me) or put game 4 on ABC, the game that is airing tonight on ESPN. That would have definitely maximized the rating.

While Game 1 of the Stanley Cup being on the same night didn’t help the NBA, it definitely didn’t hurt the National rating by very much. The NHL is peaking right now and these numbers are not impressive. To put it into perspective, Game 1 of the Finals drew an audience similar to that of last years Women’s US Open (aired on CBS). While one is network and the other one is Verses, the point here is that these ratings are not impressive. Justine Henin and some rando Russian attracted the same audience as Game 1 of the NHL Finals featuring NHL’s face of the league and the Red Wings.

The problem that lies here is the platform that the NHL is using. While I do watch hockey and Verses really does a fine job, it doesn’t reach the audience and provide the credibility for the normal sport’s fan or television watcher. The NHL should look into a network such as possibly TBS (recently began airing MLB Sunday games, divisional playoffs, and 1 of the LCS series), SPIKE (not as mainstream, but fitting because of the audience that watches it). My point being, find another cable outlet more accessible to larger amounts of people, but try to avoid ESPN. Why you may ask? The NHL should try to become similar to what the NBA does on TNT, become the feature show for your network. ESPN cannibalizes its sport’s broadcasts. They air almost everything and it doesn’t have the special connection to its sports they broadcast, (NBA on NBC, Masters on CBS, etc.).

However one thing should be a given, EVEVERY game of the Stanley Cup finals should be on Broadcast. No exception.
Anonymous says:

18 years ago

we should add the ratings on CBC and RDS.

and see which league has more viewers.
matskralc says:

18 years ago

That’s exactly the point, knucklehead. There’s no reason to compare the NHL to anything other than itself: because everything else is going to trounce it.

We’re not idiots, and it would be kind of insulting for this blog to compare NHL ratings (or WNBA, or Arena Football, or non-Tiger Woods golf) to much more popular, established leagues like the NBA or NASCAR, or to other established, popular non-sports programming.
Anonymous says:

18 years ago

Address the fact that Paulsen used two completely different methods to declare success or not between the NBA and the NHL.

Comparing the NHL against itself to get a positive spin on NHL ratings and the NBA against unrelated programming (not even sports programming) to eke out a negative spin on NBA TV ratings. Gimme a break, these headlines are malicious and deliberately so to deny the spin on them is to be dishonest – imagine the most recent eye-catching headlines (my summary):

“Saturday Night is bad” – for the NBA

“Game 1 of SCF up 157%” – for the NHL

In real terms (head to head) the NBA game’s national ratings at the very least quintuple or better the SCF game ratings with fans across the nation (which incidentally also translates into approx. 3 times more fans watching the NBA playoffs than the SCF). Not only that but if the comparison was done against last year’s NBA Eastern Conference Finals game 3 the ratings increase would be likely considerably more significant than the 157% improvement the SCF garnered this year against last year; so don’t keep saying that Paul’s intention was not to deliberately negatively spin the ratings of one league (NBA) while inflating the value of the ratings in the other (NHL) in his choice of headlines and the focus of his article.

By the way are you Paul in disguise?
PJ Swenson says:

18 years ago

Detroit-Boston on ABC for game 3 on Sunday, 4.3 million viewers. Down over a million from the first two games on ESPN.

Detroit-Pittsburgh on Versus for game 3 on Sunday, 2.3 million total viewers. It also registered an 8.4 household rating (#1 in Detroit) for the exclusive Versus broadcast, and a 19.0 household rating in Pittsburgh.

Just to match the NBA with the NHL straight across seems a little ridiculous. The NHL is building a foothold on Versus 3 years after cancelling an entire season and moving off of ESPN. The NBA is in a much more stable, high profile position.

The fact that the NBA is underperforming based on past history, and the fact that the NHL is trending up after a disasterous 2006-07 seems to be pretty straight forward.
Anonymous says:

18 years ago

A few points…

I concede that the NHL is not as popular as the NBA, but a few things to consider:

1. The NBA game was on ABC, whereas the NHL game was on Versus. ABC is available in every household, while Versus is only in 60% of homes.
2. The NBA television deal is approximately $700-$800 million per year, Versus pays the NHL $75 million annually.
3. Many Red Wings fans watch the CBC feed, so those viewers are not accounted for.
4. Boston is a bigger market than Pittsburgh.

Seems to me that Versus is getting much more bang for the buck than ABC.
Anonymous says:

18 years ago

btw, last week Paulsen posted this (in the weekend’s prediction post)

“The 0.8 final rating for Sparks/Mercury last Saturday was up 60% from a 0.5 for Monarchs/Shock last year. In New York, the game outdrew the competing Stars/Red Wings game on NBC.”

^see, Paulsen is not being unfair toward the NBA and he didn’t ignore the fact about the WNBA outdrawing the NHL playoffs in the NY market.

So, I think Paulsen is doing a pretty fair coverage when it comes to ratings. It doesn’t seem to me he’s hating on the NBA or the NHL (or any other league for that matter).
Anonymous says:

18 years ago

anon. 11:46 am, I’m a diehard basketball fan and I LOVE the NBA, and I tell you that it doesn’t seem to me Paulsen is talking bad about the nba ratings. Actually, he said several positive things about the nba ratings being way up.

btw, a few weeks ago there were some hockey fans who bashed Paulsen accusing him to hate hockey.

So, which is which? lol
Anonymous says:

18 years ago

Positively spin the NHL ratings and negatively spin the NBA ratings all you want Paul.

The simple unescapable FACT is that the NBA is delivering a major battering to the NHL right now in both attendance and ratings. I know its disappointing to you and your fellow hockey fand – this type of beatdown is extremely embarrasing. So what do you do on your blog?

Rather than directly compare the NBA and NHL ratings head-to-head you compare the NHL to itself (last year) to make it look good and then cast around to find anything ANYTHING that beats the NBA game (even if only for a part of the game) – this is why you come up with the ridiculous headlines you do when discussing the NBA ratings. It’s killing you that the NBA is sooo much more popular that the NHL is’nt it?

You know why don’t you compare the NBA to iself (last year) as you are doing with the NHL? its because the comparison would underscore even how relatively abbysmal the NHL’s product is performing when campared against the NBA.

You’re BUSTED Paul LOL!!!