Less than a year ago, the sport of hockey celebrated when 8 million viewers tuned in to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. On Sunday, nearly 20 million more viewers watched the Gold Medal Game of the Olympic Men’s Hockey tournament.
Canada’s overtime victory over Team USA in Sunday’s Men’s Hockey Gold Medal Game drew a 15.2/30 rating and 27.6 million viewers on NBC Sunday afternoon. The game ranks as the highest rated, most-viewed hockey telecast in the United States since the USA/Finland Gold Medal Game in ’80 (23.2/61, 32.8 mil).
The famed ‘Miracle on Ice’ 1980 USA/Russia semifinal drew a 23.9/27 and 34.2 million viewers.
Sunday’s game was up 42% and 61%, respectively, from the 2002 Gold Medal Game, which also pitted the USA against Canada (10.7/24, 17.1 mil).
The game peaked with an 18.6/34 and 34.8 million viewers from 5:30-6 PM.
This is only the third time in history that a hockey game has drawn over 20 million viewers.
Buffalo was the top market for Sunday’s game, with a 32.6/51. Fellow NHL markets Pittsburgh (31.9/50), Detroit (26.9/47) and Minneapolis (26.4/53) followed. The top non-NHL market was Milwaukee (24.5/43), and the top warm-weather market was West Palm Beach (20.3/33).
To put the numbers in perspective, Canada/USA ranks as the 4th-most viewed non-NFL sporting event of 2010, behind only the Texas/Alabama BCS National Championship Game (30.8 mil), the Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympics (32.6 mil), and Night 6 of the Winter Olympics (29.4 mil).
The game drew more viewers than two NFL playoff games (Ravens/Patriots and Jets/Bengals), topped all but two primetime windows of the Winter Olympics, and drew over twice as many viewers as the Daytona 500 two weeks earlier (13.3 mil).
Additionally, the game drew more viewers than every Major League Baseball game since 2004, every NBA game since ’98, every college basketball game since ’97, and all but two college football telecasts since ’00 (only Texas/Alabama and Texas/USC drew more viewers).
NBC’s previous Sunday afternoon Olympic telecasts had drawn ratings of 8.1 and 5.5.
