Sabres lead league in local ratings

[SDS]

The difference in local ratings in each market is astounding.

https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2019/04/29/Media/NHL-ratings.aspx

[inkman]

Woot woot 

[Wyldnwoody44]

NJ bottom 5, maybe the lottery was an attempt to save them 

[Pimlach]

… and people say that without Pegula there would be no NHL in Buffalo. 

Nonsense.   

[Doohicksie]

What is the absolute number of viewers though?  Just looking up some numbers, 92k people watch hockey in Buffalo, while 46k are watching in Los Angeles..... 20X the ratings but only 2X the people.  As someone that has lived both places, there are a lot more entertainment options in L.A.

[Stoner]

6 minutes ago, Pimlach said:

… and people say that without Pegula there would be no NHL in Buffalo. 

Nonsense.   

Kind of a double edged sword. The support for hockey is protective to a small-market franchise, but that kind of support that the team knows it can rely on is probably the main thing that undergirded the tank.

1 minute ago, Doohickie said:

What is the absolute number of viewers though?  Just looking up some numbers, 92k people watch hockey in Buffalo, while 46k are watching in Los Angeles..... 20X the ratings but only 2X the people.  As someone that has lived both places, there are a lot more entertainment options in L.A.

A ratings point is 1% of the households watching in a certain market. 8% of households watching in Buffalo and less than 1% in LA doesn't represent such a huge chasm in terms of actual viewers. (The LA TV market being gigantic compared to Buffalo.)

[Zamboni]

50 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

Kind of a double edged sword. The support for hockey is protective to a small-market franchise, but that kind of support that the team knows it can rely on is probably the main thing that undergirded the tank.

A ratings point is 1% of the households watching in a certain market. 8% of households watching in Buffalo and less than 1% in LA doesn't represent such a huge chasm in terms of actual viewers. (The LA TV market being gigantic compared to Buffalo.)

Yep. Exactly. Plus the ratings don’t include Canada. I wonder what the ratings would be if it included all of Canada. Most likely all the major cities would rank ahead of all US cities.

The title is misleading I think. It’s the Buffalo market that lead the league in ratings. Not Sabres. 

 

[matter2003]

Should this be surprising?  This city is hockey crazy.  I think once the Sabres start being good again we probably will double the next closest market.

1 hour ago, PASabreFan said:

Kind of a double edged sword. The support for hockey is protective to a small-market franchise, but that kind of support that the team knows it can rely on is probably the main thing that undergirded the tank.

A ratings point is 1% of the households watching in a certain market. 8% of households watching in Buffalo and less than 1% in LA doesn't represent such a huge chasm in terms of actual viewers. (The LA TV market being gigantic compared to Buffalo.)

A percentage is still a percentage so it can be compared equally. If they have 20 times more people then theoretically they should have 20 times more viewers right? Clearly nowhere close to being the case. In fact even with their 20 times population, Buffalo still had more actual viewers than the LA market when you do the math.

Edited April 30, 2019 by matter2003

[Doohicksie]

2 hours ago, PASabreFan said:

A ratings point is 1% of the households watching in a certain market. 8% of households watching in Buffalo and less than 1% in LA doesn't represent such a huge chasm in terms of actual viewers. (The LA TV market being gigantic compared to Buffalo.)

Yeah, that was the point I was trying to make.  In the absolute numbers I calculated, I simply googled "metro population" of each city.  Maybe I should have added TV market to the search, but the point is the same.

[Drunkard]

So Buffalo watches other team's play at a higher rate than some cities watch their own team? Sounds about right.

Wasn't doggy style invented in Buffalo so couples could both watch the hockey game as well?

[Zamboni]

19 minutes ago, Drunkard said:

So Buffalo watches other team's play at a higher rate than some cities watch their own team? Sounds about right.

Wasn't doggy style invented in Buffalo so couples could both watch the hockey game as well?

No, that was Canada...

[Drunkard]

37 minutes ago, Zamboni said:

No, that was Canada...

My mistake. I thought Canadians did that strictly during curling and log rolling competitions and they refused to have sex at all during hockey games. Staring at Don Cherry on their tv sets probably gets them too hot and bothered to hold back though.

[IKnowPhysics]

5 hours ago, Zamboni said:

Yep. Exactly. Plus the ratings don’t include Canada. I wonder what the ratings would be if it included all of Canada. Most likely all the major cities would rank ahead of all US cities.

The title is misleading I think. It’s the Buffalo market that lead the league in ratings. Not Sabres. 

 

"That's completely uncalled for, Burgundy. You know those rating systems are flawed. They don't take into account houses that have more than two television sets... and other things of that nature."

[IKnowPhysics]

Some of the larger drops are explainable.  NJ made the playoffs last year and didn't this year; their ratings went down.  LA Kings turned in a bad season after making the playoffs last year; their ratings went down.  Similar story for Philly.

 

Which fanbase is real trash though?  Dallas Stars.  They had a near-identical record to last year and made the playoffs.  Their ratings went down 3rd worst at 28%.

[matter2003]

30 minutes ago, IKnowPhysics said:

Some of the larger drops are explainable.  NJ made the playoffs last year and didn't this year; their ratings went down.  LA Kings turned in a bad season after making the playoffs last year; their ratings went down.  Similar story for Philly.

 

Which fanbase is real trash though?  Dallas Stars.  They had a near-identical record to last year and made the playoffs.  Their ratings went down 3rd worst at 28%.

NJ rating "went down"?? It's a 0.24...I mean it's almost non-existent..so it went down 59% from a 0.58 the year before?? I mean the numbers are so low it's pretty pointless...they barely watched last year when they were good and this year they barely watched again...except almost nobody actualy watched this year.

[Marvin]

One point that is this survey does not account for is Buffalo expats boost the ratings of nationally televised games with the Sabres, even though they have been horrible for years.  The Buffalo market is not that large, but the influence of the Buffalo Sabres is very large.

[North Buffalo]

3 hours ago, matter2003 said:

NJ rating "went down"?? It's a 0.24...I mean it's almost non-existent..so it went down 59% from a 0.58 the year before?? I mean the numbers are so low it's pretty pointless...they barely watched last year when they were good and this year they barely watched again...except almost nobody actualy watched this year.

NJ fills the stadium, nice place good graphics and entertainment, priced about same as Sabres games.

[matter2003]

13 hours ago, North Buffalo said:

NJ fills the stadium, nice place good graphics and entertainment, priced about same as Sabres games.

Except the difference between us and them is that nobody outside that arena cares.

 

EDIT: Not exactly true...NJ had the 6th lowest attendance in the NHL this year.

Edited May 1, 2019 by matter2003

[Pimlach]

On 4/30/2019 at 8:15 AM, PASabreFan said:

Kind of a double edged sword. The support for hockey is protective to a small-market franchise, but that kind of support that the team knows it can rely on is probably the main thing that undergirded the tank. 

I attribute the decision to flagrantly tank to incompetent leadership.  

[Billznut]

If only the Sabres franchise was as good as the WNY hockey fans are. It’ll never happen. 

[shrader]

On 5/1/2019 at 7:46 AM, matter2003 said:

EDIT: Not exactly true...NJ had the 6th lowest attendance in the NHL this year.

I'm late to this party.  But anyway, this is a misleading number.  The Devils play in an arena with a smaller capacity.  If they had filled it to 100% capacity each game, they would have moved up one single spot in those rankings.  The team the would have jumped?  Winnipeg.  7th lowest in the league, but no one will ever say they have an attendance issue right now.

In terms of capacity, Jersey looks to be right above the mark where numbers fall off the cliff if you.  Those 5 teams with the least total number of fans have some ugly numbers if you 're looking at the percentage of capacity.

If we're talking about tv ratings for a team like that, I wonder what the impact is of MSG holding the broadcast rights for about 85 different NHL teams.  It has to cause some headaches over in that area.