NHL Doing Very Bad With TV Ratings

[bob_sauve28]

http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/spo...8e-2cb9e263c496

 

Tony Gallagher, The Province

Published: Sunday, December 10, 2006

The NHL governors got a rude awakening at their board meeting this week at the beautiful Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Fla., when they had the U.S. television ratings plunked in front of them.

 

Talk about devastating. And unless there is a rapid recovery, it's very difficult to understand what will become of this sport in the U.S.

 

Keep in mind this has nothing to do with the league's appearance on Versus network, or the old Outdoor Living Network as it was known last year. This is virtually every U.S. city in the league as viewers seem to be turing away from the game at a remarkable pace.

 

Coming on the heels of ESPN's refusal to carry paid NHL advertising on its station because they apparently didn't want to trumpet a sport they don't carry on their own network, the numbers showed a downward spiral that failed the league's or network's estimations in all but two markets.

 

It's important before getting into some of the specifics to point out that seemingly all sports ratings are down these days, so the NHL is hardly alone. People just seem to be watching things other than sports on television and all marketing people in all sports other than the NFL need to be concerned.

 

While Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby were lifting the Fox Sports News Pittsburgh ratings 40 per cent higher than expectations and the highest they've been since 2000-01, the rest of the U.S. cities were headed straight to the dumper. If these results don't raise some eyebrows among the owners, it's hard to know what will get their attention.

 

Strangely enough, the other city that topped expectations was Chicago, where the Blackhawks have had such little television exposure and their teams have been so bad over the years that the quick start authored by Martin Havlat and crew and now sustained since the team has overcome that onslaught of early injuries has really helped. And any good news out of such a major market as Chicago is certainly good news for the league, so with luck that will keep improving.

 

It's some of the other cities where the news is exceptionally disturbing. Take Florida, for example, where there was the expectation of a 1.0 share for the Panthers on FSN Florida and it came in down a whopping 77 per cent.

 

If that wasn't bad enough, along came the numbers from SportSouth in Atlanta, where the Thrashers have an excellent team this year and one would think the numbers would be significantly higher simply because of where the team is in the standings. Not so. The numbers were down a 10th of a rating point and fully 70 per cent below expectations.

 

In New York it's so bad the Islanders, who appear on Fox New York, are virtually to the point where the viewership does not even rate a number, although this was before coach Ted Nolan got the troops going and one would expect this to improve. But the whole city was down as both the Devils and the Rangers suffered pretty significant decreases as well.

 

Detroit was another sore spot. Traditionally one of the strongest hockey markets for obvious reasons, the Wings got hammered early this season.

[frisky]

I thought regional ratings for the Sabres were supposedly good. It's not from my lack of watching that's for sure.

[bob_sauve28]

I thought regional ratings for the Sabres were supposedly good. It's not from my lack of watching that's for sure.

LOL, me either!

[FogBat]

Have they tried selling the NHL in Europe? Seems like it's their game now.

[bottlecap]

it's Bettman's "vision" coming to life. If they had a European Division, taking all the

attendance slackers from the league and stick them in traditional hockey markets

in Europe, I think that's a good idea for the future.