BREAKING: NHL On NBC Holds it’s Own on Conference Championship Sunday
January 25, 2010 10 Comments
According to Sports Business Daily (reg. required), The NHL On NBC Game of the Week featuring the Pittsburgh Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers drew a 1.3 overnight rating in it’s Sunday 12:30 PM ET timeslot. I don’t have the data on hand currently, but that number may be the highest overnight for an NHL on NBC indoor regular season broadcast in a couple of years. I’ll check on it, and get back to you.
Regardless, this should likely come as bad news to all the folks who get tired of Pens-Flyers, as these ratings (as well as the playoff ratings a couple years back) signify the rivalry’s ability to move the needle in terms of hockey ratings. This is pretty great news for the NHL, who were able to carve out it’s best audience in a while on the NFL’s 2nd biggest day of the year.
UPDATE: via Sports Media Watch:
The 1.3 overnight is tied as the highest for any non-Winter Classic regular season NHL telecast since NBC’s debut NHL telecast in ’06 (1.5/3).
Over the previous two seasons, no NHL telecast on NBC had drawn an overnight higher than 1.1 (again, excluding the Winter Classic).
That is something else.
Puck The Media 
You have to throw out last week’s .8 which was actually pretty good up against the NFL. The NHL on NBC does 1.0-1.2….it is what it is I guess
Have to wonder what the Caps/Pens game is going to do now on SuperBowl sunday, especially when it is going up against the insanely long pregame show.
How many people will actually watch all of the pre-game show?
Most people just want to watch the kick-off and the rest of the game. People plan their viewing parties around the actual game, not the pre-game show. The Superbowl is going to involve two cities that have no hockey teams. I’m expecting a big number.
That is great news..it will at least help the long term average.
and bring that .8 to a 1.1 now.
i think nbc should follow fox’s lead with the mlb and try one or two games in primetime, just for fun. If figure skating gets 4.0 then im sure a hockey game primetime could do almost a 2.0
For some odd reason figure skating has always been one of the most popular events of the games.
Women.
Seriously – I’m not saying that as a joke, but women watch the Olympics more than they watch most other sporting events, and they watch figure skating (and gymnastics, for a Summer Olympics example) way more than they watch most sports.
NHL Need to allow the 4 networks (ABC-NBC-CBS-FOX) to have revenue sharing and grow the sport. Have all 4 share games Sat/Sun (with some primetime thrown in)
Sorry Patrick. The NHL only has contracts with NBC and Versus stateside, as well as their own network. It’s going to be quite a few years off before the NHL will garner that much attention from networks, but it is improving.
and that’s with no hype whatsoever on the network’s website. NBC is a joke.