From the Funny Department: NCAA Title Game Out-Draws NBC Tilt
April 15, 2009 5 Comments
Chalk one up for the “We want ESPN!!!!ZOMG!!!!ESPN!!!!GARYTHORNEOMFG!!!!ESPN!!!!” crowd. ESPN was able to produce an average hockey telecast on Saturday while we went bowling.
What is funny though, is that the game actually drew better than the NHL game that aired on NBC the same weekend. According to the annoying Michael Hiestand of USA Today, the game between Boston University and Miami (OH) drew an 0.7 overnight rating on the Worldwide Leader in Manny Ramirez news, up 75% from last year’s Notre Dame-Boston College final, which makes no sense at all to us. As we told you yesterday, the Red Wings-Blackhawks drew a mere 0.6 overnight rating on Sunday.
Well, why? Chalk it up to 1. The NHL game meaning nothing and being in a timeslot that no one was familiar with, while ESPN had done a decent job hyping this Frozen Four, getting more games onto the more mainstream channels like ESPN2. Oh, and fine, it is ESPN, after all. Maybe if they put as much effort into NHL hockey during the final few years of their last contract as they did to college hockey the past couple of weekends, we’d be willing to hear about how great ESPN is for the league.
But, before we get off the soapbox here, this is great news for college hockey. This could lead to the NCAA drawing a 1.0 overnight or better for next year’s already much-hyped Frozen Four at Ford Field in Detroit. If ESPN can create any kind of Winter Classic-type feel to this game at all, we might see it draw better than a meaningful NHL game on NBC.
Puck The Media 
i don’t think its really an issue if the nhl goes back to espn, however, i think the nhl needs to get out of cable exclusive deals. They should go to espn, but stay with versus or some other comcast owned company
NHL needs to go to Spike TV.
And everyone expected that Wings-Hawks game to flop majorly. It was a meaningless game in a bad time slot competing with the Masters.
doesn’t a .6 on national tv actually have more viewers than a .7 on cable?
Go to espn NHL they are going to kill you now with NCAA hockey. Just Kidding I would try to get a few games on the world wide leader though to have mon and tues on Versus, maybe a thursday ESPN2 and a weekend game on NHL net and NBC and there you go a sucessful tv deal.
Gary Thorne is the #1 reason I hope the nhl NEVER goes back to ESPN.