NBA Low Ratings Compared to NHL Ratings

PeteNJ

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Sep 27, 2004
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I'm guessing they don't if they're not watching. If you're a hockey fan you don't need to be marketed too in order to watch games, you do it anyway. Marketing is usually for those who don't watch so if the largest sports news outlet chooses not to market the game then it doesn't affect the people who already are fans of the game because they know it exists and will usually find other methods of following it i.e. internet.

I disagree with that. I consider myself a die hard hockey fan but I would have watched more regular season games on Versus if I had known they were on. You never saw ads for games unless your local team was playing on Versus. I would very often forget that Versus had a game and would watch something else when I would have watched the hockey game had I been reminded it was on.

I guess I am in the minority. I like Versus. They show at least two games a week which is more than we could expect ESPN to do until the launch of The Ocho.
 

Randall Graves*

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The NHL got the lowest ratings for a show in Primetime in history.
The funny thing to me is, is that you won't see the media harp on it, yes the NBA is immensly more popular but their biggest star is in the finals and so far is getting embarrassed, when Sidney Crosby plays in the cup finals you can pretty much take it to the bank the ratings will go up. The NBA gets much more exposure, if the NHL and NBA were treated the same in terms of media exposure and how often places like ESPN discuss them I think the NHL would have alot more respectable numbers.

If the casual fan doesn't see people talking about the NHL and getting little exposure why would they tune in?
 

EbencoyE

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Nov 26, 2006
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I'm guessing they don't if they're not watching.

Wrong. I know a lot of hockey fans that haven't watched the Stanley Cup Finals for years.

Why? Their team hasn't been in it. I don't know many Senators or Ducks fans. Therefore I didn't know many people who watched the Finals this year. Instead, those same people were down at the local rink playing their own games WHILE the Finals were on.

It doesn't help that the media doesn't hype hockey anymore. Therefore even hockey fans don't care about hockey because they don't have anyone to tell them that it's a big deal.

When, say, Sunday Night Football is on TV. ALL Football fans, and even non-football fans will probably tune in. When hockey is on NBC on a Saturday afternoon, only the fans of the teams playing will probably tune in. Why? The media doesn't give casual fans, or fans of other teams reason to tune in like they do football.
 

undraftedstlouis

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Sep 11, 2004
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Like i said earlier, if the NHL got the same marketing press and support the NBA did it would probably see similar numbers. Do you think the same people that liked the game 10 years ago all of a sudden dont like it anymore. NO. They dont watch because they dont hear anything about it. Because the largest sports news outlet in the world chooses not to market it.


It's not the responsibility of a news outlet to market a product. ESPN are more than a news outlet, they are also an entertainment operation. It may be biased journalism to favor their own products on their "news" shows, but I doubt many will ever care.

Marketing is expensive. It's the responsibility of the league and teams. Sometimes leagues pay for it indirectly by choosing the right broadcast partner who can market for them.

Did the NHL ever get comparable championship ratings to the NBA? In 1997 it was a 4.0.

Here are the NBA final round averages (through 2002 each game/share listed, :
NBC 1997 15.8/27 15.1/27 14.2/27 16.9/30 20.1/35 18.5/35 None
NBC 1998 18.0/32 16.6/31 16.2/28 19.1/33 19.8/37 22.3/38 None
NBC 1999 11.5/20 9.6/19 12.1/21 12.0/22 11.0/22 None
NBC 2000 10.5/18 9.9/20 10.9/19 13.1/24 10.0/20 14.7/26 None
NBC 2001 12.4/23 11.7/22 12.7/23 12.6/23 11.2/22 None
NBC 2002 10.6/20 9.1/18 10.2/18 10.8/19 None
ABC 2003 6.4/11 5.2/10 7.0/12 6.6/12 6.2/12 7.5/14 None
ABC 2004 9.8/17 10.7/19 10.5/19 12.7/22 13.8/23 None
ABC 2005 7.2/13 6.9/12 7.2/13 7.2/13 8.4/15 8.8/15 11.9/22
ABC 2006 7.8/14 8.0/14 8.0/14 7.8/14 9.0/17 10.1/18 None

The NBA had a dip after switching to ABC. But their lows of 6-8 are better than anything the NHL has averaged out for the last 10 years. No matter how much the Stanley Cup playoffs are marketed, I think there is some ceiling. To get higher, the NHL would need to grow the sport amongst US fans - something they're failing at (if it's their goal).

Anyways I think sports reporters have so many sports to cover, they love to write off most sports as unimportant. It makes their job much easier.
 

puck57

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Dec 21, 2004
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It's not the responsibility of a news outlet to market a product. ESPN are more than a news outlet, they are also an entertainment operation. It may be biased journalism to favor their own products on their "news" shows, but I doubt many will ever care.

Marketing is expensive. It's the responsibility of the league and teams. Sometimes leagues pay for it indirectly by choosing the right broadcast partner who can market for them.

Did the NHL ever get comparable championship ratings to the NBA? In 1997 it was a 4.0.

Here are the NBA final round averages (through 2002 each game/share listed, :
NBC 1997 15.8/27 15.1/27 14.2/27 16.9/30 20.1/35 18.5/35 None
NBC 1998 18.0/32 16.6/31 16.2/28 19.1/33 19.8/37 22.3/38 None
NBC 1999 11.5/20 9.6/19 12.1/21 12.0/22 11.0/22 None
NBC 2000 10.5/18 9.9/20 10.9/19 13.1/24 10.0/20 14.7/26 None
NBC 2001 12.4/23 11.7/22 12.7/23 12.6/23 11.2/22 None
NBC 2002 10.6/20 9.1/18 10.2/18 10.8/19 None
ABC 2003 6.4/11 5.2/10 7.0/12 6.6/12 6.2/12 7.5/14 None
ABC 2004 9.8/17 10.7/19 10.5/19 12.7/22 13.8/23 None
ABC 2005 7.2/13 6.9/12 7.2/13 7.2/13 8.4/15 8.8/15 11.9/22
ABC 2006 7.8/14 8.0/14 8.0/14 7.8/14 9.0/17 10.1/18 None

The NBA had a dip after switching to ABC. But their lows of 6-8 are better than anything the NHL has averaged out for the last 10 years. No matter how much the Stanley Cup playoffs are marketed, I think there is some ceiling. To get higher, the NHL would need to grow the sport amongst US fans - something they're failing at (if it's their goal).

Anyways I think sports reporters have so many sports to cover, they love to write off most sports as unimportant. It makes their job much easier.

ESPN touts itself as "the worldwide leader in sports"- yet holds hockey in total disrespect and barely mentions the sport at all except to ridicule. They are the leader of the sports they "like" and the ones to make them the most money pure and simple. ESPN promotes and yes markets those sports- primarily football and some basketball and baseball that they want to. Of course the leagues have to market their sport as well but leave no doubt with the media power and pull ESPN has they are also marketing the sports they want to.
 

OG6ix

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Apr 11, 2006
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The funny thing to me is, is that you won't see the media harp on it, yes the NBA is immensly more popular but their biggest star is in the finals and so far is getting embarrassed, when Sidney Crosby plays in the cup finals you can pretty much take it to the bank the ratings will go up. The NBA gets much more exposure, if the NHL and NBA were treated the same in terms of media exposure and how often places like ESPN discuss them I think the NHL would have alot more respectable numbers.

If the casual fan doesn't see people talking about the NHL and getting little exposure why would they tune in?

I doubt the rating will be more substansial if Crosby is in the Finals. I would wager most of America doesn't even know who he is, it's not like he has gatorade commercials in the US.
 

puck57

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Dec 21, 2004
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I doubt the rating will be more substansial if Crosby is in the Finals. I would wager most of America doesn't even know who he is, it's not like he has gatorade commercials in the US.


That would be the one time having the games on ESPN would be an advantage because they could hype Crosby much more than Versus to reach more people. Look with Lebron and how he is hyped on ESPN for the playoffs. That would probably increase curiosity enough to boost the ratings at least somewhat- how much could still be debated. Of course it won't happen with ESPN anytime soon but just a theory anyway.
 

Doc Scurlock

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Nov 23, 2006
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Wrong. I know a lot of hockey fans that haven't watched the Stanley Cup Finals for years.

Why? Their team hasn't been in it. I don't know many Senators or Ducks fans. Therefore I didn't know many people who watched the Finals this year. Instead, those same people were down at the local rink playing their own games WHILE the Finals were on.

It doesn't help that the media doesn't hype hockey anymore. Therefore even hockey fans don't care about hockey because they don't have anyone to tell them that it's a big deal.

When, say, Sunday Night Football is on TV. ALL Football fans, and even non-football fans will probably tune in. When hockey is on NBC on a Saturday afternoon, only the fans of the teams playing will probably tune in. Why? The media doesn't give casual fans, or fans of other teams reason to tune in like they do football.

You can't compare the NHL to the NFL, especially when it comes to how they market the games. The NFL has one game a week. A team plays 16 games. Each of those games is an event all by itself. The NHL, NBA, and MLB don't have that. Too many games played too frequently and you lose that mystique of every game matters.

Teams in the NFL play one game a week and so the media has an entire week to hype up the game. In addition, with the small amount of games they play each and every game is pretty much do or die. Just a couple months into the season and people already start talking about who is going to make the playoffs and who is not.

With the NHL you don't get that because teams sometimes play three or four games a week. The race for the playoffs doesn't really come into the picture until near the end of the season. It's kind of hard to hype up a game in February as being do or die. Or trying to hype up a match up between Crosby and Ovechkin when they'll play against each other five times in the season. In the NFL, Manning vs. Brady may happen once a season and maybe a second time if they meet in the playoffs and that's it.

And as for the media having to hype up hockey just so you care, well that's kind of lame. I don't need James Duthie or the other clowns at TSN to tell me that a game is a "big deal". If I'm a fan, I can usually figure that part out on my own.

Basically, your whole argument breaks people down into two groups. Those that like hockey and will watch no matter what team is playing and those people who just follow their own team. I'll use myself as an example here. Say I only care about watching the Oilers and that's it. CBC can hype up the match up between say Toronto and Montreal on Hockey Night In Canada all they want but it won't make a lick of difference to me because I don't care about those teams.

You're not going to make someone who is a casual fan of their OWN team care about a game between two other teams no matter how many commercials you run or how much the guys at TSN hype up the game. And that's fine, they're Oiler fans or Duck fans not hockey fans, if you get what I'm saying.
 

Doc Scurlock

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Nov 23, 2006
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ESPN touts itself as "the worldwide leader in sports"- yet holds hockey in total disrespect and barely mentions the sport at all except to ridicule. They are the leader of the sports they "like" and the ones to make them the most money pure and simple. ESPN promotes and yes markets those sports- primarily football and some basketball and baseball that they want to. Of course the leagues have to market their sport as well but leave no doubt with the media power and pull ESPN has they are also marketing the sports they want to.

And that's ESPN's right. They're going to promote what's popular and what the majority of its audience cares about. They don't show the NHL on their network so why give it free publicity?

As for the ridicule part, well that happens any time you're at the bottom.

Take my favorite NFL team, the Oakland Raiders. To be blunt, they suck and so they're usually at the butt end of jokes by the NFL commentators and personalities. The Bengals were in the same position when they were the laughing stock of the league. When the Raiders were a playoff team a couple years ago, no one was making any jokes at their expense. Bottom line, if you're at the bottom then you will be ridiculed. It's easy to kick people or things when they're down.

Mark my words, if the NHL were putting up decent ratings you wouldn't have people laughing at the league.
 

frivolousz21

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what are the NBA tv ratings in canada?

probably nothing.

I dont get how the NHL Is so dead....3 mil watched game 5, 2.5 mil in canada, 650K on RDS in canada..thats over 6 million.

I bet 6 million if that watched game 2 of the nba finals.

the nba is a sinking ship..there regular season ratings are getting extremly low and close to averaging under a 2.0 on ABC...they want over 400 mil a year from ABC..and they averaged a 2.3 last year on network tv.
 

puck57

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Dec 21, 2004
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And that's ESPN's right. They're going to promote what's popular and what the majority of its audience cares about. They don't show the NHL on their network so why give it free publicity?

As for the ridicule part, well that happens any time you're at the bottom.

Take my favorite NFL team, the Oakland Raiders. To be blunt, they suck and so they're usually at the butt end of jokes by the NFL commentators and personalities. The Bengals were in the same position when they were the laughing stock of the league. When the Raiders were a playoff team a couple years ago, no one was making any jokes at their expense. Bottom line, if you're at the bottom then you will be ridiculed. It's easy to kick people or things when they're down.

Mark my words, if the NHL were putting up decent ratings you wouldn't have people laughing at the league.


And it doesn't help the ratings when ESPN ignores the sport- even when they were showing games- especially the last years they had hockey. It is the catch 22 thing- like when you apply for a job but they want someone with experience- how do you get experience if they won't hire you. Same concept here- it kind of helps when the network at least tries to talk about the sport instead of ignoring or making fun of it when it is even brought up.l
 

Egil

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what are the NBA tv ratings in canada?

probably nothing.

I dont get how the NHL Is so dead....3 mil watched game 5, 2.5 mil in canada, 650K on RDS in canada..thats over 6 million.

I bet 6 million if that watched game 2 of the nba finals.

the nba is a sinking ship..there regular season ratings are getting extremly low and close to averaging under a 2.0 on ABC...they want over 400 mil a year from ABC..and they averaged a 2.3 last year on network tv.

Exactly. The NHL gets hammered in the US because they never consider Canada. But the Toronto Raptors playoff games only got 250k in all of Canada, and I doubt that the NBA finals will even come close to that. When combined, the overall TV viewership of the 2 leagues is remarkably similar.
 

frivolousz21

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game 2 of the nba finals is there lowest rated finals game of all time.

it got 7.6 mil viewers on fast data.

when its all in...6 mil viewers is more likely
 

RaiderDoug

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Feb 5, 2007
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All of this raises an interesting question - Are pro sports (football not included) too bloated for thier own good?

Look at MLB and the NHL, and to an extent, the NBA. You have a teams on opposite ends of the financial spectrum. The top money making teams have completely skewed the playing field.

This wasnt the case 10-15 years ago. When top players were making 1,2, 4 million a year tops, even the lower end franchises like the Pittsburgh Penguins could afford the quality players to stay competitive.

The NHL tried to help with the lockout and salary cap, but with the cap going up to 52 millions, pretty soon we'll be back at the same situation we were before - the same 4 or 5 franchises outbidding all the others.

Thats why there's such a push for TV dollars, its not dependent on the strength of individual franchises - but that's drying up too. Networks arent going to pay huge bucks for games when people have more choices and simply arent watching sports like they used to.

At some point, this is going to skew the competitive balance so bad that leagues may never recover.
 

TheOrganist

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Feb 21, 2006
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game 2 of the nba finals is there lowest rated finals game of all time.

it got 7.6 mil viewers on fast data.

when its all in...6 mil viewers is more likely

And yet I just read on sportsbuisnessjournal that the NBA is about to get a new, 8 year TV deal from ABC that is reportedly worth more than the $765 million they cuurently have with the network. Can someone explain this to me?
 

rekrul

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And yet I just read on sportsbuisnessjournal that the NBA is about to get a new, 8 year TV deal from ABC that is reportedly worth more than the $765 million they cuurently have with the network. Can someone explain this to me?

sounds like TV is still desparte and getting more so to pay so much for a certain target audience that Sports can deliver 18-35 Yr males. Everyone loves to bash the NHL but how "stupid" does ABC/Espn Disney look paying so much for a product that even the brightest new star ( Lebron) can't deliver. NBC gets the NHL for free almost, who wins on the bottom line I wonder.
 

undraftedstlouis

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Sep 11, 2004
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Exactly. The NHL gets hammered in the US because they never consider Canada. But the Toronto Raptors playoff games only got 250k in all of Canada, and I doubt that the NBA finals will even come close to that. When combined, the overall TV viewership of the 2 leagues is remarkably similar.

Why should the US media consider Canada? Generally the US media aren't selling their product to Canadians. Both leagues are heavily US based in franchise locations. Canada on its own can't afford to fund a league with 30 teams with $50 million payrolls.
 

OG6ix

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Exactly. The NHL gets hammered in the US because they never consider Canada. But the Toronto Raptors playoff games only got 250k in all of Canada, and I doubt that the NBA finals will even come close to that. When combined, the overall TV viewership of the 2 leagues is remarkably similar.

Oh please, give me a break. You think the NBA cares if the Toronto Raptors get nothing more than what would be considered a decent regional rating in the US? It's just one team...

The NHL has 24 in the US. You can't even debate the importance of the two leagues to the opposite countries.
 

OG6ix

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sounds like TV is still desparte and getting more so to pay so much for a certain target audience that Sports can deliver 18-35 Yr males. Everyone loves to bash the NHL but how "stupid" does ABC/Espn Disney look paying so much for a product that even the brightest new star ( Lebron) can't deliver. NBC gets the NHL for free almost, who wins on the bottom line I wonder.

You underestimate how many people watch Sportscenter and those type of related shows for basketball highlights. The brand is an integral part of ESPN and they could do a lot with it.

The NHL? Well if they start establishing better ratings they would probably be more highlights on sportscenter etc. As bad as some of you are making the NBA ratings look like crap, the NHL's ratings are beyond terrible... talking lowest in prime time. Mama's family re-runs beat out NHL games.

I think the NHL will be cable based only in a few years and that's fine for hockey fans in the US because let's face it, there are not many of us here, but enough to fill up many buildings on a givin night.

Why blame the Television side of it for it all when the Newspapers have been worse.
 

OG6ix

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And 6.9 overnight rating means another rating in the 5's once it is all said and done.

compare a 5 as you say (I dunno where you got that from) ... to this...

Anaheim's 1-0 victory over Ottawa in Game 2 on Wednesday night got a 0.6 cable rating on Versus and was watched in 446,000 homes in the United States.

Honestly, if you ran ESPN (bias aside) would you dedicate the same amount of time to the NHL that you do to the NBA?
 

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