NHL TV Ratings
* The following blog post is one I posted in the USCHO.com online message forum. It was in response to people mentioning that the NHL has been getting horrible television ratings in the Stanley Cup Finals.
What the NHL has done with its TV coverage lately is just a plain joke and Gary Bettman should be ashamed of himself at the low ratings hockey has received in the U.S. I actually got a good laugh when I heard the Stanley Cup Finals got beat out ratings wise by a rerun of COPS and was not surprised by it one bit. The NHL has gotten fans back into seats at arenas, but what is even more important is that their TV ratings are still on the decline, and have been for the last six or seven years:
I know the comish doesn't read this D-III board, but if he wants to get viewers back, here are a couple steps he could follow...
* NHL should renew their coverage with ESPN/ESPN2 - I can remember the days of watching the NHL on the station that was the "worldwide leader of sports" and it was nice. ESPN did a great job of covering hockey, and it was a channel that almost everybody got on their cable networks. This past year, being at college almost wasn't the same as in my apartment, we did not get Versus, so I was only able to watch hockey once every weekend on NBC. The NHL needs to at least partner with a popular TV station that most cable subscribers get...not one that nobody really knew or cared about. Sure Versus televised the Tour de France and now they have hockey, but if you ask me, I'd never heard of the OLN/Versus network before they started airing hockey, and many cable companies require people to buy special packages to get Versus.
* (Insert Daily Hockey Show Here) - Even if the NHL doesn't get back together with ESPN, they should at least get together with Versus, NBC or whoever they partner with in the future to form a daily TV show that recapped the day in NHL hockey. Back in the day, ESPN has "NHL2Night", which was a daily show that recapped of the day in hockey, and updated people on the world of hockey. Also, whatever station would get this NHL news show will also need to acquire Barry Melrose as a host, as his mullet alone would increase ratings tenfold.
* NHL All-Star Weekend - This one is a very simple concept, as after seeing what the NHL did in airing the 2007 All-Star game in Dallas, they need to rethink their process of airing coverage of the all-star game. For starters, the pre all-star-game events (ex - Skills competition/Young Stars game) should be shown on national tv. I know in the past, its been on ESPN, but more people would watch it on national tv, and it would show a more unique side of the NHL, as people would see the best players showing off their skills, as well as the games rising stars of tomorrow. Finally, the all-star game itself should be shown on national TV (ex - NBC, Fox, etc.), and not the Versus network as it was last year. It seems that for the longest time it was on either NBC or FOX, and this year, the NHL dropped the ball by showing it on Versus, and got horrible ratings. When thinking about this whole all-star-weekend concept as a whole, it should occur on a weekend, not during the week when people have to get up for work the next day. There is a reason why they used to call it "All-Star Weekend", and the NHL definitely needs to return to these ways, rather than having the All-Star Game in the middle of people's work weeks.
There are obviously more ways that the NHL could get viewers to tune into their games, but I just listed three easy, simple steps that I feel would attract more viewers. They are also three things that currently bug me about watching the NHL on television.
Labels: nhl, tv ratings
