Ratings for first Stanley Cup game are in the toilet

OLN averaged 611,000 households for Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals
on Monday.
That's fewer households than ESPN2 drew for an Arizona-Northwestern
college women's
softball game Monday night. It is 39% fewer households than ESPN drew
for the Stanley
Cup series opener two years ago.

Invid Fan...

In the last round, thanks to a last minute free switch of OLN to basic
cable by Adelphia for the length of the playoffs, Buffalo counted for
half the national viewers of the Buffalo/Carolina series. I think out
of the 600,000 or so viewers, 300,000 were in Buffalo and 100,000 in
Carolina. Buffalo making the finals would have upped the ratings a bit,
based on that.

Tony Calguire...

So what? Hockey is wildly popular with the people for whom it is wildly
popular. They don't need the women's softball audience... or the NASCAR
audience, for that matter. Not everything has to have mass appeal
across a broad section of the US in order to be considered popular or
successful. And even so, I notice the NASCAR rednecks have filled up
the 'Caine's arena anyway.

A less than appealing matchup of two small market teams certainly
didn't help the
situation.

Invid Fan...

Plus, only one team's home market counts in the ratings.

Howard U. Dewing...

Hey...hang on there buddy. We Edmontonians count for plenty!!

Invid Fan...

Not so far as US tv ratings go :)

BTW, sorry to hear about Rolly the Goalie. As he's a former Sabre I was
pulling for him, now that we can't kick his ass ^_^

NBC can't be looking forward to the games they will be televising in
this series.

Tony Calguire...

NBC made a swwetheart deal with the NHL that resulted in them not paying
a dime for hockey. They get three hours of new programming on a night
when they would normally have reruns, and a slate of advertisers who are

Michael Alden...

Bring back bench brawls and they'll get more viewers!

very happy to be reaching the audience their reaching.

stonej...

Both sides get what they pay for - essentially nothing.

Invid Fan...

Well, they're showing all of the finals after game 2, so potentialy
that's low ratings for 5 nights. I gotta assume reruns will get much
more then a 1 or 2 rating most of those days.

stonej...

Ratings for Saturday night are probably going to be brutal.