Game attendance is up, and so are TV ratings
By Toni Fitzgerald
Nov 8, 2005
Following a lockout, it can take forever to woo back fans. It took four years and the shattering of baseball's most hallowed record to bring fans back after the 1994 strike. NBA viewership still hasn’t recovered from the 1998-’99 labor dispute.
But hockey, of all sports, is turning out to be a very different story. Against almost all expectations, its fans are returning at a healthy pace, if not in droves.
They are doing so, moreover, after perhaps the most disastrous labor breakdown in pro sports history, the first in which an entire season was lost.
Attendance was up 6 percent through the first two weeks of the season, and the league set an attendance record in October with an average 16,820 per game. Ratings on cable are up or performing above expected levels.
Post-lockout, many predicted that hockey would return with a thud. Opinion polls throughout the strike suggested that the public was not that eager for the sport’s return, and both the owners and players came out of the dispute looking shabby.
Why the surprising resurgence?
Credit the good manners the league learned watching the NBA and MLB bungle their returns. In a sign of arrogance, or what was seen as arrogance, the two leagues attempted to come back from their strikes without properly apologizing to their fans.
They also failed to address long-simmering problems that led to those strikes.
The NHL did quite the opposite, first off apologizing to the fans for missing a season.
Second, the NHL implemented some real changes, several of which promised to lead to higher scoring, to the end of making the game more exciting. That's happened. Scoring has risen nearly a third versus the 2003-’04 season, to 6.4 goals per game.
Third, the league did a very good job of publicizing its return.
Those moves have resulted in lots of tangible success, even beyond the increase in attendance. Hockey, which six months ago seemed in danger of slipping from cable’s radar, is off to a strong start.
Nine games on OLN, its new carrier, have averaged 194,000 total viewers and a 0.1 household rating. Though that’s below the average for the 2003-’04 season on ESPN and ESPN2, those networks are available in more than 20 million more homes than OLN, which is available in 64 million homes.
But that’s still nearly double OLN’s timeslot average last year, and four of the games, featuring more popular NHL teams, did equal ESPN2’s most recent season average.
What’s more, hockey’s doing especially well in Canada, where its core audience resides, and on FSN regional channels.
Last month’s season openers for five teams, including the Chicago Blackhawks, Phoenix Coyotes and Pittsburgh Penguins, more than doubled their 2003-’04 season debut numbers. Minnesota Wild viewership is up 150 percent season-to-date on FSN North.
And to the North, the CBC’s “Hockey Night in Canada” has increased more than 60 percent over the 2003-’04 season. Rogers Sportsnet set a regular-season record last month with 791,000 viewers for the Boston-Toronto game, its best NHL telecast ever.
Meanwhile, in other TV sports for the week ended Oct. 30, Fox’s Sunday NFL doubleheader was the week’s top-rated sporting event, averaging a 13.4 household rating. That was Fox’s best Sunday performance since opening weekend in 2003.
On cable, ESPN’s “NFL Primetime” was the top-ranked sports show for the week ended Oct. 23, averaging a 2.3 rating (there was no ESPN “Sunday Night Football” game due to the World Series).
TBS averaged a 1.7 household rating for the Oct. 29 Texas-Oklahoma State game, the highest-rated college football game in the network’s history. It eclipsed last year’s USC-Stanford game by 21 percent.
http://medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_1190.asp
By Toni Fitzgerald
Nov 8, 2005
Following a lockout, it can take forever to woo back fans. It took four years and the shattering of baseball's most hallowed record to bring fans back after the 1994 strike. NBA viewership still hasn’t recovered from the 1998-’99 labor dispute.
But hockey, of all sports, is turning out to be a very different story. Against almost all expectations, its fans are returning at a healthy pace, if not in droves.
They are doing so, moreover, after perhaps the most disastrous labor breakdown in pro sports history, the first in which an entire season was lost.
Attendance was up 6 percent through the first two weeks of the season, and the league set an attendance record in October with an average 16,820 per game. Ratings on cable are up or performing above expected levels.
Post-lockout, many predicted that hockey would return with a thud. Opinion polls throughout the strike suggested that the public was not that eager for the sport’s return, and both the owners and players came out of the dispute looking shabby.
Why the surprising resurgence?
Credit the good manners the league learned watching the NBA and MLB bungle their returns. In a sign of arrogance, or what was seen as arrogance, the two leagues attempted to come back from their strikes without properly apologizing to their fans.
They also failed to address long-simmering problems that led to those strikes.
The NHL did quite the opposite, first off apologizing to the fans for missing a season.
Second, the NHL implemented some real changes, several of which promised to lead to higher scoring, to the end of making the game more exciting. That's happened. Scoring has risen nearly a third versus the 2003-’04 season, to 6.4 goals per game.
Third, the league did a very good job of publicizing its return.
Those moves have resulted in lots of tangible success, even beyond the increase in attendance. Hockey, which six months ago seemed in danger of slipping from cable’s radar, is off to a strong start.
Nine games on OLN, its new carrier, have averaged 194,000 total viewers and a 0.1 household rating. Though that’s below the average for the 2003-’04 season on ESPN and ESPN2, those networks are available in more than 20 million more homes than OLN, which is available in 64 million homes.
But that’s still nearly double OLN’s timeslot average last year, and four of the games, featuring more popular NHL teams, did equal ESPN2’s most recent season average.
What’s more, hockey’s doing especially well in Canada, where its core audience resides, and on FSN regional channels.
Last month’s season openers for five teams, including the Chicago Blackhawks, Phoenix Coyotes and Pittsburgh Penguins, more than doubled their 2003-’04 season debut numbers. Minnesota Wild viewership is up 150 percent season-to-date on FSN North.
And to the North, the CBC’s “Hockey Night in Canada” has increased more than 60 percent over the 2003-’04 season. Rogers Sportsnet set a regular-season record last month with 791,000 viewers for the Boston-Toronto game, its best NHL telecast ever.
Meanwhile, in other TV sports for the week ended Oct. 30, Fox’s Sunday NFL doubleheader was the week’s top-rated sporting event, averaging a 13.4 household rating. That was Fox’s best Sunday performance since opening weekend in 2003.
On cable, ESPN’s “NFL Primetime” was the top-ranked sports show for the week ended Oct. 23, averaging a 2.3 rating (there was no ESPN “Sunday Night Football” game due to the World Series).
TBS averaged a 1.7 household rating for the Oct. 29 Texas-Oklahoma State game, the highest-rated college football game in the network’s history. It eclipsed last year’s USC-Stanford game by 21 percent.
http://medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_1190.asp
Anyway, I'm thankful for CSTV and ESPNU...I have already seen a number of quality collegiate hockey events. 
