The National Hockey League is flying high this year as a rematch between its two most talented, star-studded teams in the Stanley Cup finals has resulted in an 11% boost in its TV ratings – and a renegotiated broadcast deal with NBC.
NBC’s telecasts of the first two games of this year’s Stanley Cup finals between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Detroit Red Wings have averaged 3 million viewers apiece – which is up from 2.7 million a game a year ago.
Or roughly the equivalent of each telecast of Hockey Night in Canada.
From the Toronto Globe & Mail:
After years in the doldrums, some of its best U.S. television markets – Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh – pushed deep into the playoffs. And the skilled on-ice product has been rewarded with some modest bumps in U.S. ratings on NBC and Versus.
Now, NBC and the NHL are set to announce an extension to their relationship for another two years, past the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics and Stanley Cup playoffs.
In addition to its network success, Game 3′s cable telecast on the Versus network scored 2.9 million viewers, which is a 37% jump in viewership from last year and the highest hockey cable rating since 2002.
Wow.
Sure looks like that whole “bet it all on Sidney Crosby” strategy is paying off.
And goals like this one by Tyler Kennedy obviously don’t hurt either …
Incidentally, Crosby scored his first goal of the Stanley Cup finals and fifteenth of the playoffs last night as the Penguins evened their rematch with the Red Wings at two games apiece.
Game 5 is on NBC tomorrow night at 8:00 p.m.
WEB EXTRA
By joey johnson June 5, 2009 at 2:27 pm
what’s hockey????
By confused June 5, 2009 at 3:08 pm
God i hate the penguins…