Someone save hockey
1st horseman of the sportspocalypse: Red Sox win the World Series. 2nd horseman: White Sox win the World Series. Now the WNBA is drawing more viewers than the NHL. ESPN is reporting that more people watched the WNBA on ESPN2 last year than the NHL on OLN this year. When the United States wins the World Cup, it will be the end of sports days.
We have to point out two things. First, OLN has a much lower subscriber base (21 million less) than ESPN as well as lack of ratings for other programming to shove the WNBA down our throats…er.. promote other shows. As a matter of fact, when ESPN had hockey, they drew 300,000 more viewers on average. (416,000 vs 117,000.)
Second, hockey has always been an in-person draw. Hockey fans understand that the game is much better on ice than on TV, as opposed to football. The average attendance at NHL games was double that of the WNBA (17,000 vs 8,500), setting a record for attendance.
Let’s not forget that ESPN has a vested interest in justifying their decision to drop the NHL by pointing out the mediocre ratings of hockey on OLN and NBC. NBC has countered that ratings are “in the ballpark” of what they expected and they will be profitable in year 1 of the deal. It’s a shame when these kind of statistics come out. When the casual fan sees these stories, they will think, “I guess the NHL is boring now… I’ll watch another rerun of Everybody Loves Raymond.” And that is how we lost Arrested Development.
Links:
[ESPN]: Great hockey, yes, but is anyone watching?
