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Gold Cup final destroys Stanley Cup in ratings

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by kingcreole, Jun 26, 2007.

  1. kingcreole

    kingcreole Active Member

    And just think, the Gold Cup final ratings didn't include the Fox Soccer telecast. Does this say more about the rise of soccer in this country or the decline of hockey? I'd say the latter.

    ^BC-SOC--Gold Cup Ratings,0184

    ^41 percent more households tuned into Gold Cup final than Stanley Cup final

    NEW YORK (AP) — The CONCACAF Gold Cup final attracted 41 percent more televi-sion households in the United States than the Stanley Cup finals clincher — and that was just for the soccer game's Spanish-language telecast.
    The United States' 2-1 come-from-behind victory over Mexico on Sunday received a 2.5 fast national rating on Univision, the network said Tuesday. That translates to 2.83 million households, nearly double the 1.48 million homes that watched the 2005 Gold Cup final between the United States and Panama.
    This year's English-language telecast was on the Fox Soccer Channel, which is available in about 30 million homes and is not rated.
    Anaheim's series-ending 6-2 victory over Ottawa in the Stanley Cup on June 6 received a 1.8 rating on NBC, which comes to 2,005,000 households.
    The rating is the percentage watching a telecast among all homes with televi-sions, and a ratings point represents 1,114,000 households.
     
  2. This is headed in the direction of Not Well.
     
  3. novelist_wannabe

    novelist_wannabe Well-Known Member

    The guy from the UK who wants to come here to cover soccer is smiling from ear to ear, I'm sure
     
  4. kingcreole

    kingcreole Active Member

    I used to be a huge hockey fan. Huge. My favorite Nintendo/Sega/PlayStation games were hockey and I'd play them religiously. I knew every starter on every team and many others. Jeremy Roenick was my idol. And I grew up in Kansas City, where the NHL has not been around in my lifetime. Now, during my hockey glory years, the San Jose Sharks' top affiliate was in Kansas City, and I saw guys like Arturs Irbe, Kip Miller, Wade Flaherty and my favorite Dody Wood play, and it was incredible seeing guys like them.

    Once the strike hit, my interest in hockey immediately went to zero and it has never climbed.
     
  5. Pastor

    Pastor Active Member


    I doubt the numbers have much to do with the strike. Certainly, the strike didn't help, but that isn't the only reason why the NHL's ratings are lower than a Spanish language feed for a soccer game.

    I will also point out that the ratings may have been even higher if the channel was as available as NBC and the FSC numbers were counted.
     
  6. buckweaver

    buckweaver Active Member

    I never understood the mentality of people who completely abandoned baseball after 1994, and I don't understand the people who have completely abandoned hockey after 2005.

    What the hell changed about the game that made you turn off? Did you suddenly figure out that it was, gasp, all about money, just like everything else in the world? :eek:

    Personally, I'm interested in the games, and the players who play them. Although I certainly can't ignore them, I couldn't care less about the TV numbers, the salary numbers or the marketing numbers. I know they're always going to affect the game on the field in different ways, but I don't see why they should diminish my interest in the game on the field.
     
  7. kingcreole

    kingcreole Active Member

    It's hard to say buck when it comes to my immediate disinterest in hockey. I didn't live near a city that had hockey for more than four years, but even as my interest waned, I still enjoyed watching a game on the tube. I still followed hockey. But after the strike, I can't explain it. Maybe it's because after the baseball strike, I still lived in Kansas City and could go to Royals games with my buddies for fairly cheap. And I played the game growing up. I never played hockey and after the strike, there was no way for me to reconnect with the game. I just don't have a desire to do it either. There is a nearby city with minor league hockey, and I enjoy going to those games when I have time, but my interest in the NHL is nil.
     
  8. buckweaver

    buckweaver Active Member

    Well, it's different for everyone, creole. I grew up in Atlanta -- we didn't have the NHL again until 1999, and I never went to any Knights games before then, either. So maybe I was starved for hockey so much that nothing could shake it once I had a chance to actually see NHL teams come to town (because the Thrashers sure weren't worth seeing then :D.)

    During the strike year, we had an ECHL team nearby and I went to a few of their games (and, on the clock, wrote the obligatory "hey, hockey's not dead" feature on the local minor league team).

    Now I'm in SoCal, and the Ducks are close by -- and Stanley Cup contenders, now champs. Makes it easy to be interested. And I've gone over to L.A. to see 2 or 3 Kings games, too.

    So I guess I never really had a chance for my hockey interest to wane.
     
  9. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    I'll bet the 2 a.m. infomercial on Comedy Central got better ratings...
     
  10. Boomer7

    Boomer7 Active Member

    Both. The combined ratings (i.e. ABC and Univision) for the World Cup final last year were higher than the ABC ratings for any game of the Miami-Dallas NBA final (link below). There's a massive market for soccer in this country; it's just that the Mexican League and English Premier League are (significantly) more popular than the domestic league, MLS. And MLS continues to grow and improve its quality, it will slowly gain more support from the majority of American soccer fans who don't take the league that seriously now.

    But the bigger issue is the NHL's shrinking role on the U.S. sports scene. The league expanded by nearly 50 percent in the last 16 years (with a primary purpose being to extend the league's footprint throughout the U.S.), yet the league is less relevant than it was before the San Jose Sharks were a gleam in the Gunds' eyes. The low scoring of the mid-90s/early-00s hurt, as did the lockout, the rise in ticket prices, the Versus move and all the rest, but I don't think any of those reasons sufficiently explain it. Even in "hockey towns" like Detroit and Boston, the game seems to have been niche-ified -- sort of like soccer is. There are enough fans in every city (even the Southern ones) to pull in five-digit attendance figures every night, but it's not a sport the mainstream pays attention to anymore. I don't understand it, because I think it's a much better product than the NBA (especially post-lockout), but that's the reality.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/11/sports/soccer/11sandomir.html?ex=1183003200&en=326faae6ceccc90c&ei=5070)
     
  11. BTExpress

    BTExpress Well-Known Member

    Obviously it triggers different emotions in different people.

    But there are just some things that push it off the edge, so to speak. And it's hard to actually describe what happens in the mind. I was sitting in a freezing Veterans Stadium during the 1993 World Series watching Mitch Williams throw gasoline on the fire and cursing his very existence.

    After 1994 . . . I just stopped caring. I can't say with 100 percent certainty that the debacle of that season had 100 percent to do with it, but for whatever reason . . . I just stopped caring.

    It's like someone that (finally) decides to divorce a philandering spouse. What pushed her over the edge? What suddenly changed about the guy? He's always been like that. Eventually, in a person's mind, enough is enough. And what's enough to one person isn't to someone else.

    I understand a spring training lockout. I understand striking for a few games.

    But calling off the last two months of a season and the World Series?

    Over the edge, IMO. Goes far beyond simple greed. That pretty much goes from inconveniencing the fans to giving them a "Fuck you to the 100th power."

    As far as I'm concerned, baseball has a six-month offseason to construct a labor agreement. Players and owners each have the ability to delay the start of a season should the negotiations (surprise) drag on.

    Once the season starts, however, there is an implied contract to finish it, IMO. This isn't a TV series that you can just pull the plug on if the ratings suck.
     
  12. JR

    JR Well-Known Member

    If we're going to have a discussion about hockey, let's at least get the facts straight.

    It was a lockout, not a strike.

    And this is just further proof that Bettman should be canned and they should relocate at least three franchises back to where people give a shit about the game.
     
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