Z-Man Posted February 24, 2014 Share Posted February 24, 2014 (edited) https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2014/02/24/Media/NHL-ratings.aspx It's a subscriber only article, but here are some numbers tweeted by Chris Botta: NHL US top 5 average TV ratings this season: Penguins 7.67 Sabres 5.45 Bruins 5.06 Blackhawks 4.49 Blues 3.95 Bottom 5: Isles 0.41 Kings 0.37 Panthers 0.24 Ducks 0.23 Devils 0.16 Metro area teams (in households per game): Rangers 93,000 (up 27k from last year) Flyers 56,000 (down 43k from last year) Isles 31,000 (up 15k from last year, 2nd largest ratings jump in the NHL) Devils 12,000 (down 9k from last year) For what it's worth, Columbus has a higher rating (smaller market), but only average 6,000 households per game. I never would've thought the Isles had almost 3x as many households viewing their games than the Devils. Understandable that the Devils get bumped to MSG+2 so often. Edited February 24, 2014 by Z-Man Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadDog2020 Posted February 24, 2014 Share Posted February 24, 2014 Meh, doesn't mean a whole lot. The Devils ratings have always sucked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmann422 Posted February 24, 2014 Share Posted February 24, 2014 Do these include subscription services like center ice and gamecenter? I doubt it and it probably wouldn't make a difference but just wondering... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
devilsrule33 Posted February 24, 2014 Share Posted February 24, 2014 Meh, doesn't mean a whole lot. The Devils ratings have always sucked. A 9000 drop in one year is pretty brutal. The number certainly means something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoArmySports Posted February 24, 2014 Share Posted February 24, 2014 How is Buffalo ahead of Toronto? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Z-Man Posted February 24, 2014 Author Share Posted February 24, 2014 Do these include subscription services like center ice and gamecenter? I doubt it and it probably wouldn't make a difference but just wondering... Nope. This is strictly ratings based on viewers in that specific market. Market size does kill the Devils rating though. 12,000 views for NJ in a 7.4 million market = 0.16 6,000 views for CBJ in a 928k market = 0.64 That's also why the two LA teams have lower ratings = huge markets. 12,000 views per game is still a lot lower than I thought they'd have. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derlique Posted February 24, 2014 Share Posted February 24, 2014 I really find it hard to believe NJ is behind Phoenix and Florida in t.v.ratings Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Z-Man Posted February 24, 2014 Author Share Posted February 24, 2014 How is Buffalo ahead of Toronto? I think this is just US markets. Sorry, the numbering in the original post may have been misleading. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2ELIAS6 Posted February 24, 2014 Share Posted February 24, 2014 rating have never been great im sure.. we dont have such a large fan base..and no one wants to watch a team that doesnt perform..this season has been a mess back and forth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Z-Man Posted February 24, 2014 Author Share Posted February 24, 2014 I really find it hard to believe NJ is behind Phoenix and Florida in t.v.ratings It's all due to market share. Florida averages only 4,000 viewers per game, but the Miami market has 6 million fewer TV homes. Thus the "ratings" are higher. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devils731 Posted February 24, 2014 Share Posted February 24, 2014 Devils ratings seem to fluctuate wildly, making me believe the ratings system doesn't work well to measure this instance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DevsMan84 Posted February 24, 2014 Share Posted February 24, 2014 Man those viewing parties are killing the Devils ratings! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin226 Posted February 24, 2014 Share Posted February 24, 2014 (edited) Ok first off people let's get this straight, the only thing that matters is actual viewers.. As pointed out above, the Blue Jackets have a better "rating" than we do, but we have more actual viewers (households) watching per night, which is the real thing that advertisers and sponsors care about.. So our small ratings number means nothing in comparison to other markets.. In 2010, we had a 0.58 rating while Buffalo had a 6.45 rating.. That said, it equated to us having 43,000 viewers per game while Buffalo had 41,000 per game.. So you need to understand that first.. I'll also point out that in 2010 we had more average viewers per game than any other US team outside of the Original 6, Philly, and Pittsburgh.. So that year, more people were watching Devils games in a market with 2 other teams than were watching Buffalo, Minnesota, Washington, LA, San Jose, St. Louis, etc.. So we know we basically know that, in our market, success and having an exciting team are key for us ******** Posted this on HF but I'm not putting full stock in what Botta is reporting.. First off, his number of 21,000 average viewers last season is flat out wrong so it hurts the validity of his numbers.. According to MSG, we averaged just over 34,000 households because of our 0.47 ratings in the NY market (7.3 million households).. So yeah he's already off based on what we know for sure To my knowledge, MSG hasn't put out a release on this season's current numbers yet, so I'm waiting for that to confirm or deny.. Sure this team is flat and not a draw, but 12,000 is a massive decline if true.. And let's remember, the folks selected to be part of Nielsen are chose at random, so there's always a chance that fewer Devils fans are randomly selected to participate in a given year.. Add in that we are in a split market, so whereas in any other market besides LA they only really follow 1 NHL team so anyone selected will probably watch a Hawks game, in our market they could theoretically pick all Devils fans and suddenly we kill the Rangers in the ratings Edited February 24, 2014 by Colin226 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
montec24 Posted February 24, 2014 Share Posted February 24, 2014 Back in 2010, the Devils were ranked 17th by ratings but were actually 7th in terms of households watching per night. (Source: http://puckthemedia.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/your-final-nhl-local-tv-ratings-and-viewership-rankings-in-the-us/). Dead last in ratings doesn't mean we're dead last in households watching our games every night. The drop is pretty bad though, but unlike Buffalo our team's ratings are dependent on how the team is performing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
95Crash Posted February 24, 2014 Share Posted February 24, 2014 I blame Gionta and Salvador. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devilsfan118 Posted February 24, 2014 Share Posted February 24, 2014 I'm sure numbers these can be spun in different ways (as a few posters here have shown), but a general decrease in viewership doesn't surprise me at all. The NHL is an entertainment business...and the Devils are a pretty horribly boring team this year. I can't imagine casual fans watching a non-rival Devils game on a given night to be honest. And it's sure as hell not like fans in other markets are tuning in to to watch the Devils if their team isn't playing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
devlman Posted February 24, 2014 Share Posted February 24, 2014 Meh, doesn't mean a whole lot. The Devils ratings have always sucked. Not really. In the late 2000's our local ratings were quite good from what I remember. We had an all-time high for the club around then and werent too far behind the Rags actually. As for these numbers, and any other numbers good or bad, Measuring tv ratings is not an exact science. I'm always skeptical of them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheardjr Posted February 24, 2014 Share Posted February 24, 2014 I'm sure the ratings are effected by the fact that you can't even find the game on TV half the time. Half of the games are on some obscure channel in 1984 low def, can;t even see the puck in the blur. I have cablevision in Morris County and they plain suck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muevelos Posted February 24, 2014 Share Posted February 24, 2014 How does Anaheim have so much trouble selling tickets and TV ratings with how good they are? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmy Leeds Posted February 24, 2014 Share Posted February 24, 2014 I gotta stop watching the Rag$ games and rooting for their opponent that night. Apparently it hurts the Devs!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
'7' Posted February 24, 2014 Share Posted February 24, 2014 (edited) that's insanely low. Even for us Isles seem unusually high household wise. Coming off a playoff season...still they've stunk worse than us this year Flyers had a gigantic drop as well Edited February 24, 2014 by '7' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HellOnICE Posted February 24, 2014 Share Posted February 24, 2014 12,000 sounds too low. It's a crazy number. But who knows. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capo Posted February 25, 2014 Share Posted February 25, 2014 I don't know how much it factors in but I've been blacked out a ton this year... I would say that it has something to do with the increase. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Brown Posted February 25, 2014 Share Posted February 25, 2014 Ratings are overrated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Triumph Posted February 25, 2014 Share Posted February 25, 2014 (edited) Devils ratings seem to fluctuate wildly, making me believe the ratings system doesn't work well to measure this instance. Yeah, this is the first thing I thought when I saw these numbers. If many teams in the NHL are gaining 50%+ and losing 50%+ year to year, I don't think these numbers are particularly meaningful. I mean the implication is that there are fewer people watching on TV than at the games. That's insane to me. Edited February 25, 2014 by Triumph 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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