NBC Scores With US-Canada Gold Medal Game

Via the NHL Twitter Feed...

NBC for Gold medal game averaged 27.6 million viewers, 15.2 rating and 30 share. Audience peak at 34.8 million viewers

...Sunday's game is the single most-watched hockey game in 30 years, highest since #TeamUSA & Finland in 1980.

In a perverse way this must bother Gary Bettman and the crew in NY and Toronto. Had the game been between Slovakia and Sweden, the numbers wouldn’t have been anything like this. That would have made it easier for him to sell the idea that shutting down the league for two weeks was a mistake that won’t be repeated in 4 years. Now the argument from outside will be, “Look at the numbers! Of course the NHL has to go to Sochi!”.

Let’s face facts…yesterday’s game was a perfect storm. An upstart and surprising US team against the world’s hockey powerhouse (on their own soil, er, ice) in a game that was broadcast live across the entire continent.

Again, imagine Sochi is not Vancouver but Turin (I refuse to say Torino unless we are talking about classic cars). In that case the game will feature Sweden and Finland with an 8 hour time difference. Bang up numbers in Stockholm, not so much in Peoria.

I don’t doubt that the NHL will go to Sochi, once Bettman and company extract their pound of flesh from the KHL but it won’t be a slam dunk and Vancouver won’t be a reason to do it either.

More importantly, what will the NHL be doing the rest of this season to capitalize on this high? How about trying to get Vs to carry tomorrow’s Sidney Crosby-Ryan Miller rematch and supporting it with a national print ad buy?

Nah, never happen.

Update: I just looked at the Vs. lineup this week. They have Flyers-Lightning and Devils Sharks tomorrow. More to the point they have Sabres-Caps on Wednesday and Penguins Rangers on Thursday. There's no way they could do Penguins and Sabres tomorrow as well.

Too bad but it's an odd quirk of scheduling fate.