From The Canadian Press:
The Red Wings’ 4-0 win on Saturday night had a 1.8 rating in the U.S. - drawing over 2.3 million viewers. The rating was the highest for an NHL game on Versus, topping the audience that watched the Penguins’ Game 2 victory over Philadelphia in this year’s Eastern Conference finals.
Only Lance Armstrong’s final ride in the 2005 Tour de France had a higher rating in Versus history (2.1).
Versus will show Game 2 of the finals on Monday night before the series shifts to NBC for the remaining games.
The Game 1 rating is a 157 per cent increase over last year’s opener and a 100 per cent rise from two years ago.
More, and to compare, Game 3 of Pistons and Celtics drew 4.3 Million viewers on network television. Wings-Pens drew 2.3 Million on a so-called little watched cable network.
Update 11:12 A.M. May 26th: Here’s more on Game 1’s ratings success.
More, and to compare, Game 3 of Pistons and Celtics drew 4.3 Million viewers on network television. Wings-Pens drew 2.3 Million on a so-called little watched cable network.
^well, little watched cable network or not, hockey fans knew the game was there so it’s obvious they tuned in. Plus, this was game 1 of the stanley cup finals. Pistons/Celtics series=conference finals. And despite this, the nba game still was the 2nd most watched program on broadcast and the most watched among 18-49 adults.
I think it would be more fair comparing the ratings of the stanley cup finals with the ratings of the NBA Finals. But that’s just my opinion.
Anyways, it’s good to see hockey ratings increasing.
Posted by Andrew from Somewhere on 05/26 at 12:07 AM