NHL First round playoffs are making media milestones up here

[leaffan]

http://www.marketingmag.ca/news/marketer-news/nhl%E2%80%99s-first-round-playoffs-make-media-milestones-26801

Looks like the NHL is slowly starting to come out of its low ratings hell.

Interest points:

The Chicago-Vancouver Game 7 went into overtime and earned 3.827 million viewers—the second-highest audience for a first-round game in 11 years.

And on the American channel Versus, the channel scored the highest U.S. cable viewership for the first round in 17 years. Broadcasts averaged 624,000 viewers, an 8% increase from the first round last year (595,000)

This part here really bodes well for the NBC purchase:

NBC also enjoyed its highest opening-round audiences in seven years. It averaged 1.9 million viewers for its four games, a 12% jump from last year. The most-watched NHL non-conference final game in the U.S. in 12 years was the Game 6 Philadelphia-Buffalo broadcast. It averaged 2.57 million viewers, a whopping 44% over the comparable Phoenix-Detroit telecast last year, which earned 1.78 million. NBC and the NHL just announced a new 10-year broadcast deal two weeks ago.

With the NBA playoffs really shitting the bed this year and the NHL first round this year being regarded as one of the best ever, things are finally starting to kick for the ol game.

[Woy]

Glad to hear. All these series have been great.

[kmanharris]

Good. NHL>NBA