The appeal of outdoor hockey games seems to be wearing off a bit. This year’s Winter Classic delivered the lowest U.S. rating for that event (a 1.6), and that trend continued with Sunday’s Chicago Blackhawks – Minnesota Wild game, the centerpiece of NBC’s Hockey Day In America. As Paulsen writes at Sports Media Watch, the 1.2 Blackhawks-Wild pulled in is not only the lowest rating we’ve ever seen for an outdoor game on NBC (some of the Stadium Series games on NBCSN have drawn lower numbers). It’s also below what a comparable indoor Hockey Day in America game drew last year and below what every other network programmed Sunday:
The novelty of outdoor hockey is fading.
The Blackhawks/Wild NHL Stadium Series game, part of Hockey Day in America, earned a 1.2 overnight rating on NBC Sunday afternoon — down a tick from last year’s comparable indoor Bruins/Blackhawks matchup (1.3).
The 1.2 is the lowest yet for an outdoor NHL game on broadcast television (11 telecasts), falling below the previous low of 1.6 for a Rangers/Devils Stadium Series game in January 2014. The overall low comes on the heels of record-low numbers for the Winter Classic, which had a 1.8 overnight.
Minnesota’s blowout win was lost in the shuffle Sunday afternoon, ranking behind the Daytona 500 on FOX (6.1), PGA Tour on CBS (2.8) and NBA on ABC (2.7).
As discussed ahead of this year’s Winter Classic, there’s only a certain potential audience for even outdoor hockey, and some of that audience seems to be leaving now that outdoor hockey’s become so commonplace. Yes, there were only two outdoor games last year, and there are only three this year (as compared to the five in 2014, the first year of the Stadium Series), but we’ve now seen eight Winter Classics, six Stadium Series games and three Canadian Heritage Classics. That’s a lot of outdoor hockey, and that’s likely part of why outdoor games aren’t seen as so new and exciting any more.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman may have argued last summer that outdoor games are “far from being overdone or oversaturated,”and there does still seem to be plenty of appeal for fans able to attend these games in person. However, they’re not drawing much on the TV front any more. NBC Sports president of programming Jon Miller endorsed the league’s approach to outdoor games last year, but did say it was important not to saturate the market:
“The league’s done a terrific job with their special events team, led by Don Renzulli, to make this a great event. As long as you don’t overdo it, and you keep it to a manageable number, and you travel the games around to different venues, I think it’s a great opportunity for the NHL to continue to grow and showcase their product.”
As Paulsen notes, though, the ratings have been strongly declining for games aired on NBC itself. Through 2012, the five such games (all Winter Classics) pulled in ratings of 2.6, 2.9, 2.6, 2.8 and 2.4 respectively; the only other outdoor game in those years was a Heritage Classic in Calgary in 2011. Following the 2012-13 lockout, the Toronto-Detroit Winter Classic in 2014 drew a great 2.9, but every game on NBC since has pulled a 2.3 or less, with three drawing under a 2.0. That might make these outdoor games, especially the non-Winter Classic ones, less compelling for NBC itself, and may lead to more of them being shown on NBCSN. If the ratings keep dropping, too, the NHL may need to do less outdoor games going forward.
Of course, there are some other potential factors in this low rating beyond just outdoor game fatigue that should be considered. This game was a 6-1 blowout win for Minnesota, and they led 4-0 just over halfway through the second period, so some fans (and especially Blackhawks’ fans) may have turned it off early. The Wild also don’t play in one of the country’s biggest television markets (Minneapolis – Saint Paul is 15th nationwide), and while Minneapolis scored a 9.4 here (its best-ever rating for a regular-season NBC game), that wasn’t enough to boost the national rating.
Still, NBC was likely hoping for much better results than they got. We’ll see if the NHL Network/MLB Network cross-promotion ahead of this season’s final outdoor game, Saturday night (8 p.m. Eastern, NBC) between the Colorado Avalanche and the Detroit Red Wings at Denver’s Coors Field helps to boost the ratings. If they’re low again, the NHL and NBC might have to re-evaluate how many outdoor games they do and where they broadcast them.
