NHL Playoff games get worse ratings on cable than Alabama football spring game

Alabama football is of course madly important to the people of Alabama. Every game is treated as life and death, and the annual Crimson Tide red vs. white spring game is only a notch below that. Like most spring games at big football schools, it’s a preview of the seasons to come and a fill of the football fix fans have been missing. But on a national level, you would think, an intrasquad exhibition game does not really resonate.

The NHL Playoffs, on the other hand, are theoretically of continental interest, attractive to fans from Miami to Manitoba. In Gary Bettman’s perfect world, all of North America is watching hockey this time of year, while tweeting breathlessly about how great playoff hockey is.

So that makes this kind of embarrassing:

Not totally surprised, but Alabama spring game on ESPN on Saturday (0.6 overnight rating) topped all weekend NHL Playoff games on cable TV

— Austin Karp (@AustinKarp) April 18, 2016

So there are more people willing to watch an entirely meaningless college football scrimmage than the most important games of the hockey season. Does that mean there are more rabid fans of Alabama out there than fans of the NHL?

Well, maybe. But not necessarily.

For one thing, the Alabama spring game was on ESPN, whereas the NHL playoff games on cable were on NBCSN, CNBC, USA and NHL Network, none of which have ESPN reach or cache with sports fans. The hockey games broadcast on NBC did in fact beat the Alabama spring game.

Plus, the NHL Playoff ratings are being hurt by the league airing opening-round games on local TV in addition to national TV, as Greg Wyshynski explains:

Was the game blacked out in Alabama? Because NHL playoff games were in local markets, which drive national #s https://t.co/eiBW5GacGQ

— Greg Wyshynski (@wyshynski) April 18, 2016

LT: It's NHL's lot in life that local markets drive ratings. But two biggest series were on NBC, and PHI/WASH and SJ/LAK were blacked out.

— Greg Wyshynski (@wyshynski) April 18, 2016

So yeah, it's no surprise that an Alabama scrimmage beats playoff hockey when no one from local markets counts in national cable ratings.

— Greg Wyshynski (@wyshynski) April 18, 2016

“No surprise” seems like a stretch. If you’re a hockey fan or executive, you probably imagine the sport has a wide enough national following to beat a .6 rating with high-stakes playoff games. But local TV broadcasts are obviously a mitigating factor. So it turns out it’s not that no one wants to watch the NHL playoffs, it’s just that no one outside of local markets wants to watch the NHL Playoffs, which… still isn’t very good for the league.