Bulls & Bears: More eyes glued on NFL playoffs as TV ratings score big
Credit to Author: Paul Chapman| Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 21:42:37 +0000
The NFL may not be particularly gifted in its handling of social justice and domestic violence issues and it’s only recently emerged from its status as the “League of Denial” regarding brain injuries. But when it comes to television, nobody does it better.
That was reflected again this week as the NFL basked in the afterglow of its best wild-card weekend in four years. The four games averaged an audience of 30.5 million Americans and another 1.5 million in Canada. That was up seven per cent over last year in the United States and was the most-watched wild-card round since 2016.
The Canadian audiences on CTV, TSN and RDS were up 21 per cent over 2019.
The Houston Texans’ 22-19 AFC win over the Buffalo Bills drove an average of 26.4M Americans to ESPN, ABC and ESPN Desportes — up 14 per cent over last year and the best wild-card game for the cable giant since 2014.
The Tennessee Titans’ 20-13 upset win over the defending champion New England Patriots scored an average U.S. audience of 31.42M. That was up seven per cent year-over-year on the time slot and 23 per cent more than what CBS earned in 2019. The first NFC wild-card matchup between the Minnesota Vikings and New Orleans Saints attracted 30.8M to FOX and was the most-streamed NFL playoff game ever with just under one million watching on their smartphones, tablets and laptops.
Yet the most-watched game in both countries was arguably the least-entertaining of the four: Seattle-Philadelphia turned heads with a total audience delivery of 35.8M, including 35.1M on NBC and another 702K on NBC Sports Digital.
A peak audience of 38.5M in the latter stages of the fourth quarter made it the most-watched NFL game since last year’s Super Bowl.
Such a solid start — up five per cent over last year — bodes well for the NFL and its rightsholders in 2020. They’re seemingly on their way to their best television post-season in at least five years.
Take the NHL, bring on the NHL Players’ Association and then add in the International Ice Hockey Federation and the International Olympic Committee and it appears you have a deficit of inspired thinking.
The complete lack of leadership from any of them may keep the world’s best hockey players out of the Olympics for the second consecutive Winter Games.
That would be a bearish global marketing result for the NHL and the sport of hockey, especially given the vast majority of fans who crave best-on-best international competition and are pent up after the NHL forced the world’s best players to sit out at Pyeongchang 2018.
It was a notable dark hole after the NHL participated at Nagano 1998, Salt Lake City 2002, Torino 2006 and of course Vancouver 2010.
The IIHF has set a deadline for August of 2020 for the NHL to confirm its intentions for Beijing 2022. Yet it needs to do more. It needs to advocate on behalf of the NHL and help cut a deal that at least recognizes travel costs, insurance and a three-week break in the regular season.
Someone needs to pave the way to a creative solution, perhaps by at least giving the NHL the capacity to promote its own participation in Beijing on digital and video.
This time around, if no deal is reached, it will be more on the IOC and its failure to compromise than anyone.
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