I just got off the phone with Schuyler Baehman, the NHL’s manager of communications, after seeing his Tweet about Comcast Sportsnet (CSN) grabbing a 7.82 rating last night for Game 6, its highest ever for a Blackhawks game.
It was reported last week that CSN averaged a 4.52 rating for the first round of the playoffs. Funny how that number dropped to 2.37 when 25 percent of the market couldn’t get the game because of the exclusive broadcasting deal given to Versus and their cable provider, Wide Open West, not carrying that channel.
The Blackhawks may have been up against the Bulls in their triple-overtime thriller that night, but I can’t imagine that rating will be a whole lot higher with as many people that are out there who can’t pull in the games because of this broadcasting deal and them having the wrong cable provider.
Versus also apparently thought that Game 5 of the Blackhawks/Canucks series was important enough to patch into CSN’s local feed and broadcast the game nationally. Yet as of now, it won’t reverse that for WOW customers who are screwed out of the Conference Finals.
This whole scenario is out of the Blackhawks’ hands as an organization. Dale Tallon, John McDonough and Rocky Wirtz have done their part to put together a winning product that has brought back an interest in hockey to Chicago in a big way. Their product—the youngest team in the league—went from second-to-last in attendance in 2007 to leading the league this year, and is now eight wins away from hoisting Lord Stanley’s Cup.
The guys in the front offices and on the ice can’t tell a cable provider what channel to carry, and they can’t tell the NHL what networks to enter broadcasting agreements with.
But the ratings numbers don’t lie. If the NHL is serious about potentially securing lifelong fans of the game who either don’t know about or will likely forget about what happened in 2004-05, it’s time for the league to step up to the plate and work with Wide Open West and Versus to get the 25 percent of the Chicagoland market being left in the dark some televised playoff hockey.
