ARE YOU READY FOR THE GUELPH COYOTES?

BEAUTIFUL DOWNTOWN GUELPH, ONTARIO (POPULATION 114,943)

The sport of hockey continues its march towards doom and irrelevancy as a major professional sport. Yesterday, the Phoenix Coyotes filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The team is reportedly heading back to Canada (they used to be the Winnepeg Jets.) The Coyotes will probably play next season somewhere in “Southern Ontario.” The city of Guelph is being reported as a possible destination. Seriously.

Last year’s Game Three of the Ottawa/Anaheim series on NBC received the lowest rating any television program has ever received in the history of primetime network tv. Think of THAT! Of all of the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of television shows ever aired IN HISTORY, hockey has the worst ratings of ANYTHING. And, there has been a lot of crap on television!

Don’t think that number was a one-time fluke. This year’s ratings are actually down from last season’s horrific numbers. The NHL has been in the zeros in its weekend tv ratings on NBC this year. Meanwhile, professional basketball has received record high ratings. This year’s first round of the NBA playoffs were the most-watched in history. Saturday’s Game 7 between the Boston Celtics and the Chicago Bulls was the highest rated first round playoff game ever on cable.

 

HORRIFIC NHL TV RATINGS

 

Television ratings for the National Hockey League continue at an unsustainable low. Last week’s Flyers/Penguins game drew a laughable 0,8 share. That was no fluke. A 0.8 rating is what the last three NHL games on NBC have drawn. Last year an NHL game actually drew the lowest ratings of any network program ever televised in the history of this country.

In fact, if you take away the novelty factor of the outdoor “Winter Classic” game, only one hockey game in the last three years has ever gotten a 1.0 share. That means the NHL can virtually never attract only 1% of the people in this country to their propduct. (By comparison NHL ratings are about 1/4 th of the WNBA’s.)

That makes hockey not just the lowest rated sport in television history, but the lowest rated PROGRAMMING. Ever.