My latest column for the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana examines the ratings from a weekend filled with big events and what they tell us about their respective sports.
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Fathers received quite a gift from the sporting Gods on their big weekend. Assuming they were allowed to do so (never a given with family responsibilities these days), they could have parked in their big recliners for more than 60-plus hours watching one top sporting event after another.
Happy Father’s Day, indeed.
The menu began with Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final on Friday night; continued with the third and fourth rounds of the U.S. Open on Saturday and Sunday; a steady diet of World Cup games; and concluded with the Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Sunday night. Throw in assorted baseball games and auto races, and you have quite a feast.
The big weekend also provides an opportunity to take a pulse on how the respective sports fared in the ratings, and where they rank with viewers these days.
U.S. Open: No Tiger in the tournament, no Phil in contention, no drama, no good for NBC. It is hard to imagine a worse-case scenario for the network than what occurred last weekend at Pinehurst: a German golfer who normally flies below the radar dominating with a 8-shot victory.
Sure, Martin Kaymer was a former No. 1 player in the world before sliding. But his star factor still is so low, he probably could have gone out to dinner at Pinehurst on Sunday night without getting recognized.
Predictably, NBC did a 3.3 overnight for the final round, down big time from the 6.1 the year before. The network deserved better for its final U.S. Open.
Once again, the tournament showed how much golf misses Tiger Woods. Even though he hasn’t won a major since 2008, more often than not, he usually is on the first page of the leaderboard on Sunday. The networks can count on him being in contention, which is considerable.
Get well soon, Tiger.
Stanley Cup Final: Too bad for NBC that this series lasted only five games. Fans wanted more with three of the games going to overtime or double overtime, as was the case for the finale on Friday night.
As expected, the ratings were down 9 percent from Chicago-Boston in 2013, which went six games and featured teams in two hockey-crazy towns. However, the 3.0 rating for the series was the fifth best for a Final since 1994. Obviously, it would have been even higher with more games.
Just as encouraging for the NHL were the ratings from Los Angeles. The Kings’ clincher did a 12.4 rating in LA. It’s a healthy number, giving indications that Southern Cal is starting to catch on to this hockey thing.
NBA Final: Like the NBC, ABC was hurt by having a short five-game series. However, unlike the Stanley Cup Final, the NBA Finals were impacted even more by three straight San Antonio blowouts. Did you see that coming, LeBron?
The series averaged a 9.3 rating and 15.5 million viewers per game. According to Sports Media Watch, it was the least-viewed NBA Finals since Lakers/Magic in 2009 (8.4 rating), and among the 10 lowest rated dating back to 1976.
The numbers probably are higher if it was James and glitzy Miami posting an impressive 4-1 romp in the series. For whatever reason, San Antonio and Tim Duncan still don’t register with sports viewers like they should for a team that has won five titles. It is their loss, because this truly is a team and player for the ages.
World Cup: The ESPN hype machine actually delivered once they actually started playing matches in Brazil. ESPN and Univision, which actually pulled in higher numbers, combined to average 7.5 million viewers per match over the weekend.
It set the stage for ESPN registering an extremely healthy 7.0 overnight rating for the U.S.-Ghana match on Monday night. It was a huge win for the Americans, and an even bigger one for ESPN, as interest figures to soar for their next match Sunday against Portugal.
Believe it: After all these years, soccer currently is the No. 1 sports story in the U.S.