NHL shows gains but NBA still wins 2010 television sweepstakes

Having game 5 of the NHL's 2010 Stanley Cup finals go up against game 2 of the NBA Finals Sunday night might have been unfortunate scheduling for both leagues and their fans but it did offer up a great chance to compare hockey apples with basketball oranges, so to speak, when it comes to television drawing power in North America.

Among the findings that stick with me are that NBA basketball is almost as popular among Americans as NHL hockey is to Canadians, at least when it comes to this spring's match-ups between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals and the Chicago Blackhawks and the Philadelphia Flyers in the Stanley Cup.

The head-to-head showdown showed that on a per capita basis, Canadians are this year 5.75 times as likely to watch Stanley Cup championship hockey than those living south of the border. It also demonstrated that Americans outwatch -- again per capita -- Canadians by 5.43 to 1 when it comes to NBA Finals basketball.

On this given Sunday, the NHL outscored the NBA on Canadian television by a 13:1 margin. In the U.S., however, the NBA beat the NHL by a ratio of 2.66:1 (approaching threefold). Hoops also won the continental battle by a margin of almost 60 per cent, with 16.0 million North Americans watching the Celtics beat the Lakers and 9.7 million tuning in to see Chicago move to within one game of its first Stanley Cup in 49 years (which the Blackhawks clinched in overtime tonight to win in six games).

The television scorecard Sunday looked like this...

                               NBA                              NHL
                               LA/Boston                                Chicago/Philadelphia
                               Game 2                                     Game 5


North America      16.0 million viewers         9.7 million viewers


United States        15.7 million viewers         5.9 million viewers
                              ESPN on ABC                             NBC

Canada                  291 thousand viewers     3.8 million viewers
                              TSN                                            CBC/RDS

The head-to-head comparison is particularly interesting in the U.S., where four of the top eight television markets in the country are directly engaged in the Stanley Cup and NBA Finals. This year's NHL and NBA championship series span the second-largest media market in the country, LA (5.7 million television households), #3 Chicago (3.5 million) and #4 Philadelphia (2.9 million), along with #8 Boston (2.4 million).

Sunday continued to show how heavily the NHL relies on the strength of its local markets when it comes to U.S. television ratings, with more than a third of those Americans tuning into Game 5 of the Stanley Cup final coming from either champion Chicago (where local market shares hit 40%) or Philly (almost 30%).

The New York Knicks and Chicago Bulls could theoretically drive larger combined local audiences if they found a way to return to the NBA Finals, but for ESPN on ABC, there is no stronger match-up in terms of national television interest than the NBA's two heritage brands, the Celtics and Lakers.

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Steve Nash is to Canadian basketball what Gretzky was to U.S. hockey

They’re both Canadian sports icons. One is arguably the best player in the history of the National Hockey League and the game’s greatest ambassador in the United States. The other the best Canadian basketball player ever produced and the game’s face in Canada.

Wayne Gretzky was heroic in Edmonton and Canada and became hockey’s big thing in the U.S. Steve Nash is a big deal in Phoenix and throughout the U.S. and is an even bigger deal here in Canada.

In team sport in particular and professional sport in general, they will go down in history as among our country’s greatest exports.

Who is the bigger export presents an interesting debate. One could suggest Gretzky has the edge because he skated in the large markets of Los Angeles and New York and defined Canada most because he played hockey.

Others would point to the bigger footprint held by basketball in the U.S. and give the nod to Nash, saying his talent has been showcased on the larger continental stage of the NBA.

What is clear is that the two Canadians have served as the single most important ambassadors in their respective sports in their generations; with Gretzky popularizing hockey in the U.S. and Nash making basketball more relevant in his own country.

Nash is the most famous face of the Phoenix Suns franchise and has become one of the highest-profile players in the NBA on the strength of two league MVP crowns and the kind of durability and excellence which has led his team to the western conference finals against Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers.

Nash and the Suns are in tough against Kobe and the Lakers, who appear destined to reach their third successive NBA Finals and set up a rematch of the 2008 championship round won by the Boston Celtics.

Yet none of that reduces the Nash factor in Canada when it comes to interest in the NBA. When he plays – both during the regular season and especially in these playoffs when the Suns have been a going concern – Canadians pay attention. And that goes for sports editors and sports directors as well as fans watching on television.

When he doesn’t, we don’t. The NBA has been fortunate to score 175,000 viewers on TSN during these playoffs and hoops on Canadian cable television rarely crosses the 250,000 audience threshold. With Nash on the small screen, however, the average Canadian audiences should climb to north of 400,000 if the Suns can make things interesting in Phoenix.

It’s the kind of personal brand appeal – one shaped in part by his on-court talent and leadership and in part by his record of community investment, charity work and social activism – that is all too rare these days in professional sport.

It’s the kind of appeal that makes a great template for Canadian athletes and athletes the world over in any team sport.

It’s the kind of appeal that makes you understand how important Steve Nash is to Canadian basketball and wonder what kind of transformational impact he would have had on the game in this country had he been acquired by the old Vancouver Grizzlies or the Toronto Raptors at any time in his career.

Now that’s fantasy basketball worth considering.

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NBA's LA Lakers continue to fire on all cylinders

On the court this National Basketball Association regular season, Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers continued their winning ways. Off the court, the drawing power of Bryant and the iconic Lakers brand was no less impressive.

That's why the defending champion Lakers top the first annual NBA Composite Power Rankings compiled for the 2009-'10 regular season by TheSportMarket.biz.

With appearances in the last two NBA Finals -- including last year's championship win over the Orlando Magic -- the Lakers are the best all-round professional basketball club on the planet on the strength of the composite power ranking which spans both basketball operations and business operations.

As is the case for the less-celebrated Vancouver Canucks of the National Hockey League (http://thesportmarket.blogspot.com/2010/04/vancouver-canucks-1-in-nhl-composite.html), the Lakers hold the best on and off court results of any franchise in the NBA during the 2009-'10 regular season. Third on the floor through 82 regular season games -- with a winning percentage of .695 -- and first at the box office, the Lakers score an overall performance index of 2.

That puts them #1 among the NBA's 30 clubs in the composite power rankings, which combine final regular season standings (the best way to guage of basketball operations performance across all lines of the game: management, coaching, scouting, sport medical, science and training support and player development personnel) with regular season box office clout (the leading indicator of business operations performance, with sponsorship, merchandise and broadcast sales typically built on attendance and ticket prices).

Powered by 41 virtual sellouts at the Staples Center (averaging 18,997 fans per game) and an average ticket price of $93.25 which is in a class of its own in the NBA, the Lakers edge out the two teams they're most likely to face in the 2010 NBA Finals and western conference finals, respectively; the second-ranked Cleveland Cavaliers and third-ranked Phoenix Suns.

With superstar Lebron James at the helm, the Cavs parlay a league-leading .744 on-court winning percentage and a sixth-ranked estimated box office of over $1.15 million US per home game into an overall performance index of 3.5. Phoenix saw its sellout streak of three plus seasons end last October, but the resurgent Suns have finished strong on the floor under veteran Canadian Steve Nash (fifth overall with a .659 winning percentage) and seventh in the league at the box office, averaging $1.13 million US per game. The Suns' overall performance index is 6.

Dwight Howard and the Magic are seeded to face the Cavs in the eastern final after another solid regular season in which they were second in the conference and second in the league. Yet their home in a small central Florida theme park market means they have to settle for an average ticket price of $40.30 US that is eighth lowest in the NBA and a box office that at $704 K US is about a third of what the Lakers take in at every home game (especially when one considers what the titlehoders make on their "Nicholsons", their VIP courtside seats at the Staples Center).

A new and bigger Amway Center next year will help the Magic move up the overall rankings but the Lakers are clearly well-established as the current league leaders across all aspects of the business of basketball, with a heritage brand, a superstar in Bryant and a winning team...not to mention a home in the second biggest media and television market in North America.

The full NBA Composite Power Rankings for 2009-'10 are available at www.Facebook.com/TheSportMarket.

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