NHL needs destination television in the U.S. for its Stanley Cup showcase

darrenrovell1: R-A-T-I-N-G-S. Spelling Bee beats game 4 of Stanley Cup Final -- 4M to 3.1M viewers (From sport business reporter Darren Rovell of CNBC June 7th on Twitter.com comparing Saturday's Scripps national spelling competition on ABC with Friday's NHL championship game on cable carrier Versus).

The National Hockey League would be well-served by a simple goal when it sits down to negotiate its next U.S. broadcasting contracts, either with current rightsholders NBC and Versus or some other combination of incumbents, newcomers or returning partners.

The "One Goal" -- to borrow the simple marketing slogan of the Chicago Blackhawks -- should be to ensure its Stanley Cup finals are carried by one network, from start to finish. Its priority should be to deliver destination television to better serve its existing fans and help lure new ones.

As it stands, the NHL is alone among the major professional sports leagues in North America in relegating even one game in its ultimate championship series to cable television alone.

Granted, the environment is changing and cable juggernauts such as ESPN are outbidding networks on a variety of fronts -- including varsity sports -- and they do so on the strength of dual revenue streams (advertising and subscription fees) and the quality of their all-sports audience demographics.

Yet only CBS, FOX and NBC are in the discussion for the NFL's conference championships and the game's greatest showcase, the Super Bowl. FOX is the exclusive custodian of Major League Baseball's classic, the World Series. The ESPN on ABC simulcast platform is locked in and a winner with the NBA Finals.

The Stanley Cup, however, does not have one consistent U.S. television home. In the current 2010 slugfest, NBC claimed games 1, 5, 6 and 7, while Versus picked up games 2, 3 and 4. It's a sharing formula they've used throughout the existing NHL rightsholder agreement, not only in the Stanley Cup showcase but throughout the post-season.

It is not the right solution for the NHL in the U.S. market and for the Stanley Cup as the game's marquee event.

A stronger rights deal in 2012 with NBC, one which engaged the network throughout the Stanley Cup final, would make the most sense (and while you're at it, graduating from the ranks of pure revenue-sharing into rights fees would be a worthy side goal with the Peacock network).

Getting another major network to take ownership of the league's championship series would be the next best bet. Failing those options, having a cable network designated as the go-to carrier of all seven games would be better than the current on-again, off-again relationship in which Stanley Cup final games literally bounce back and forth between network television on NBC and second-tier cable on Versus.

It is true that -- despite the baton approach used by NBC and Versus in passing games back and forth -- the Stanley Cup in particular and the 2010 playoffs in general is delivering to the NHL its best U.S. audiences in almost 15 years. Progress has been made, with even Versus declaring record ratings (topped off by Philadelphia's overtime win in game 3; the most-watched program in the cable network's young history).

That's the point. The product can finally say it deserves better. Much like its overall economic success despite the financial basketcases it carries in the U.S. sunbelt, the NHL needs to ask what could be with an even better roster of American broadcast partners on even better terms.

The most important contract condition is simple: destination television on one network for its Stanley Cup. That way, the sport's centrepiece will never again be O-U-T-D-R-A-W-N by Spelling Bee.

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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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Major League Soccer's Seattle Sounders FC ownership puts its money where its mouth is

From their inception and through their pre-operating period, opening season and well into their sophomore season in Major League Soccer, the Seattle Sounders FC have defined themselves as something special in North American professional sport.

Exhibit 1 is how they created an ownership group which blended the new (Hollywood producer Joe Roth, comedian and television star Drew Carey and former software mogul and financial titan Paul Allen) with the old (Adrian Hanauer, owner and operator of the incumbent USL Sounders). It gave the franchise seamless continuity with the city's USL soccer tradition and history while at the same time injecting it with economic, political and creative clout that is second to none in Major League Soccer.

Exhibit 2 is how they listened and responded to their constituents on the issue of the name and identity of the franchise. They abandoned their choice for a new name -- either Seattle FC, Seattle Alliance or Seattle Republic -- and embraced the clear favourite of Seattle soccer fans: the traditional Sounders FC designation.

Exhibit 3 is the democratic spin they've put on soccer operations management; a vehicle in which Sounders FC season ticket holders will have a voice in extending the initial contract of general manager Hanauer...or in voting for change.

Exhibit 4 is the authenticity of their fan experience; where Sounders shirts and scarves combine with band-led fan marches (Sound Wave) and other touches on match nights at Qwest Field to make it the closest thing to European soccer in North America.

Exhibit 5 is the most impressive marketing launch in North American expansion franchise history.

Exhibit 6 is an infrastructure provided by Allen's Vulcan Sports & Entertainment, the company which owns and operates the Seattle Seahawks of the NFL and markets and manages the Sounders FC.

Exhibit 7 is a dynamic community partnership between the Sounders FC and Washington State Youth Soccer.

The first-year results included a playoff berth as an expansion franchise and records in MLS attendance (north of 30,000 per game), sponsorship (including a five-year, $20 million shirt deal with Microsoft's Xbox 360), merchandising and regional television success. The second-year has picked up where the first ended, with crowds now eclipsing the 36,000-mark in an expanded seating manifest at Qwest Field.

Yet the ownership and management of the Seattle soccer club pushed the envelope to another level this week after the Sounders suffered an embarrassing 4-0 loss at home at the hands of the Los Angeles Galaxy. By Sunday morning, they had announced a one-game refund for all season ticket holders. It will come in the form of a credit against next year's season ticket charges.

It all came after one of the partners in the club looked around at his colleagues in the owners' suite and said if he was a fan, he'd want his money back.

Within 24 hours, Sounders FC season ticket holders had received word they would get the single-game credit as an acknowledgment of the sub-par team performance against the Galaxy and in appreciation of the support they had given the club since the announcement four years ago that MLS was coming to Seattle.

It was another example of the Sounders FC walking the walk and talking the talk. It was also quite simply a case of the team's ownership putting its money where its mouth is. Whether or not other ownership groups have the integrity to make similar moves in the months and years to come, the Sounders FC have made a resounding statement about the importance of season ticket holders to the most successful sport franchises.

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Vancouver 2010 a factor in strong television ratings for Stanley Cup playoffs

The parity that drove strong television ratings throughout the 2009-'10 National Hockey League regular season has found expression in the post-season, which included 49 games in the first round (with seven of eight series going at least six games).

Twelve overtime games helped produce great ratings for Versus and NBC south of the border and for TSN, RDS and CBC here in Canada.

The NHL numbers for round one of the 2010 Stanley Cup tournament still pale in comparison with those for the NBA on ESPN/ABC and TNT (about a third to a fifth of the size of the ratings sparked by Kobe and Lebron). Nonetheless, they represent solid growth for the NHL and give it much to crow about, especially with its U.S. broadcast partners and league-wide corporate sponsors.

NBC is up 18 per cent over 2009, to an average first-round viewership of 1.430 million and a rating of 1.1. Versus has seen a 35% spike in viewers, with a first-round average of 595,000. That's the most the NHL has gleaned on U.S. cable television since ESPN/ESPN2 drove 608,000 in 2001. The combined average of 742,000 is the most since ABC/ESPN/ESPN2 scored 750,000 in 2000. In addition, the various U.S. regional rights holders who simulcast alongside the national carriers have hit record numbers in 2010.

In Canada, where hockey and hockey television are kings, the CBC's Hockey Night in Canada is up 49% over last year and is riding its highest numbers since 2004, when a Vancouver-Calgary first-round seven-game series caused a television buzz. TSN is up 89% (growing from 567K in 2009 to 1.07 M in 2010). RDS is going wild on the wave of the Montreal Canadiens.

The numbers are up in part because of the parity and the overall strength of the markets involved in the first and second rounds. They are also higher because of the new Personal People Meter (PPM) measurement system deployed for the first time last fall (which most analysts suggest is responsible for a bump of up to 20%).

Yet make no mistake about another big factor in these terrific television ratings for the NHL: Vancouver 2010.

In Canada in particular, the Olympic Winter Games were a storyline for NHL fans since the Canadian team's training camp last fall. There was massive media and fan interest in the unveiling of the Team Canada jersey in October and in the announcement of the roster over Christmas. It just built from there and created the largest television numbers -- for sports and overall -- during Vancouver 2010.

Featuring the best players in the world on their respective national teams, the Olympics engaged NHL aficionados, brought back some old fans and attracted new viewers. That's true in both Canada and the United States, the two countries which squared off in a memorable overtime finale won by Sidney Crosby February 28th.

More than two months later, the afterglow of Vancouver 2010 is a contributing factor in this great TV run the NHL is enjoying in both Canada and the U.S. during its Stanley Cup showcase. And that is something NHL commissioner Gary Bettman should consider as he ponders Sochi 2014.

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The NHL on television in 2009-'10: Canadian Bulls and Southern U.S. Bears

When more Canadians watch the NHL Draft Lottery on TSN (an average national audience of 556,000 this year) than Americans watch actual live game action during the regular season on Versus (averaging 297,000 in 2009-'10), it puts into perspective how the National Hockey League in general and NHL television in particular is a tale of two countries.

The NHL and the NHL on TV is hot in Canada. Not so much in the U.S., especially the further south you go.

Depending on how you look at it, Canadians are 10 to 20 times more likely to watch the NHL on TV than our American friends to the south. In a market 10 times the size of Canada, the NHL averages 1.6 million viewers on NBC during the regular season, less than the early game average of 1.8 million CBC drives through its Hockey Night in Canada franchise. Similarly, TSN (714,000) outperforms Versus (297,000) on cable, more than two-to-one in absolute terms and more than 20:1 per capita.

There's no better picture, however, of how different a proposition the NHL is in Canada compared to the U.S. than in the local and regional television ratings of the league's 30 clubs. Despite some good gains in the era of the NHL Winter Classic on NBC, the U.S. market is still a tough nut to crack for the NHL. If Canada is a rampaging bull market for NHL hockey -- which it is -- then the southern U.S. is a lame bear.

It's all mapped out in this week's Helijet Top Ten Bull Pen at http://www.thesportmarket.biz/ and www.Facebook.com/TheSportMarket (which lists the Top Ten, Middle Ten and Bottom Ten NHL television markets).

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We'll let the listing of regional television audiences in the NHL speak for itself. What we will do is give you our Top Ten takes on where the NHL is at in television in Canada compared to the U.S.:

10 - The top four television markets in the NHL during the 2009-'10 regular season were Canada's four largest media markets: Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary. They all trumped larger U.S. designated market areas such as New York, Los Angeles and Chicago;

9 - Six of the top nine regional television audiences in the NHL were held by Canada's six NHL franchises;

8 - The hottest U.S. NHL television market is Pittsburgh, home of Sidney Crosby and the defending champion Penguins. Fox Sportsnet Pittsburgh this year drove 93,000 households and 214,100 viewers per regular season game. Next in line are the fast-rising Chicago Blackhawks on Comcast Sportsnet and WGN TV (196,800 viewers per game) and the seemingly perennial Stanley Cup-contending Detroit Red Wings (186,500);

7 - There's parity on the ice but not in television ratings: the NHL's big three when it comes to regional television numbers -- Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs and Vancouver Canucks -- have larger audiences than the next 10 clubs combined (1,742,900 to 1,673,700);

6 - The Canadian regional television average audience is 383,167, which is more than two-and-a-half times the NHL average of 141,040 and almost five times the U.S. regional average of 80,508;

5 - The NHL's so-called Original Six franchises (Montreal, Toronto, Boston, New York, Detroit and Chicago) average 313,333 viewers per regional telecast. The last six NHL expansions average 34,583. The last six relocated franchises average 78,233 (but that drops to an average of 49,620 when you take out Calgary);

4 - The average Canadian NHL television market is more than 10 times stronger than the average U.S. sun belt TV market. And that's in absolute terms (383K to 34K);

3 - Canada's six NHL franchises draw more regional television viewers than all 24 U.S. clubs combined (2,299,000 cumulative in Canada compared to 1,932,200 aggregate in the U.S.). In fact, the top four Canadian teams (Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary) do that with 1,964,200 combined;

2 - It takes the NHL's bottom 11 television markets (cumulatively representing average viewership of 376,500 per game) to come close to matching the Vancouver Canucks' team average of 398,500 on Rogers Sportsnet Pacific. You have to add five more NHL clubs -- for a total of 16 or more than half of the league -- to rival the 650K plus regional averages of Toronto and Montreal (with the asterix that the Canadiens' regional rightsholder is RDS, a French-language national cable carrier);

1 - The Florida Panthers, playing before the smallest TV audiences in the NHL, have to log 49 regionally-televised games (1.2 seasons of home games or more than a half-season of total games) to match what the Toronto Maple Leafs or Montreal Canadiens each draw in ONE game.

When you rate the NHL's other bear TV markets (Atlanta, where it takes 36 Thrasher telecasts to equal one Habs game, or Tampa, Nashville or Raleigh, where it takes those teams 26 games to match the Leafs, or Phoenix, 25 games), it paints a picture that at some point the league will have to address: its southern U.S. plan in general and sunbelt strategy in particular.

When less people are watching your product on television than they are in-arena -- which is the case in Miami -- you have a fundamental problem. Not enough people care.

That's not the problem everywhere in the U.S., of course. It's not so much the issue in southern California, at least when the Ducks and Kings are winning. It's not a problem in the northern U.S. markets.  And, it's certainly not a challenge in Canada, where we drink the NHL on televison like we do beer.

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Contrasting family storylines pump up Masters television ratings in U.S. and Canada

A final round 67 gave Phil Mickelson his third Masters title and fourth major championship Sunday at the Masters at Augusta National. It also gave the iconic tournament one of the more interesting photo finishes in the world of sport in 2010.

Images of Mickelson embracing his wife Amy in a joyous yet tearful hug Sunday went worldwide on television, internet and print at the conclusion of the Masters, which was Mickelson's first major in four years. The photograph was worth at least the proverbial thousand words given the battle Amy is fighting against breast cancer and how the illness has shaped much of what her golfer husband has done or not done on the PGA Tour over the past year.

It was an emotional moment for Lefty and his family.

It also couldn't have painted a starker contrast between Mickelson as a poster boy husband and his rival Tiger Woods, who used the Masters to return to the PGA Tour after a five-month absence triggered by his bizarre car accident November 27th, 2009 and the sex scandal that followed.

The juxtaposition of Mickelson against Woods was not lost in all of the buzz surrounding Tiger's much-anticipated comeback.

The two diametrically-opposed storylines were one of the reasons why the 2010 Masters became the third most-watched golf event in U.S. television ratings history. At a rating of 12 and a share of 25, this year's tournament ranked behind only Woods' first Masters win in 1997 (15.8 and 32) and his second title at Augusta in 2001 (12.9 and 27). Not only did the television numbers grow by 36% over 2009 on CBS in the United States, they were up 74% on Global Television in Canada, with 1.8 million Canadians watching Sunday's final round.

Numbers like that and a 43% increase on ESPN in the U.S. and audience numbers on TSN in Canada that were 76% north of the previous Masters record do not happen on the strength of hard core golf fans alone. They are fueled by so-called "soft users", ranging from sports fans who only watch headline-making golf to non-sports fans drawn by other factors (in this case the comeback of Woods and the compelling family story surrounding Mickelson).

For all the anxiety felt inside the golf industry over the past few months as its cash cow struggled through a messy media firestorm and messier public relations, could it be that the Woods scandal will only prove to be a boost for the PGA Tour?

Is it possible that the bubble bursting on the public image of Tiger Woods will have many of us finding both him and his major rivals on the tour more interesting than we did a year ago, rather than less compelling?

The early returns on the television ratings for the 2010 Masters, along with the record internet page views and online traffic around the tournament, appear to suggest exactly that.

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Impact of Vancouver 2010 on U.S. television: Less watching TNT and FOX and more watching NBC

The NBA All-Star Game made the most of its venue opportunity and, with 108,713 at Cowboys Stadium last Sunday, set an all-time record for basketball game attendance.

The new $1.6 billion US stadium was as big a star in the proceedings as were Lebron James and Kobe Bryant. The buzz around the stadium and its capacity to set the attendance record heightened media coverage in the U.S. and sponsorship activation hype around the NBA's fan festival in Arlington, Texas.

Expect more of the Mark Cuban-inspired outdoor NBA All-Star games in 2013 and beyond at places like Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Reliant Stadium in Houston and University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.

Those are the positives. The downside for the 2010 NBA All-Star game was a 4.4 cable rating with 6.9 million viewers of the game on TNT in the U.S., a television audience decline of 15.4 percent from last year’s 5.2 rating and 7.6 million viewers.

Yet no one should look at that drop in ratings as a reflection of long-term concern for the NBA and its All-Star format. The equally-iconic Daytona 500 had an even larger drop of 16 per cent over last year on FOX.

TNT and FOX had less people watching their sports properties last weekend because NBC -- and its cable platforms -- had more. That's because NBC is carrying the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games in the U.S. and every four years, competing networks programming in February have to grin and bear the television magnet that is the Winter Olympics.

More than 152 million Americans have watched at least some part of Vancouver 2010 in the first week of the Games on NBC's networks; the most since the Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan drama drew millions of non-sports fans to Lillehammer 1994. Last night's figure skating gold drew an average American audience of 24.8 million and a cumulative tally of 77 million viewers -- both well higher than Turin 2006.

The night before, NBC rode Shaun White's snowboarding gold to knock off American Idol, scoring 12 million more viewers than the FOX juggernaut, which typically rules Wednesday nights in the U.S. Last Friday's opening ceremonies kicked things off big time for NBC with an average audience of 32.6 million in the U.S.

NBC has done well and will continue to drive strong ratings around Vancouver 2010 because (a) they are happening in the North American time zone; (b) they are effectively cross-promoting their coverage across multiple platforms and on all three screens; (c) the economy is keeping more people at home in front of their televisions; (d) as is the cold winter weather throughout much of the U.S.; and, most important, (e) American athletes are hot, off to a great start and the U.S. team tops the medal podium at the midway mark of the Games.

Nothing drives interest and national television audiences -- especially for Americans -- like success.

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