The Friday Memo (TV Ratings Galore)

News and Notes from around the Business World of Hockey.

- Wednesday Nights TV Ratings for all the games (Puck The Media). Let's just say, we're off to a good start.

- Last night was nearly as good with Boston pulling a 9.4 rating on NESN (Puck The Media).

- Versus is also experiencing a playoff jump as well (Sports Media Watch).

- Finally, some interesting information coming out about the Sabres (Buffalo Business First):

"DiPofi said the Sabres sold 765,229 tickets this season.

Based on media information distributed by the team, however, it appears the ticket count was 741,547. The Sabres had 15 games at HSBC Arena that did not sell out, including two that drew fewer than 18,000 people to the 18,690-seat venue. In 2007-08, the Sabres said they sold out 38 of 41 home dates."

I've got the Sabres at 26 sellouts, which means the 15 non sellouts is the accurate number. I also have that the total number of fans at all regular season home games for the Sabres comes in at 759,787 spectators. This is below what the Sabres are saying they are sold, but above the articles statement. I'll keep tabs on this and I am beginning to work on a paid attendance tracking chart.

Enjoy the games tonight and I should be back Saturday or Sunday or whenever I recover from the Rangers Saturday game.

Bruins Attendance Up 10%; Others Drop

These days are gone in Boston, for now.

No daily memo today, I am traveling for a job interview. Sorry.

Ahh, the smell of fresh Attendance statistics. Eight teams finished off their seasons at home last night, which gives us the final attendance (announced, that is) stats on their seasons. To the chart (click to enlarge):



In alphabetical order; Boston, Carolina, New York Rangers, Ottawa, Pittsburgh, San Jose, Tampa Bay, and Vancouver finished up their home games for this season Tuesday night. A couple of thoughts before I hit the road...

• I hope we don't see as many teams dropping in attendance this year as the ones thus far. 5 out of 13 thus far.
• How much affect did the Second Half Boost have? Carolina enjoyed a ridiculous 2,300+ Second Half Boost with a first half average of 15,135 and a second half average of 17,942; wow. Boston also enjoyed a boost of over 700 spectators per game; while Ottawa's average attendance dropped in the second half.
  
• Boston is the closest to the ridiculous numbers the Capitals put up this season, coming in up 10% from last season. The B's have been trending up for a bit the past two or three seasons, as well.
• Pittsburgh and Carolina have made enormous strides since before the lockout; a very encouraging feeling if you are Gary Bettman. A little blip for the Pens this season though, as they slip a bit from their Cup Final appearance last season.
• San Jose staying very constant the past couple of seasons, but at the same time have really stepped it up from before the lockout.
• Are Senators fans only fair-weathered ones? Wheres the Canadian dedication?
• Finally, it is no surprise that the attendance in Tampa Bay has dropped significantly since the Cup win; but really? By double digits % each year? Wow, apparently you need two cups to keep fans around in Florida.

Thoughts? Concerns? Sorry for the rough and quick analysis, but the real life calls. Thanks for reading as always and have a nice weekend. I'll be back Sunday or Monday.

Nashville's Attendance Up/Thursday Memo/Winter Classic Update

News and Notes from around the Business World of Hockey.

- Literally no "news" that I know of, but the Nashville Predators played their final home game Tuesday night, so we have new stats (click to enlarge):



Nashville finished up over a half a percent this season (announced attendance), where the Second Half Boost and their race for the playoffs (which looks bleak now) undoubtedly played a huge role. The Predators enjoyed almost a 1,000 person boost in second half regular season games this season, all of the heels of the recent announcement that the club will make the 14,000 average paid attendance mark required for revenue sharing this semester. Now although still down from their best season attendance wise (and possibly on the ice, too) two years ago, the franchise has grown leaps and bounds from their pre-lockout attendance figures.

- The Rangers have a big game tonight against the Flyers, win and we're in (yea, I said we). So, I present to you my favorite Bobby Granger commercial. Classic:



More (if anything happens) later.

Update, 12:00 PM EST

- Is Fenway Park the destination for the 2010 Winter Classic? (Boston Herald) Take a look:



Update, 2:00 PM EST:

- Speculating investors for the Montreal Canadiens (Globe and Mail)

Thursday News & Notes

- Rangers/Flyers from last Sunday draws a 0.9 rating. Still up 13% from last seasons matchup of Stars/Red Wings at 0.8 (Puck The Media).

- Let's start the Coyotes fun! After Dredger's original TSN report, Coyotes owner Jerry Moyes did confirm that they have received interest from investors. Yes, there is an s on the end of investors (azcentral.com).

- In response to this news, David Shoalts writes an article which, oh how do you say, doubts the situation? (Globe and Mail).

"Who would make an offer on that team?" one source said, referring to the total losses of the Coyotes, said to be as much as $250-million since Moyes took control of them in 2001.

- In response to Shoalts, Odin Mercer writes on how he thinks Shoalts wove his article just to bring out more negativity around the Coyotes. I'm still laughing at the picture at this top of this article. (Five for Howling)

- Rangers @ Bruins is on tap for NBC's Game of the Week next Sunday, March 8th (Puck The Media). This Sunday it is Pittsburgh @ Washington (Capitals.com). I am so far two for two with my Game of the Week predictions.

- Update: 1:35 PM EST

Gary Bettman will host his show NHL Hour today from Nashville.

Members of the Nashville Predators organization scheduled to guest on today's show include Chairman David Freeman, President of Hockey Operations and General Manager David Poile and Head Coach Barry Trotz.

Click here if you want to listen to it at 4 PM EST. Once the NHL Network Online window loads, click on the "NHL Radio" tab and click the first "NHL Hour" tab on the right at the top of the list, and it should load.

I already sent in a question regarding some financial issues, so lets hope we hear some good stuff.

- Seeing that Alex Ovechkin might have had the goal of the year last night, I will leave you with one of his first commercials stateside from back in (I think, not 100% sure) 2007:

Morning Roundup

I managed to find the Versus ratings for the All-Star game this morning...

USA Today reports the overnight coming in at 0.8 (616,000 households), a 12% increase from last season. Nothing to brag about, as the X-Games outdrew the game by .2, but it still hung around with a regular-season match.

moving on...

Ken Campbell of The Hockey News says that the "free lunch is over" for NBC in regards to the NHL TV rights deal.

I'm late on this, but Campbell says FOX is apparently interested in bringing back the NHL. (Insert goofy fighting robot joke here). Campbell explains how I feel about a new TV-rights deal well here in this paragraph:

A new deal likely wouldn’t be a financial bonanza for the league, but it would provide some revenues and, more importantly, place some tangible value on the television product. Even though all facets of the business are bound to be hurt by the economic downturn, the NHL sees its television presence as an area of potential growth, particularly with the upcoming 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.

This was a setup that lead to more interesting news, though:

Speaking of outdoor games, look for next year’s to be played between the Montreal Canadiens and Boston Bruins at the 69,000-seat Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass. The league has come to the conclusion that the outdoor games work much better in a football stadium than a baseball venue and a Montreal-Boston game would be great for ratings on both sides of the border.

I completely agree. There was nothing wrong at Wrigley, but to me playing in a football stadium year in and year out is just a no-brainer. More fans for a bigger gate receipt and the venue is already basically setup.

Check back later.