NBC/Versus deal with College Hockey

[WeAreNDHockey]

Re: NBC/Versus deal with College Hockey

I think it will effect their recruiting in MN, but not as much as Notre Dame's move will effect their recruiting in MN IMO.

I believe we have two players on the current roster from MN. That's one more than we have from the hotbed of hockey known as Indiana. And both were recruited before Notre Dame even broke ground on their new stadium. In addition to other college hockey teams, Notre Dame also had to fight off a college football team that is currently undefeated and currently ranked around 5th to land Anders Lee. I can assure you commitment and facilities mean more to the modern recruit than the conference the team will play in, and we know which conferences are made up of teams that have shown that kind of commitment. The vast majority of our games will still be played in Indiana and the rest of the midwest as well. A Minnesota kid won't need to have his parents travel far to see most of his games, another large factor in recruiting. I also have yet to see where Mario Lucia expressed disappointment that Notre Dame chose to join Hockey East, by the way, as has been posted here. He is on record as having said he believed Notre Dame would go to the NCHC. I'd like to see where he noted -- for the record -- his disappointment in Hockey East.

The more I think about it, it sounds like you are whistling past the graveyard. Typical of too many Minnesota fans IMHO. You guys have a program to truly be envious of, yet as soon as you struggle for a couple of years your arrogance makes you think there are a hundred better choices than Lucia, because, after all you are Minnesota. Then if someone else thinks that just maybe they have a shot at building something because of a name brand, facility, TV, whatever, you all want to rush in and remind us that we'll never be Minnesota, and our moves will surely lead to doom because we can in no way compete. You do realize that at one time Minnesota football was all the rage? Even won a whole bunch of Big Ten titles and couple of national championships. You display the very same arrogance that most of you accuse Notre Dame fans of exhibiting. Yet all I ever see Notre Dame fans do here on USCHO is welcome the improvements that a great coach, a good TV deal, and a great new building will bring to our program. That isn't arrogance. That's just obvious. You'd have to be an idiot to think otherwise. I don't think anyone is measuring anyone else for our championship rings just yet.

[JDUBBS1280]

How many of those are transplanted Minnesotans?
I'd guess nearly all of them, which doesn't help your "national" arguement.

Not nearly as many as you think. Some are transplanted Minnesotans, some are non-native Minnesotans who attended the UofM and then moved away, and some are just fans of the team with no connections to Minnesota.

I have run into TONS of people at Mariucci who are just fans of the team.

But consider this, I also know tons of people who move to Minnesota and became Gopher Hockey fans. It's hard not to. Not nearly as many people move to Indiana and become Notre Dame Hockey fans. So, many of the people who move away and stay fans are replaced with people who move here and become fans.

But to answer your question, I have traveled a lot to watch college hockey, and a part from maybe North Dakota, I haven't seen a fan base with nearly the national following that the Gophers have.

North Dakota probably doesn't have as large of a fan base because the population of North Dakota is far smaller, but it certainly is impressive how many fans they have nationally. They are the only ones who rival Minnesota's fan base IMHO.

[WeAreNDHockey]

Re: NBC/Versus deal with College Hockey

And from a few pages back, does the poster who mentioned Notre Dame and Versus realize that Versus is OWNED by Comcast, hence why it's available in every package to Comcast users? And that when DirecTV yanked Versus from it's system for a while last year, no one except us niche fans gave two sh**s about it?...


...And you really think that Notre Dame versus whoever is going to be a spectacular ratings draw for Versus because of it's wide availability to millions of viewers?

That was probably one from me, and yes I realize who owns Versus and why I said it is in every single household Comcast is in. I also have posted many times here and elsewhere that even WITH Notre Dame, these telecast will be lucky to get half the rating ESPN gets at 2:00 a.m. for repeats of poker.

[JDUBBS1280]

Re: NBC/Versus deal with College Hockey

WeAreNDHockey - Jumping on a client call. Will read and respond to your post in a bit.

[JDUBBS1280]

Re: NBC/Versus deal with College Hockey

WeAreNDHockey - The conference you play in will mean far more to most Minnesota hockey players. And again, if you had even the slightest understanding of Minnesota's hockey culture, you'd understand that. Minnesota's hockey culture is and always will be VERY community based. The farther you play a majority of your games from Minnesota, the harder it will be to recruit in Minnesota.

[SanTropez]

Re: NBC/Versus deal with College Hockey

I'll handle this one for him. People tune in thinking Minnesota is playing an intra-squad game. That's the only reason the tournament expanded. People thought the Gophers would be able to play themselves in games. Once the people realize at least one of teams is not the Gophers though they flip the channel to PBS and Sewing with Nancy before throwing their TV away and burning down their house in a tribute to the Mecca of college hockey.

Sounds plausible.

[WeAreNDHockey]

Re: NBC/Versus deal with College Hockey

WeAreNDHockey - The conference you play in will mean far more to most Minnesota hockey players. And again, if you had even the slightest understanding of Minnesota's hockey culture, you'd understand that. Minnesota's hockey culture is and always will be VERY community based. The farther you play a majority of your games from Minnesota, the harder it will be to recruit in Minnesota.

I do have the slightest understanding of Minnesota's hockey culture. I don't claim to have the understanding of a native, but don't pretend that as an astute and well informed fan of the sport of college hockey I don't have a pretty good working knowledge of hockey culture in any region where the game is played.

Let's just agree to disagree on the future of things like recruiting. We have undergone more seismic shifting of the nature of this sport over the last few months than at any time in my time of following it, and I dare say at ANY other time. We'll see in the future what kinds of changes that brings.

[JDUBBS1280]

Re: NBC/Versus deal with College Hockey

I do have the slightest understanding of Minnesota's hockey culture. I don't claim to have the understanding of a native, but don't pretend that as an astute and well informed fan of the sport of college hockey I don't have a pretty good working knowledge of hockey culture in any region where the game is played.

Let's just agree to disagree on the future of things like recruiting. We have undergone more seismic shifting of the nature of this sport over the last few months than at any time in my time of following it, and I dare say at ANY other time. We'll see in the future what kinds of changes that brings.

I don't doubt that you have a peripheral understanding of our hockey culture. But if you think that moving to Hockey East won't have an impact on your program's ability to recruit in Minnesota, then I genuinely belive that your understandings are misguided.

I didn't intend to get into a lengthy debate with you on this subject, but I have just grown very tired of all the talking heads in the media and on blogs who are over-eager to procliam this TV deal as the be-all-end-all deals in college hockey.

I think this is great for college hockey in general, as I am positive it will have a positive impact on exposure to the sport. However, I do firmly believe the BTN will do far more as it will be more frequently watched in the midwest (which is the biggest hotbed for hockey in the country). Far more people in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, etc... will tune in to watch a game on the BTN then they will to watch teams outside their traditional conferences on NBC.

Not to mention, and I stand by this, I firmly believe NBC will have trouble even outdrawing a Gopher game that is televised on FSN. Like I mentioned before, those games often have higher ratings than the Wild or Timberwolves.

I don't think the NBC deal, or the BTN deal for that matter, will have a profound impact on the popularity of this sport. The NHL has had a hard enough time with that and they actually placed teams in these markets.

It's a nice story, but it is being TREMENDOUSLY overblown.

[Sean Pickett]

Re: NBC/Versus deal with College Hockey

Source please? I don't know if this is correct because my memory says it was the 2008 semi final between UM and ND. I won't state definitively because I cannot back up by citing a source, and you may be correct. I remind you it is all still relative, because highest rated amongst a bunch of stuff that hardly anyone watches still equals low ratings.

TV ratings from 1995 through 2010 are available from the 2011 Frozen Four Records Book online at the NCAA website.

Sean

[JDUBBS1280]

Re: NBC/Versus deal with College Hockey

8

TV ratings from 1995 through 2010 are available from the 2011 Frozen Four Records Book online at the NCAA website.

Sean

Thanks!

So, it looks like the Top 5 most watched games are:

1. 2002 Final - Maine vs Minnesota - 2,301,440 viewers
2. 1998 Final - BC vs Michigan - 1,893,290 viewers
3. 1996 Final - Colorado College vs Michigan - 1,573,000 viewers
4. 2000 Final - Boston College vs North Dakota - 1,421,580 viewers
5. 2001 Final - Boston College vs North Dakota - 1,387,520 viewers

[Sean Pickett]

Re: NBC/Versus deal with College Hockey

8

Thanks!

So, it looks like the Top 5 most watched games are:

1. 2002 Final - Maine vs Minnesota - 2,301,440 viewers
2. 1998 Final - BC vs Michigan - 1,893,290 viewers
3. 1996 Final - Colorado College vs Michigan - 1,573,000 viewers
4. 2000 Final - Boston College vs North Dakota - 1,421,580 viewers
5. 2001 Final - Boston College vs North Dakota - 1,387,520 viewers

Corrected top five:
1. 2002 Final - Maine vs Minnesota - 2,301,440 viewers
2. 1998 Final - Boston College vs Michigan - 1,893,290 viewers
3. 2009 Final - Boston University vs Miami - 1,672,800 viewers
4. 1996 Final - Colorado College vs Michigan - 1,573,000 viewers
5. 2000 Final - Boston College vs North Dakota - 1,421,580 viewers

Also of note is the 2003 Final - New Hampshire vs Minnesota - 887,400 viewers. Who knew that there were over 1.4 million Maine fans nationwide!

Sean

[moose97]

Re: NBC/Versus deal with College Hockey

8

Thanks!

So, it looks like the Top 5 most watched games are:

1. 2002 Final - Maine vs Minnesota - 2,301,440 viewers
2. 1998 Final - BC vs Michigan - 1,893,290 viewers
3. 1996 Final - Colorado College vs Michigan - 1,573,000 viewers
4. 2000 Final - Boston College vs North Dakota - 1,421,580 viewers
5. 2001 Final - Boston College vs North Dakota - 1,387,520 viewers

Interesting. As an FYI, note that last night Winnipeg/Toronto on TSN drew 1.4 million viewers in Canada, and the same number was the average for Hockey Night in Canada's playoff coverage last year. And yes, I realize that there are only 34 million people in Canada...

[JDUBBS1280]

Corrected top five:
1. 2002 Final - Maine vs Minnesota - 2,301,440 viewers
2. 1998 Final - Boston College vs Michigan - 1,893,290 viewers
3. 2009 Final - Boston University vs Miami - 1,672,800 viewers
4. 1996 Final - Colorado College vs Michigan - 1,573,000 viewers
5. 2000 Final - Boston College vs North Dakota - 1,421,580 viewers

Also of note is the 2003 Final - New Hampshire vs Minnesota - 887,400 viewers. Who knew that there were over 1.4 million Maine fans nationwide!

Sean

HaHaHa... The 2003 Final was predicted to be a big blowout and was

Thanks for the correction though.

[MissSioux85]

Re: NBC/Versus deal with College Hockey

It sounds like the 2011 Frozen Four will shift those rankings a bit.

A few stats from the NCAA Hockey twitter account:

The Nielsen ratings are in, and the 2011 Frozen Four is the second-highest rated of all time. More than 3.2 million watched.

The two semifinal games were the highest rated and most watched in Frozen Four history. #NCAAFrozen4

[JDUBBS1280]

It sounds like the 2011 Frozen Four will shift those rankings a bit.

A few stats from the NCAA Hockey twitter account:

I find that hard to believe. If indeed 3.2 million people watched, it will be the highest watched game by over 1 million people.

Must be a different rating system.

Wouldn't completely surprise me if it took over second though, as UMD has been waiting forever for a championship and a lot of Gopher, Sioux, Badger fans were cheering for them too.