The results are in on the gold medal hockey between US and Canada: they're impressive but a bit below the number of viewers that watched the famous 1980 game between US and Soviet Union.
Other Sports | 27.6 million watch Olympic gold-medal game on NBC | Hockey | Seattle Times Newspaper
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NBC officials said Sunday's Olympic gold-medal showdown was the most-watched hockey game in 30 years, drawing an average viewership of 27.6 million and getting a 15.2 rating. Not since the final of the Americans' 1980 Miracle On Ice run — when the United States secured gold against Finland after shocking Russia in the semifinal round — had so many viewed a hockey game on American television (that game lured 32.8 million).
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So what do you think of the announcing during the Olympic Games? I thought it was a bit too sentimental for my taste. Too many soft stories about certain athletes. However, they were definitely aiming for older women. I prefer watching every sporting event live, especially since it was held in North America. NBC comes off to me as old-school media in a new-media landscape.
Many people complained about the first US-Canada hockey game not on broadcast NBC, which showed ice dancing. That made a lot of joking headlines.
It will be interesting to see how hockey fares for the rest of the NHL season.
In other news, Fox Soccer Plus made its debut yesterday, replacing Setanta Sports USA, which went out of business because of falling revenues forcing the US branch of Setanta to be insolvent. The rights to the matches that Setanta Sports USA used to have went to Fox Soccer Plus, except for the French and Russian soccer leagues and the GAA. The rugby rights were retained, for the time being.
ETA: For now, it is only available for customers of Dish, DirecTV and FiOS for $14.99 a month. Alternatively, you could subscribe to foxsoccer.tv and watch the games live in case you can't get FS+. It might be worth it, depending on what you like.
