Weekend's worst: A tie between Jabbering Joes and CBC's fight promoter

So what, exactly, was the worst thing on sports television last weekend? Okay, not counting Jared pushing submarine sandwiches on CBS, which went from embarrassing to abominable when the panel started asking him about his thoughts on the NFL playoffs. (Well, Dan, I think the Cardinals' chances of going to the Super Bowl are thinner than this new low-cal turkey sub.)

Okay, he didn't say that, but he was thinking it.

At first glance, the worst had to be the pairing of Joe Theismann and Joe Gibbs on NBC's broadcast of the Jets-Bengals game. Whoever dreamed up this pairing should be forced to watch this broadcast about 10 times with his hands tied behind his back. (That's a necessary precaution to prevent the malefactor from tearing out his own eyeballs or piercing his own eardrums with darning needles.)

The Joes talked over officials' announcements, talked over each other and talked over play-by-play man Tom Hammond, whose career no doubt flashed before his eyes as he witnessed the verbal carnage. They probably even talked over the commercials.

But as bad as the Jabbering Joes were, you can always count on Don Cherry to set the bar a little lower every week. Following Saturday's early games on Hockey Fight In Canada, which contained some pretty good goals and plays, Cherry led off with the usual: fisticuffs.

After prolonged video of two guys duking it out, Cherry was so moved you could almost hear a catch in his throat: ``They can really throw `em," he gushed. ``Two good guys, two Canadian guys going at it." Makes you proud to be a Canadian, doesn't it?

After a second fight highlight, Cherry actually found time to show a goal by Zach Parise that made every highlight reel. But because Parise didn't throw a punch while scoring, it wasn't good enough for hockey's Don King.

On the ratings front, it was a great weekend for the National Football League on both sides of the border, even though only one of the wild-card games was a thriller. In fact, that thriller was the most-watched sports event on Canadian TV, even managing to top Hockey Night In Canada.

The Green Bay-Arizona corker drew an average of 1.8 million viewers, slightly more than CBC's early Saturday night game. That doesn't happen very often, to say the least.

Wild-card games took four of the top six spots on the weekend, with none drawing fewer than 1.1 million viewers. Compare that with the Canadian Football League equivalent, the divisional semifinals, which drew 1.55 and 1.36 million viewers.

As always, here are the most-watched sports events in English Canada, according to BBM Canada overnight ratings:

1. NFL, Packers at Cardinals, Sunday, CTV: 1,800,000

2. NHL, Pens-Leafs/Habs-Devils/Panthers-Sens, Saturday, CBC: 1,755,000

3. NHL, Flames at Canucks, Saturday, CBC: 1,607,000

4. NFL, Ravens at Patriots, Sunday, CTV: 1,260,000

5. NFL, Jets at Bengals, Saturday, CTV: 1,140,000

6. NFL, Eagles at Cowboys, Saturday, CTV: 1,130,000

7. NHL, Hockey Night In Canada pre-game, Saturday, CBC: 619,000

8. NHL, Leafs at Sabres, Friday, Sportsnet Ontario: 592,000*

9. Curling, Grand Slam final, Sunday, CBC: 522,000

10. Curling, Grand Slam quarterfinal, Saturday, CBC: 492,000

11. NBA, Raptors at 76ers, Friday, TSN: 448,000

12. NFL, Pre-game show, Saturday, TSN: 300,000**

13. NBA, Celtics at Raptors, Sunday, TSN: 246,000

* Ontario channel only

** NBC viewers not calculated

Comments

[Peter Brown]

Hmmm. When the games matter and when there aren't 10 games being played at once, the top broadcast of the week is NFL playoffs. GASP! Even higher than hockey!

Rick Grace, care to comment?

[Peter Brown]

One other point. Chris writes: "Compare that with the Canadian Football League equivalent, the divisional semifinals, which drew 1.55 and 1.36 million viewers." Not to be too pedantic, but with the NFL having one more round of playoffs than the CFL, one could argue that this upcoming weekend (divisional round) is the equivalent of the CFL div. semis., since this weekend is essentially the conference semis (two rounds prior to the league championship game). It will be interesting to see how they draw.

[hgj]

Well, well, well.....how come the CFL Conference Finals are called "Ratings Juggernauts" when they hit 2 Million...but a NFL Wildcard game hits 1.8 Million (and the top rated for the week) it's ignored? We can only assume that the deeper we go into the NFL playoffs, the better the ratings will be.. all this without a home or away market..amazing...its almost like there is a big following in Canada? Naah....

[Leafs Rule]

"Hmmm. When the games matter and when there aren't 10 games being played at once, the top broadcast of the week is NFL playoffs. GASP! Even higher than hockey!"

Before you start declaring football our new national game, look at Saturday Night when they went head to head. Hockey (split with 3 games) trounced the NFL game (1 game Eagles- Cowboys) 1.75mil to 1.13mil

[Allan]

Lol! at Peter Brown. The CFL beat the NFL head to head all year, but obviously you can’t accept that. There are few things more pathetic than a Canadian who grovels over American sports and culture.

[Allan]

I’ve noticed that as the winter sets in the sports numbers seem to be going up. If that’s true it wouldn’t be a big surprise. More people stay in and check out what’s on TV when it’s cold outside. It looks like a lot of casual viewers checked out Packers at Cardinals game, and because it was such an unusual game many stuck with it. That game was a big anomaly, however, as its numbers were 50% higher than the next highest NFL game. With respect to the CFL comparison, also remember that these NFL games were on CTV while the CFL games were on a second tier cable channel.

[chris]

Please don't ask. He's obnoxious enough to begin with.

[Mike]

"The CFL beat the NFL head to head all year, but obviously you can’t accept that."

That's the thing though, It didn't beat the NFL all year. It just appeared that way because of the screwed up way BBM counts viewers. Funny that you missed that as it's been brought up in the comments time and time again. Maybe it's you who obviously can't accept it Allan?

[hgj]

A second tier cable channel? That's what you're calling TSN? LOL..this isn't exactly 1985 here...as for "the CFL beat the NFL"...I'd hope so considering (and I'll say this again for the 100th time...) THERE IS NO HOME OR AWAY MARKET IN CANADA...And as for "Leafs Rule's" comment (boy that name says a lot) no one is groveling over American sports and culture, it's more we're a little annoyed with the perception that there isn't' a big NFL following in Canada.

[Mike]

Ok, let's talk about something other than NFL, like that (relatively) huge Raptors number on Friday. Biggest one of the year I think. It's even more impressive when you consider 1) it was going against a Leafs-Sabres game and 2) they played an awful team in Philadelphia.
And I know some people might say that the Leafs only had a regional audience in Ontario while the Raptors played nationally on TSN. But some people also say that no on outside of the GTA watches basketball so if that's the case, why would it matter? Either way, it looks good when the Raptors can pull 75% of what the Leafs and Buffalo do going head-2-head.
Could this be another sign that the Leafs stranglehold on the sports market is weakening bit by bit?

[Vod K]

"Well, well, well.....how come the CFL Conference Finals are called "Ratings Juggernauts" when they hit 2 Million...but a NFL Wildcard game hits 1.8 Million (and the top rated for the week) it's ignored?"

We expect big numbers from the NFL. There is no surprise. It is obvious that there is interest there.

I do think you overestimate the "canadian market" influence a bit. The presence of the Raptors and TFC have done very little with Basketball or soccer ratings

The surprise is because the CFL has what 1/10th? 1/20th? of the NFL marketing and advertising budget? They have 1/3 of the teams and only receive media coverage on one side of the border. Ratings wise, they are doing as much as the NFL with less.

We like to thump our chests when Tim Horton's out sell MacDonalds, when Canadian Tire still thrives with the presence of Walmart and Lowes. I guess we like to do the same when the CFL pulls in similar ratings to big brother in the US

For the record, I love both football leagues but I actually prefer Canadian and (BCS ststem aside) US college ball.

[Mullah_Kintyre]

Although not noted by CZ this time, there certainly are many Canadians who can and do watch NFL playoff games on the originating American networks, presumably not included in the CTV NFL numbers. Canadians with cable or Shaw Direct (formerly Star Choice) satellite service who live outside the range of CTV terrestrial transmission towers can receive the U.S. networks without the simultaneous substitutions, which I believe includes quite a large part of the country for HD cable/satellite subscribers, since CTV still has only a very small number of its stations presently broadcasting in HD. And supposedly all Shaw Direct customers can avoid the substitutions and continue directly seeing the U.S. stations by temporarily unplugging their terminal (no Bell TV subscribers can avoid their simsubs). There's also at least a few using U.S. satellites, regardless of it being officially illegal. And as I mentioned in a comment after the previous blog post, since the U.S. adoption of HD digital over-the-air broadcasting in the last couple of years, there is a growing number of viewers in the region from Windsor to Montreal using antennas solely for the purpose of seeing the unsubstituted American network free over-the-air stations from Detroit, Cleveland, Erie, Buffalo, Rochester, Watertown, or Burlington VT to avoid the Cdn cable simsubs.

[Rick Grace]

Since this guy asked.
NFL is on CTV. Which has the largest reach of all the networks in CAnada by a wide margin.
CFL is on TSN, which has a much smaller reach then the NFL.
Also, NFL has no CFL games to go up against. Therefore CFL fans are watching the NFL as well.
Whereas NFL fans won't be caught dead watching CFL.
Thus the good ratings for the NFL.
And about the NFL beating hockey?
From what I can see, head to head hockey crushed the NFL Saturday night.
So whats your point?

[chris]

I told you not to ask Little Rickey. And look what happened!

[moosy]

as a WSJ article today mentions, only about 11 mins of a 3 hour NFL match involves action - reading the comments section, it seems some aren't really paying attention to game even though they have it on. They're doing their laundry, cooking, cleaning, reading etc. Some are PVR or DVRing it so it cuts their viewing time to less than an hour.

So, I have to wonder the quality of the audience that watches football.

[hgj]

"as a WSJ article today mentions, only about 11 mins of a 3 hour NFL match involves action - reading the comments section, it seems some aren't really paying attention to game even though they have it on. They're doing their laundry, cooking, cleaning, reading etc. Some are PVR or DVRing it so it cuts their viewing time to less than an hour.

So, I have to wonder the quality of the audience that watches football"

Wow..that's a brilliant comment. So no one watches golf either..or baseball? So just Hockey is a good sport to watch? funny how no one outside of our country agrees with us...the WJC is a deep afterthought for anyone not living in Canada..and Playoff Football (CFL or NFL) especially this time of year is better than any NHL game....

[JH]

moosy! Pure genius! You've done it! You've cracked the code! You've changed sports advertising in North America...maybe the world - forever! Hockey is the greatest...and any sport that doesnt' have the same gripping excitement has lower quality viewers. They're all ironing or at best clipping their nails!
Mr. Zelkovich, please contact the proper people immeidately...US advertisers should immediately stop their superbowl ads..they need to be switched to Versus or NBC's NHL Coverage (because it's non-stop excitement) OR...maybe swimming? Have you EVER seen them stop? .....
Wow..all it takes is a blog like this to give us such insight!!!!

[Rick Grace]

I am so sick of you people who run down hockey just because its not huge in the good old US of A. Well I'll tell ya folks. The world doesn't care about baseball or the NFL. And the improtance of basketball is greatly over exaggerated.
The only true world team sport is soccer. Then maybe rugby. The rest have their hot spots and cold spots.
And who cares if nobody outside Canada follows the World Juniors? If you only follow a sport because its big in the US of A, which many of you do, then I feel very sorry for you.

[James]

"The world doesn't care about baseball"

That's pretty off the mark. Outside of North America, it has a strong following in the Caribbean, South America, and Asia. There's also a trickle of players coming out of Australia. The World Baseball Classic might have been more popular outside the US than in. I was in Costa Rica during the first one and it was huge there.

"The importance of basketball is great exaggerated"

Based on what? I'm guessing its entirely based on the fact that you don't like it. You're not going to like this, but you see more young people in Toronto in Raptor (or even soccer and Blue Jays) gear than you see Leaf stuff these days.

"If you only follow a sport because its big in the US of A, which many of you do, then I feel very sorry for you. "

Wow. Insane comment. I know a lot of Canadian basketball, baseball and NFL fans. They like the sports for a lot of reasons - but the fact that they're also popular in the States is not one of them. They just enjoy the sports. You seem to have some massive inferiority complex about the USA.

[Mike]

LOL, JH and hgj now you've made Rick mad. Poor Rick can't have anyone diss his sports, even though it was fairly obvious you both were mocking moosy's assertions rather than "run down hockey", Now he's forced to come back and start with his straw man and red herring arguments again.

[Rick Grace]

Wow.
There's a new one.
Young people in Toronto are more into baseball and basketball and soccer over hockey!
Who'd a guessed?
Guess those 45,000 kids in the GTA are playing baseball and basketball in those ice rinks eh?
And baseball is such a world game the Olympics booted them out.
Because they had trouble selling tickets.
You guys are influenced by the American media too much.
Too bad you won't support Canadian sports and leagues as badly as you want to support ones from foreign countries, eh??

[Mike]

"And baseball is such a world game the Olympics booted them out.
Because they had trouble selling tickets"

WOW! More lies from Rick, what a surprise. Here's what really happened with the Olympics. The IOC wanted professional ball players in the game but MLB refused to be like the NHL and shut down for 3 weeks so some of the players could go. So the IOC got mad and decided to take it out on the sport and amatuer athletes (you know, the ones the Olympics are supposed to be about) It had nothing to do with tickets or worldwide popularity, which, like James said, is actually pretty healthy and diverse.

[JH]

I'm so afraid to tell Rick that I like Starbucks over Tim Horton's...

[James]

"Too bad you won't support Canadian sports and leagues as badly as you want to support ones from foreign countries, eh??"

Hockey is the most popular sport in Canada, nobody is arguing with that. But what makes you think the NHL is a 'Canadian' league?

Seriously.

24/30 teams are in the US. The HQ of the league is in New York. The commissioner is an American. The league bends over backward to win the interest of American public, and regularly overlooks the Canadian audience.

As Stephen Brunt put it, it's a New York based entertainment company.