A little sanity on Tiger's drawing power, please

There have been all kinds of wild predictions regarding the size of the audience that will be generated by Tiger Woods' return to the golf course Thursday.

There have been claims from network types that it could approach that of the Obama inauguration. Donald Trump even went as far as predicting Super Bowl numbers for Tiger's return, though Trump's knowledge of TV ratings isn't verifiable. Considering that each of the the past two Super Bowls have produced about 100 million viewers in the U.S., that's a tall order indeed.

While predicting ratings is a mug's game, I'm going to risk being a mug and predicting they won't be anywhere near the Super Bowl or the 37.8 million Americans who watched Obama become president.

The Masters record, set in 1997, is 20 million American viewers. Even if Tiger is in the final pairing Sunday, it's hard to imagine double that audience tuning in.

While there's a great curiosity factor here, you have to wonder just how many women will care to watch the Great Philanderer proving that infidelity didn't hurt his performance on the course. And you do have to remember that this is golf, a marathon sport that pales in popularity compared with the NFL and even presidential ceremonies.

As for the ratings we already know about, here are the most-watched sports programs on English-language television over the Easter weekend according to BBM Canada overnight calculations. Noticeably low on the list is the NCAA basketball tournament, which may or may not be an indication of its popularity.

We do know that 115,000 people watched Monday's final on The Score and another 67,000 147,000 on the Sun TV/CBS simulcast in the Toronto area.  The Score says 91 per cent of all Canadian viewers watched either its channel or the Sun TV simulcast, which means the total audience was 288,000. 

How The Score knows this is a bit of a mystery. We do know, however, that ratings on CBS in the U.S. were up 34 per cent over last year  and among the highest ever.

1. NHL, Bruins-Leafs/Sabres-Habs, Saturday, CBC: 1,694,000

2. NHL, Canadiens at Flyers, Friday, TSN: 869,000

3. NHL, Oilers at Coyotes, Saturday, CBC: 777,000

4. NHL, Canucks at Kings, Friday, Sportsnet Pacific, 614,000*

5. NHL, Hockey Night In Canada pre-game, Saturday, CBC: 554,000

6.  Baseball, Blue Jays at Rangers, Monday, Sportsnet: 489,000

7. NHL, Flames at Avalanche, Friday, Sportsnet West: 479,000*

8. NHL, Flames at Blackhawks, Sunday, Sportsnet West: 479,000*

9. NHL, Senators at Islanders, Saturday, CBC: 408,000

10. Baseball, Yankees at Red Sox, Sunday, Sportsnet: 371,000

11. NHL, Red Wings at Flyers, Sunday, TSN: 357,000**

PGA, Houston Open final round, Sunday, Global: 353,000

12. NBA, Warriors at Raptors, Sunday, TSN: 331,000

13. NCAA, Duke vs. Butler, Monday, Score/SunTV: 262,000

14. NBA, Raptors at 76ers, Saturday, TSN: 240,000

15. Auto racing, NASCAR Nationwide, Saturday, TSN: 221,000

16. PGA, Houston Open third round, Saturday, Global: 204,000

* One channel only

** Viewers on NBC not calculated

Comments

[DLind]

Those are good numbers for the Jays game considering a lot of people were working on Monday afternoon.

[Mike]

Don't forget that this is the first full season under the new ratings system, last year the system was only in place for September. So before the average for a Blue Jays game was about 300-325,000, now it should be like 400-450,000.

[JGH]

Exactly, guys....and if they had a decent team, those numbers would rise significantly...but don't tell that to our friend Ricky.

[Rick Grace]

Oh, somebody mentioned my name?
Wow, 400,000 for the Blue jays?
Frankly I don't know how anybody can sit through an entire baseball game.
But I guess in parts of Toronto and Canada they can.
But I admit 400,000 is great ratings for a third tier sport like baseball.
It puts it just above basketball and F1 in popularity.
So good on baseball!

[DLind]

Uh, well Rick, as we can all clearly see it also was higher than a few NHL games. Plus it was played on a Monday afternoon. Considering the extremely low expectations for the team, it's a nice number, that's all I'm sayin'

[Lee]

People like Rick are responsible for our so-called 'sports' networks devoting entire broadcast days to the NHL's trade deadline and the first day of its free agent signing period. I'm quite sure that executives at TSN, Sportsnet and the other channels would gladly become 24/7 hockey networks (not that they aren't almost there already) if they could. Perhaps they should petition the NHL to expand to a 12-month season, because 10 months clearly isn't enough.

Personally, I couldn't care less about the viewing habits of puckheads like Rick- if they want to spend Canada Day glued to the television to learn who the Devils and Thrashers have signed as free agents, it's fine with me. Knock yourself out- enjoy the draft lottery too. I'm sure TSN will devote at least three hours of coverage and 10 analysts to break down the bounces of the NHL's ping pong balls.

What I'd like to see happen is the creation of a new channel for those of us who enjoy other sports. This channel would take all of the sports that TSN and Sportsnet doesn't like and crams into the tiny bits of air time between NHL games and give them the proper treatment they get in other parts of the world. I think everyone would win in this scenario- TSN and Sportsnet could drop the flimsy pretense that they're real sports networks, become hockey-only channels and give up the rights to sports that they refuse to treat with proper respect- all the non-hockey sports, in other words.

The puckheads could get 24/7/365 hockey and the rest of us wouldn't be forced to watch their preferred sports (like auto racing, for example) on the internet, because TSN is tape-delaying another race so it can show some D-level minor league hockey tournament live. I would definitely pay for such a sports network and I'm sure there are a great many Canadians who would too, despite Rick's rather blinkered view.

How about this for a name? OSN- Other Sports Network. I like it.

[JGH]

Yes, and not nearly as exciting as curling. Of course if curling was on for 162 nights..and we had a curling package and a ton of out of town curing matches on the tube...would draw...flies.

[HMU]

Rick, how come baseball is a third tier sport when it's numbers are very close to the Friday night football numbers on TSN? I guess you can't use the cable channel excuse for this one, huh? And how come Monday Night Football on TSN beat Friday Night Football on TSN?

[Mike]

Does anyone have a clue where The Score gets their 91% figure from and why TSN or Sportsnet never has a similar number? I doubt it's from BBM since they don't give out those statistics. Is it from a poll/survey of NCAA watchers or just an estimate based on SunTV sim-sub coverage over CBS?

Another more general question Chris is why are some TV numbers so hard to come by in Canada? I'm not just talking about sports but all shows and it's once in a blue moon when demo numbers are reported along with the total figure. How come there are no Canadian sites similar to TVbytheNumbers or PIFeedback?

[Stamster]

I'm curious about the Canucks-Kings number. They played the Ducks in pretty much the same time slot the next day in a much more entertaining game. I notice no Duck number on the list. My guess is that is actually the Canucks-Ducks number - it was played on Friday.

[Rick Grace]

Baseball close to CFL numbers?
Not even close my friend.
CFL did close to 700,000 average last year.
Baseball does as low as 80,000 on Sportsnet.
Its a third tier sport, with MLS and basketball.
YOu Toronto baseball fans should open up your eyes.
Its your team, and nobody else in Canada cares.

[Josh]

I surely don't consider baseball to be a "third tier sport", last I checked it was decently popular on both sides of the border. I'm not going to compare it with FNF because the CFL is well above it, but it does better than basketball for sure and much better than the MLS. The MLS is about a 50th tier sport if you want to measure them that way, it isn't very popular and there are 49+ other leagues in the world that employ better players. I would disagree that "nobody else in Canada cares", I'm a Red Sox fan, but I know that Toronto is the most popular team in Canada, followed by the Sox, Yankes and Mariners.

Jays games will get killed over the next 2 months because of the NHL playoffs, but come June (if they are in contention) they will come back up around 700, 000 for night games. If the Jays suck, then they won't.

Frankly Rick I don't know how people can't sit through an entire baseball game. I love baseball and curling because they move slow and they are so easy to follow because of it. You can see the strategy being played out, whether its where to place to stones in curling or where to pitch a guy in baseball. I grew up playing baseball (not hockey) and I'll always love it.

And nice job slagging Formula 1 too Rick, don't forget it is the second most popular sport in the world, only behind football (soccer). I think it does quite well considering half of the country is asleep or hungover when the races are on.