BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.–Soccer???? What the hell is that?? Are you ready for some football??
That was the message Sunday as NBC presented its Sunday Night Football panel. Al Michaels and Cris Collingsworth were in the house and were quick to give the boot to commie kick ball. Real footballs have pointy ends and NFLers don’t chomp on other guys’ necks.
And America loves it. SNF is the No. 1 TV show in the U.S. for the third straight year. It beats Big Bang, The Voice, NCIS–everything.
Hockey is to Canada what football is to America. I talked hockey with Michaels, who is a big L.A. Kings fan.I was hoping for some insight into Rogers’ big $5.2B deal sewing up national NHL rights for the next dozen years in Canada. NFL footballs keeps expanding down south–this year with Thursday night games on CBS–and Michaels doubts hockey is anywhere near a saturation point north of the border. Read his comments here in the feature I filed to The Canadian Press.
How important is this half-season NFL expansion onto Thursday nights? CBS has booked CEO Leslie Moonves and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to meet the press later this week.
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1 Comment
I think hockey is very much a regional thing in Canada. Only the Maple Leafs get great national ratings, but from what I’ve read, the majority of viewership outside Ontario for the Leafs is north of the age 40. Most of the younger adult demo (which seems to matter more to networks) tend to follow whatever their regional teams are. What I will find interesting is the match-ups on CityTV. Will Rogers be Leafs-centric? CityTV has really made efforts to become a national network in the past few years so it’ll be interesting to see the Rogers hockey schedule for the season. I am hoping there will be some Jets games somewhere in the mix. I’m a big Jets fan and unfortunately, I don’t get the TSN Jets channel so miss out on almost all Jets games as they rarely play on HNIC tight now.