Sometimes reruns can still draw big numbers.
Take, for example, the Toronto Maple Leafs. They have lost a record-tying seven Game 7’s in a row and haven’t made it past the Second Round of the Stanley Cup playoffs since 2002. Their last Stanley Cup win came in 1967, 58 years ago.
Even though many had seen this hockey version of “Groundhog Day” before, the Leafs Game 7 against the Florida Panthers last Sunday, May 18, drew an overnight, estimated average minute audience of 4,073,000 viewers across Canada. Sportsnet National+com drew 2,320,000 of that total, with the total CBC audience measured at 1,753,000.
There wasn’t much competition for viewers that night. An afternoon Blue Jays game against the Detroit Tigers fetched 648,000 fans on Sportsnet.
Two days earlier, on Friday May 16, the Maple Leafs surprised 3,475,000 viewers spread across CBC (1,374,000) and Sportsnet channels (2,101,000) with a gutty, 2-0 victory over the Panthers. The win kept their flickering playoff hopes alive. A limp, 6-1 loss a few night before likely led to several viewers getting an early start in terms of hopping off the Bud bandwagon.
Another Canadian team still in contention was The Winnipeg Jets. League leaders during the regular season, their final Round Two games against the Dallas Stars on May 15 and 17 drew a combined Sportsnet and CBC total of over 2.3 million viewers for each game.
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The Stars emerged victorious in that series and take on the last remaining Canadian team in the Cup hunt, the Edmonton Oilers. That game, Wednesday at 8 p.m. in Dallas, can be seen on Sportsnet, CBC, TVAS, ESPN and ESPN+. This is the second season in a row that these two teams have met.
Overnight estimates represent pretty much a total audience for live sporting events, especially playoffs. Not so for TV dramas and other scripted fare, where audiences often swell to double the live take over seven to 30 days. CTV’s overnight, estimated audience for the season finale of its simulcast of Grey’s Anatomy, for example, pulled just 380,000 Thursday night, which seems shockingly low for one of the biggest scripted draws of the past 20 TV seasons. Another once-mighty US network show, American Idol. barely registered over the din of the NHL playoffs, with an estimated audience for its season finale Sunday night of just 243,000 overnight viewers as a Citytv simulcast. Seacrest out!
