Ratings drop doesn’t move Pens from top spot

TV numbers show the Penguins fans aren’t going anywhere.



It’s the clearest sign of how popular the Penguins are in Pittsburgh: Even though the team’s TV ratings on Root Sports were down 13 percent compared with last year, their games still drew the highest ratings — by far — of all the league’s U.S. teams this season.

This marks the sixth consecutive year the Penguins have topped the NHL’s local TV ratings chart, even though the team suffered through a relatively down year on the ice that saw it sneak into the Stanley Cup playoffs with the Eastern Conference’s lowest seed. The team’s ratings, additionally, have dropped significantly

since the 2012-13 season — the NHL’s lockout-shortened season — when the Penguins averaged a 12.56 rating, a figure that stands as the highest RSN rating for any U.S.-based NHL team on record.

Still, the Penguins averaged a league-best 6.55 rating this year. For the 2013-14 season, the team averaged a 7.55 rating.

The rankings are based on an analysis of ratings information for clubs that make their Nielsen data available.

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Another headline this season came from New York, where the Islanders’ final season in Nassau Coliseum drew heavy local interest. Islanders games on MSG were up a league high 79 percent as the team played its way into the playoffs, though its 0.61 average rating still ranked in the league’s lower echelon.

Strong ratings were seen this season in Buffalo as well, and remarkably so, given that the Sabres finished with the league’s worst record on the ice for a second consecutive year. The Sabres’ 4.10

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average rating on MSG ranked just outside the league’s top five, although that is down 24 percent from a mark that ranked No. 2 leaguewide last year.

At the other end of the spectrum, Florida Panthers games on FS Florida averaged a league-low 0.17 rating, which also is the league’s lowest average rating in four seasons. (Panthers games averaged a 0.16 rating in the 2010-11 season.) This season’s ratings drop of 19 percent from last year comes as a surprise as the Panthers remained in the playoff hunt until late in the season.

Conversely, it was less of a surprise to see Arizona Coyotes games on FS Arizona post the league’s biggest ratings drop, as the Coyotes finished last in the Western Conference. Arizona’s 0.51 rating is down 32 percent from last year’s average.

For the rankings, SportsBusiness Journal analyzed ratings data from 21 of the NHL’s 23 U.S.-based clubs; information on Carolina and Nashville was not available. Ratings also were not available for the league’s seven Canadian teams.