Bulls-of-the-Week
The 4-Nations Face-Off will certainly be must-watch TV on Saturday when Sweden takes on Finland and Canada meets the U.S., now that the series shifts from the Bell Centre in Montreal to the TD Garden in Boston. With no shortage of superstars on all four squads, the event that will transition into the World Cup of Hockey in 2028 has generated all kinds of engaging sport television, radio and online content in a way that no NHL All-Star Game could ever imagine. It’s already served its purpose as a winner in Canada and should give the NBA All-Star Weekend a good run for its money south of the border, especially if the Americans continue to shine.
Meanwhile, from a record-setting pre-game show in the U.S. to an all-time high for the Apple Music Halftime Show featuring rapper Kendrick Lamar, the NFL once again proved it is in a stratosphere of its own when it comes to conventional television and streaming. For more than 15 years now, the Super Bowl has been a guaranteed 100 million-plus American audience, no matter which teams are in the championship game. There’s no other title match or series that consistently delivers the way the NFL does on Super Bowl Sunday.
Now, the data shows — at least in the U.S. — that the Super Bowl juggernaut will reach these extraordinary numbers with little concern for even the kind of game it is or the type of musical genre offered up at the Apple Music Halftime Show. The average national audience on FOX (including Tubi, Telemundo, FOX Desportes and NFL digital) set a new record of 127.7 million viewers. The game peaked at 137.7 million, and Lamar even surpassed the all-time mark set by Michael Jackson at Super Bowl XXVII in 1993.
In Canada, the one-sided blowout had more of a cooling impact on the TV numbers, with the average national audience on CTV, TSN and RDS declining by 15 per cent, from 10 million last year to 8.5 million on Sunday. Regardless, it’s still by far the biggest show of the year on Canadian television, peaking at 9.6 million and drawing an aggregate audience of 16.6 million Canadians who watched at least part of the spectacle. In both countries, it was the biggest streaming event of the year.
Bears-of-the-Week
Both the 4-Nations Face-Off and Super Bowl LIX are examples of “what could have been”.
Consider for a moment what the Super Bowl television numbers for the Kansas City Chiefs-Philadelphia Eagles matchup could have looked like if the game was in any way competitive. The dream scenario of a one-possession game within the two-minute warning — with the historical “three-peat” on the line and one score away — never materialized. In one of the least compelling Super Bowls in recent memory, the Eagles went from 1.5 point underdogs to running away with it, steamrolling to a half-time lead of 24-0 and a fourth-quarter advantage of 40-6 before settling in as 40-22 victors. It was still a huge win in terms of TV, sports betting, merchandising and social, but nowhere near what it might have been if the Chiefs had stayed within striking distance. Instead, the Eagles won their second Super Bowl title in one of the most dominant performances in NFL history.
And in the world of hockey, imagine where the sport could be if best-on-best had been part of the mix on a regular basis this past decade. The NHL and NHLPA have now appeared to figure things out in tandem with the IOC and IIHF, and credit for that. Now hockey leadership will be entrusted to use the Winter Olympics beginning again next year and World Cup starting in 2028 to consistently give the sport the global marketing one-two punch it’s never had.
Tom Mayenknecht is the host of The Sport Market on Sportsnet 650 on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The Vancouver-based sport business commentator and principal in Emblematica Brand Builders provides a behind-the-scenes look at the sport business stories that matter most to fans. Follow Mayenknecht at: x.com/TheSportMarket.