The United States and Canada will play in the championship game of the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament in a game that has drawn significant anticipation and excitement among fans of both countries. The two teams previously faced off on Saturday in a game that ended with a 3-1 United States victory and averaged 10.1 million viewers across the continent. This is up 203% from the last game between the two teams at the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, and it also surpassed any non-Stanley Cup Final game since 2014. In a discussion surrounding the contest on Thursday morning, Bob Fescoe predicted that this number could go even higher.
Before giving his viewership prediction for the matchup, co-host Dusty Likins expressed how he was happy that the game started at 7 p.m. CST. Fescoe then added that the championship being on a Thursday could benefit viewers in that it is near the end of the work week and referenced the strong viewership of the 50th anniversary special of Saturday Night Live over the weekend.
“I’m going to guess kind of around the same,” Fescoe explained on the latest edition of Fescoe and Dusty on 96.5 The Fan. “I’m going to say somewhere between 10 and 15 million will watch this.”
Likins concurred with this sentiment, articulating that he felt the viewership would be massive with the entire countries of Canada and the United States tuning in. Aside from hockey, a preponderance of the NBA returns to action on Thursday night following the conclusion of the All-Star break. Over the first few months of the season, the league is averaging 1.76 million viewers for national broadcasts spanning ESPN and TNT platforms according to data from Nielsen Media Research, which is representative of a 5% year-over-year diminution.
“I know the NBA’s ratings are extremely down,” Likins said. “It’s not as attractive, but then you have people like the 702s say, ‘I haven’t missed a single game of the 4 Nations. We cannot wait for tonight.’”
Likins is committed to watching the championship matchup between the United States and Canada despite not watching much hockey overall. Fescoe drew a comparison to his interest in the U.S. Olympic basketball team even though he does not generally tune in for basketball games, nor does he like the sport.
National game ratings are down 11% for the NHL this season, according to Nielsen data referenced in a report by Colin Salao of Front Office Sports, concurrent with a trend in a declining number of cable subscribers. Nonetheless, Fescoe feels that the game is an anomaly and understands that there are bragging rights on the line between these two hockey rivals.
“This is a one-off of these type of games,” Fescoe said. “We don’t get a lot of these type of games. Again, I’m not going to say it’s a Super Bowl or anything like that, but yeah, it’s a tier down. It’s like everybody’s talking about this game no matter where you go. It’s like, ‘Oh my God, have you seen this hockey thing going on? This hockey stuff is great, this is fun.’”
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