Soccer Boots U.S. Hockey

Conventional wisdom has always dictated that hockey ranks pretty low on the pecking order when it comes to the other team sports that compete for audience interest in the United States – certainly after football, baseball, and basketball. But soccer? Surely hockey can do better than soccer? Can’t it?

Well, no – at least not according to television ratings. Saturday afternoon’s World Cup of Soccer telecast between England and the United States drew 16,800,000 viewers to ABC and Spanish-language Univision, more than double the 8,280,000 who watched last week’s decisive game of the Stanley Cup Final on NBC – the “most watched and highest-rated NHL game in 36 years”. And this was just a preliminary round soccer game.

Can you imagine what the audience would be if the U.S. were to make it to the World Cup Final? Would it be more than the 27,600,000 Americans who watched their country lose to Canada in the Gold Medal Hockey Game of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics? It would certainly be more than the 17,100,000 Americans who watched their country lose to Canada in the Gold Medal Hockey Game of the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. After all, the most recent World Cup Final in 2006 – in which the U.S. was not a participant – drew 17,002,000. Can you see a hockey game drawing those kinds of numbers in the U.S. without American content?

I can’t – at least not in the next 36 years.