Big Event brings Big Ratings

The 2010 Olympic Gold Medal Game between USA and Canada drew an incredible 15.2 Nielsen rating and 27.6 million viewers. So, does this mean that we have all become rabid Hockey fans and this will catapult the NHL to popularity on par with the NFL?

As I see it no, the answer is no. The stars all aligned correctly for the Olympics, NBC and Hockey this year-a Olympics in North America, same time zone, a ton of recognizable names to draw us to the set each night with Ohno, Shaun White, Vonn, and than an early USA preliminary round Hockey game win over Canada to juice everyone up.

Now it is over, and other than the regular die hard Hockey fans, who else was watching the NHL regular season Colorado-Detroit game on Versus at 9 pm Monday night? I thought so.

This correlates to horse racing where you have the same question every year after the Kentucky Derby draws big ratings.

The 2009 Kentucky Derby ratings drew a 9.2 final rating and 16.2 million viewers but does that translate into a huge year round fascination with horse racing? No, not really.

We watch it because in this day and age of so many viewing options we still like to gather and watch what we consider to be “big events” whether it is the Super Bowl, the Kentucky Derby, the upcoming NCAA March Madness, or American Idol.

By the way, why wasn’t RUSH performing at the closing ceremony? Am I the only one who would have rather heard RUSH sing “Limelight” or “Closer to the Heart” rather than listen to Avril Lavigne sing “Girlfriend”