“Despite last spring’s strong playoff run, ratings for this season’s first eight Kraken games on ROOT Sports in October averaged just 13,781 viewers and a 0.7 audience share. Last season, the Kraken in October averaged 15,103 viewers and the same 0.7 share on ROOT Sports over nine games.”
“The Kraken broadcast is among the league’s finest — headlined by John Forslund, Ed Olczyk and JT Brown, with analysis by Alison Lukan and Nick Olczyk and reporting by Piper Shaw. But all that talent hasn’t translated to viewers. So, why not make the broadcasts free? Put the same crew entirely under the team’s umbrella, partner with a local antenna channel or two and show games there? NHL teams are more apt to explore this route since they already make far less in local rights fees than MLB or NBA counterparts.”
“Just ask the Vegas Golden Knights, who went to free broadcasts this season after their AT&T Sportsnet RSN partner folded up shop. Vegas partnered with Scripps Sports to show 69 Golden Knights games for free throughout a multistate territory. Through five October games, they’d already exceeded all national cable TV numbers for their games last season on ESPN and TNT by 135% — averaging a whopping 8.5 share in the Las Vegas market. “
UpDog1966
Yes please
First-Radish727
Respect the ability to change his mind based on updated information. He’s right. If the broadcast is getting under 14,000 viewers, might as well try to make the games more widely available.
Free TV would be great. Some freely available streaming service would be another great option
Rottenjohnnyfish
This is such a no duh for the NHL and part of the reason they suck at growing the sport.
No shit people don’t want to or can’t pay nearly a $100 buck a month to watch the kraken. I am canceling my Fubo after this month.
Olbaidon
It’s a win for fans and the organization will surely recoup some of the missing money from ROOT sports with the influx of new fans purchasing merch and tickets right? Maybe not enough if they are in a $30 million contract, but I am sure they can get close if its closer to the $15 million range. Why sports leagues feel the need to chokehold viewership is so strange to me.
​
The team’s projected value increased 26% to $1.12 billion from 2022 to 2023, they can’t be hurting for that ROOT sports money when they can spread their fandom to unknown amounts of people who don’t have easy access to games.
tx_ag18
Sports broadcasting should be free everywhere. Local blackouts, numerous streaming services, etc make it a nightmare to follow your team. Can’t blame people for pirating when it’s so expensive or difficult to watch legally
hanzmelman
I fully believe that a city like Seattle, that has a ton of tech talent and an entrepreneurial spirit could not only make this work, it would excel at a “free” televised model.
The ability to work directly with the team and players to grow a Kraken culture would be huge. Run with the amazing broadcasting talent the Kraken have and INNOVATE the fan watching experience.
The stagnant lack of creativity out of ROOT and RSNs in general is mind numbing.
So much fun could be had! Build a unique Kraken identity and the money will follow.
MT_geo
My group of friends discusses this often. So many say they’ve stopped paying attention because they can never stream games or it’s always blacked out somehow. I’d watch every game but just hard to shell out the cost. Even some bars have had it restricted when I’ve gone. You can’t grow the game by restricting viewership. The more people that watch, the more people will get involved, become bigger fans, go to games, buy merch.
DaHealey
14k viewers per game. That’s pretty crazy. They basically have (or could if they sold out) more fans in person than watching on tv. No wonder the ticket market is falling apart, nobody can build excitement by watching them on tv first.
samhouse09
Oh we were right Geoff? All that lambasting of people on twitter was actually wrong on your part? Glad he came around but he was way too committed to the RSN model for way too long as everyone told him it sucked.
soundersfan84
So baker whats non root sports solution where everyone in washington, oregon, idaho and alaska has access to so they can watch the team where there isn’t anyone thats in a deadzone.
soundersfan84
One reason why baker is basically trashing the team over the whole tv stuff and such is cause well there’s nothing better for him to write about cause the team is struggling.
FreezingRain358
In the meantime, ROOT just needs to just go its own way on streaming.
I would happily pay $15/mo (more than the RSN fee) to go direct.
13 Comments
From the article:
“Despite last spring’s strong playoff run, ratings for this season’s first eight Kraken games on ROOT Sports in October averaged just 13,781 viewers and a 0.7 audience share. Last season, the Kraken in October averaged 15,103 viewers and the same 0.7 share on ROOT Sports over nine games.”
“The Kraken broadcast is among the league’s finest — headlined by John Forslund, Ed Olczyk and JT Brown, with analysis by Alison Lukan and Nick Olczyk and reporting by Piper Shaw. But all that talent hasn’t translated to viewers.
So, why not make the broadcasts free? Put the same crew entirely under the team’s umbrella, partner with a local antenna channel or two and show games there? NHL teams are more apt to explore this route since they already make far less in local rights fees than MLB or NBA counterparts.”
“Just ask the Vegas Golden Knights, who went to free broadcasts this season after their AT&T Sportsnet RSN partner folded up shop. Vegas partnered with Scripps Sports to show 69 Golden Knights games for free throughout a multistate territory.
Through five October games, they’d already exceeded all national cable TV numbers for their games last season on ESPN and TNT by 135% — averaging a whopping 8.5 share in the Las Vegas market. “
Yes please
Respect the ability to change his mind based on updated information. He’s right. If the broadcast is getting under 14,000 viewers, might as well try to make the games more widely available.
Free TV would be great. Some freely available streaming service would be another great option
This is such a no duh for the NHL and part of the reason they suck at growing the sport.
No shit people don’t want to or can’t pay nearly a $100 buck a month to watch the kraken. I am canceling my Fubo after this month.
It’s a win for fans and the organization will surely recoup some of the missing money from ROOT sports with the influx of new fans purchasing merch and tickets right? Maybe not enough if they are in a $30 million contract, but I am sure they can get close if its closer to the $15 million range. Why sports leagues feel the need to chokehold viewership is so strange to me.
​
The team’s projected value increased 26% to $1.12 billion from 2022 to 2023, they can’t be hurting for that ROOT sports money when they can spread their fandom to unknown amounts of people who don’t have easy access to games.
Sports broadcasting should be free everywhere. Local blackouts, numerous streaming services, etc make it a nightmare to follow your team. Can’t blame people for pirating when it’s so expensive or difficult to watch legally
I fully believe that a city like Seattle, that has a ton of tech talent and an entrepreneurial spirit could not only make this work, it would excel at a “free” televised model.
The ability to work directly with the team and players to grow a Kraken culture would be huge. Run with the amazing broadcasting talent the Kraken have and INNOVATE the fan watching experience.
The stagnant lack of creativity out of ROOT and RSNs in general is mind numbing.
So much fun could be had! Build a unique Kraken identity and the money will follow.
My group of friends discusses this often. So many say they’ve stopped paying attention because they can never stream games or it’s always blacked out somehow. I’d watch every game but just hard to shell out the cost. Even some bars have had it restricted when I’ve gone.
You can’t grow the game by restricting viewership. The more people that watch, the more people will get involved, become bigger fans, go to games, buy merch.
14k viewers per game. That’s pretty crazy. They basically have (or could if they sold out) more fans in person than watching on tv. No wonder the ticket market is falling apart, nobody can build excitement by watching them on tv first.
Oh we were right Geoff? All that lambasting of people on twitter was actually wrong on your part? Glad he came around but he was way too committed to the RSN model for way too long as everyone told him it sucked.
So baker whats non root sports solution where everyone in washington, oregon, idaho and alaska has access to so they can watch the team where there isn’t anyone thats in a deadzone.
One reason why baker is basically trashing the team over the whole tv stuff and such is cause well there’s nothing better for him to write about cause the team is struggling.
In the meantime, ROOT just needs to just go its own way on streaming.
I would happily pay $15/mo (more than the RSN fee) to go direct.