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Originally Posted by PeteMoss
FWIW - the 2010 final between Canada-US gold medal game was the most watched hockey game in the US since 1980 Olympics with an average of 27.6 million.
The 2014 semi-final between Canada-US was (is?) the most watched broadcast ever on NBCSN and also had the highest ever NBC streaming audience at the time (obviously way lower numbers than 2010 given the time and the channel it was on).
That 2010 audience is about 3 to 4 times higher than a Stanley Cup game. If the NHL can't earn money from that exposure, they've got issues. The 2014 audience close to a normal Stanley Cup game on NBC and it was on NBCSN.
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They can't earn money from that exposure. That's the whole point. The IOC gets the money.
The NHL can't even post highlights from the games on their website. They also can't sell merchandise promoting players who played great in the Olympics. If anything, they probably lose merchandise revenue in Olympic years when fans decide to buy a Crosby Team Canada jersey instead of a Crosby Penguins jersey.
The viewership might be 3 or 4 times higher than a Stanley Cup Final game, but that doesn't necessarily mean there's some invisible hockey market they just need to tap into. It more likely means that there are just fans of multiple teams who will watch the Olympics to cheer on their country who will only go out of their way to watch the Final if their team is in it.
The Olympics get viewership from a high percentage of fans of all 30 NHL teams. The Stanley Cup Final gets viewership from a high percentage of fans of 2 NHL teams and a lower percentage of viewers from the other 28 teams.
The Super Bowl is really the only championship whose ratings are relatively insulated from fluctuations because of the actual teams in the game.