The April 22 Seattle Times had a good article about Seattle's sports viewing habits. I was disappointed not to see at least World Cup soccer on the list -- until I clicked on the list of the top 25 sports broadcasts in Seattle. As you can see, it took quite a bit to crack the top 25. Looking further, I saw that Seattle had slightly more viewers than the national average for the World Cup final. That didn't hold true for NASCAR fans, golf fans (Masters), tennis fans (U.S. Open), basketball fans, hockey fans or even Monday Night Football fans. You can click on the links in the sidebar to find out the top-rated telecasts in various sports in the city. As you might surmise, football and baseball rule this town. But the Mariners need to take heed: If they go back to their losing ways pre-Pinella, we're outta here. Have fun chewing on the numbers and comparing them to what you know about what people watch in your neck of the woods.
Questions - Do they cull their data only from English language broadcasts? Seattle is an ethnically diverse city, and other event - while not drawing a 17 and cracking the top 25 might be worthy of other comparisons. Were the World Cup Final numbers the ABC feed only, or a composite of the ABC and (grrr, I forget which spanish broadcaster)? Is the Seattle MSA close enough to Vancouver that some folks may choose to watch Canadian broadcasts of some events?
Good question. There's nothing in the article to indicate that they looked at anything other than English language broadcasts. Again, I'm not sure if they calculated Univision numbers in there or not, but I'm guessing probably not. They listed the live and taped ratings figures locally for the World Cup final, and just the taped rating figure for nationwide. CBUT, Vancouver's CBC station, is available on local cable systems. The biggest cable provider locally (TCI at the time) tried to take it off their list, but a whoooole lot of people growled at them when they tried to do that. Personally, I prefer CBC for the Olympics and for watching hockey.
How lucky were you!!! For the World Cup final, CBC used the BBC feed. So those in Seattle would be treated with commentaries by John Motson and Andy Gray, instead of the usual Ty and Jack. The tape I keep for the World Cup final is also from the CBC telecast.
Who cares what they watch in Seattle any way. Mls must be out of their mind to put a team in Seattle. Sorry my in laws are from Seattle.
I don't know who will or won't care about this, but I am curious as to how this stacks up to what other metropolitan areas watch, and if someone's got something they can post to that effect, I'd be interested in it. If you don't like that, you can always go back to studying for the SATs. Since when did Seattle get an MLS team? I know I'd be interested to learn the details, as would a lot of other people in town. Original response edited out, even if it was a PK.
I e-mailed the guy with some random comments, including the fact that most of the hispanic audience would've been watching on Univision. He replied and didn't say anything either way about measuring Univision's audience, which most likely means they didn't count it. If they had i assume he would've pointed that out to me. He did say that some other World Cup matches (he didn't say which) had ratings almost the same as the final.
U-dub vs Wash State in football. It's always the last game of the regular season, if I'm not mistaken.
O, the Huskies v Washington State. That makes sense. Washington apples. Okay. I guess it's better than the Salmon Cup or Salmon Bowl.
Re: Re: What we're watching in Seattle It used to be the last game. In recent years Drunk U. (I'm sorry, WSU) has started scheduling games after it, either for TV puposes (UCLA last year) or because they know they won't go bowling and decide to play Hawaii in Hawaii in December. It's still UW's last game though (Except for 2001 when they went and played Miami in the post 9/11 makeup game). Go Dawgs! UW '97