The NHL Awards and NHL draft both gained massive year-to-year ratings increases in 2017 thanks to the NHL expansion draft, according to Awful Announcing.
NHL Awards sees 348 percent TV ratings boost thanks to Vegas expansion draft
The NHL entry draft also gained compared to most years.
Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
As AA reports, the NHL Awards on NBCSN jumped a whopping 348 percent in viewership this year as the Vegas Golden Knights unveiled their expansion draft selections throughout the ceremony. In 2017, 595,000 viewers watched compared to 171,000 in 2016.
Similarly, the NHL draft June 23 saw great ratings as well with 323,000 viewers, the third-most in the last eight seasons. As AA points out, even the downside to these numbers still makes the turnout look great:
It was 14 percent below last year’s draft (374,000 viewers on June 24, 2016) which still is the event’s top viewer mark since 2009, and 28 percent above the 2015 NHL Draft (252,000 viewers on June 26, 2015).
Regular NHL Awards viewers laugh at the show for how lame it can be most years, but in all honesty? It was hard to complain about the show the league put on between the expansion draft rollout, the pace, and host Joe Manganiello’s jokes and bits. And perhaps a combination of Vegas’ picks, a week of NHL-related news and the “Nolan Patrick vs. Nico Hischier” drama turned the draft into a Friday-night must-watch.
There’s caveats in here for sure, but all-in-all it was a good week for the NHL.
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