Golden Knights-Capitals Game 4 is up 26% from Penguins-Sharks in '16GETTY IMAGES
The Capitals' 6-2 rout of the Golden Knights' last night in Stanley Cup Final Game 4 earned a 3.9 overnight rating on NBC, down from a 4.1 last year for Penguins-Predators last year, which was also on a Monday night. That game was the second-best Cup Final Game 4 figure since NBC Sports took over NHL media rights prior to the '05-06 season. While down from last year, last night's rating is up 26% from a 3.1 for NBC's Penguins-Sharks Game 4 in '16. DC led all markets last night with a 22.9 local rating, marking the highest-rated Capitals game ever on an NBC network in the area. Las Vegas was second with a 20.5 local rating, followed by Baltimore (12.4), Richmond (10.5) and Buffalo (8.9) (Josh Carpenter, Assistant Editor).
THE "DOC" IS IN: NPR profiled NBC Sports’ Mike Emrick, with “Morning Edition” host Rachel Martin saying, “We are hoping this series will go the full seven games, so we can listen to more of this guy.” NPR’s Steve Inskeep: “Nobody calls him a man of few words. By the count of one fan, Emrick once used 153 different terms to describe the movement of a hockey puck in a single game.” Martin: “It’s a real art.” Emrick then broke down his use of terms for specific kinds of passes, such as “pitchfork” and “shuffleboard.” Emrick, who has called more than 3,600 hockey games, explained his colorful verbiage: "Those words just come out because it’s how I describe things. Some of it you do to amuse yourself, and you hope that it doesn't turn people off, and to try to come up with different ways to say the same thing" ("Morning Edition," NPR, 6/5).
CROSSOVER APPEAL: NBC is going heavy on cross-promotion during the Stanley Cup Final, with “SNL” cast member Kenan Thompson on Saturday’s Game 3 telecast and Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the air for last night’s Game 4. Twitter users offer mixed reactions to the appearances. ESPN’s Keith Olbermann on Earnhardt: “It’s not that NBC doesn’t take hockey seriously; it’s that it seems convinced it is necessary to make its hockey telecasts about other sports #WatchNHLNetwork … Institutional tone deafness indicated by the belief there is any overlap between these two sports with utterly different demographics.” But the N.Y. Times' Juliet Macur responded, "I kinda love that @DaleJr is at the Caps-Knights game. He was in Pyeongchang for NBC, too. He's a charismatic guy who transcends his sport and has a cool 2.4 million Twitter followers. Now maybe some of those non-hockey Twitter folks will say, hey, watching hockey is fun." Buffalo-based WGR-AM’s Dave Buchanan: “Love seeing @dale Jr during an NHL broadcast. Wished AMP Energy sent him to the first Winter Classic when they sponsored it.” Washington Post’s Dan Steinberg: "Kenan Thompson's favorite Caps players include ‘Brent’ Holtby and ‘Ochie.’ ‘Some other people,’ he then said. ‘What other names can I give you?’ Ok, next time just put Bret Baier or David Gregory on. We gotta just own our celebrities.” DC-based WJFK-FM’s Chris Lingebach: “Kenan Thompson is entirely a huge Caps fan and was not at all dragged down to DC by NBC executives."
