Talk about your smorgasbord of Boston sports. Four times since last Friday, the Celtics, Bruins, and Red Sox have played on the same day. The most recent tripleheader occurred yesterday, with a Red Sox-Angels afternoon matchup on NESN, followed by another hockey-basketball dual nightcap: Game 6 of the Celtics-Magic second-round playoff series on ESPN, and Game 7 of the Bruins-Hurricanes second-round clash on NESN.
Save for some bleary eyes and perhaps a sore thumb from commandeering the remote control from game to game and channel to channel, it's been an especially busy and -- until last night, anyway -- enjoyable week to follow Boston sports.
Those responsible for airing the games feel the same way - particularly since local ratings have generally been outstanding for all three teams.
"It's obviously a wonderful time to be a sports fan in New England," said NESN spokesman Gary Roy. "We're fortunate to have outstanding teams with extremely loyal fan bases. And we've certainly benefited from the teams' success and popularity."
Based solely on the numbers, the biggest local television draw among the three during the past week (excluding last night's games), has been the Celtics. That is a mild surprise considering that ESPN and TNT have exclusive rights to all playoff games; the Celtics' local home,
Last Sunday night, Game 4 of the Celtics/Magic series on TNT, Game 5 of the Bruins/Hurricanes series on Versus (which held exclusive rights to Games 2 and 5), and the Red Sox-Rays contest on ESPN all started within a half-hour of each other. When all was settled, the Red Sox claimed the best rating, capturing 10.8 percent of the households in the Boston market. The Celtics were a close second at 10.0, while the Bruins earned a 6.7. They were the top three rated networks in Boston during the time period.
On Tuesday - another three-game night - the Celtics' Game 5 victory over Orlando on TNT was tops with a 12.2 rating. The Bruins scored a 10.0 rating with their Game 6 victory at Carolina on NESN, while the Red Sox, opening a West Coast series at Anaheim, Calif., earned a respectable 5.5 combined rating on NESN and NESN-plus despite a 10 p.m. start.
"There are a lot of baseball markets that would want that in prime time," said Roy, noting there are a number of variables that come into play regarding ratings, among them starting time, score, and relative importance of a particular game.
While the Celtics beat the Bruins head-to-head Sunday and Tuesday, this has been a hugely successful postseason for NESN in terms of hockey viewership. Tuesday's rating was the second-highest in NESN's 25 years of airing Bruins games, surpassed only by an 11.2 for Game 7 of the 2004 Eastern Conference quarterfinal series with the rival Montreal Canadiens. NESN has four of its top six all-time highest Bruins ratings during this postseason.
"We're very pleased with the results," Roy said.
"That's part of the business," said Tanguay. "It all comes down to money, and they pay for the rights. Yeah, we'd rather have the game, but nothing really changes for me anyway. Who I really feel bad for is Tommy, Mike, and Greg."
Tanguay is referring to CSN's Celtics' color analyst Tommy Heinsohn, play-by-play voice Mike Gorman, and sideline reporter Greg Dickerson, who are left to join Tanguay and studio analyst Donny Marshall on the pre- and postgame shows.
"It's tough for them to not be calling the games," Tanguay said. "It's tough for Tommy."
The CSN studio shows have pulled respectable ratings (a 1.0 for Game 5, equating to 45,000 homes), especially since four of five Celtics postgames have gone up against an in-progress Sox or Bruins game.
