The Great Canadian Ratings Report: NFL audiences scoring touchdowns for CTV, TSN

Trying to decipher sports ratings in Canada is no mean feat, what with the vagaries of simultaneous signal substitution and the constant need to compare apples to oranges. Add in the occasional requirement to compare kumquats with wolverines and the whole thing can be quite confusing.

That's why highly trained experts like myself are paid so well to comment on them. (The preceding sentence was pure fantasy on all counts, by the way.)

That's why what appears to be a huge success story for NFL broadcasts in Canada might not necessarily be exactly that. According to Bell Media, this season's early Sunday afternoon NFL games showed a 3 per cent increase over last season, averaging 604,000 viewers per game on CTV. But the late afternoon game averaged 784,000 -- a whopping 86 per cent increase over the 2013 final numbers.

But here's the catch. Last season's early games were on CTV, same as they were in 2014. But the late games were on City last season and on CTV this year.

Overall, CTV has a much bigger audience and a wider reach than City did last season. So the improvement may be more attributable to the power of CTV as opposed to any huge increase in NFL interest. The fact the early games and Monday night broadcasts were pretty much flat with 2013 may indicate that NFL interest is pretty much where it has been in the past.

But the playoffs have provided some indication that the NFL is growing in popularity. Last weekend's four playoff games averaged 1.4 million viewers, up 11 per cent over last season. In addition, and maybe even incredibly, the Baltimore-New England game on Saturday afternoon drew a larger audience than Hockey Night In Canada. 

Going head-to-head with the NFL, HNIC did top the Carolina-Seattle game -- but only by 100,000 viewers, (The good news for Rogers, though, was the late hockey games drew more than 1 million viewers.)

And if you're wondering how this compares with the CFL, well, again, things are complicated. CTV's Sunday NFL broadcasts combined averaged 694,000 viewers per game. The CFL's regular-season average on TSN was 660,000.

But when you take into account that a conventional channel like CTV has a wider potential audience than a specialty channel like TSN -- I said it was complicated -- it's pretty much a tie. And we won't get into all the simulcast/non-simulcast/pirated viewing possibilities in the interests of avoiding too many exploding heads.

In the area of more straightforward ratings, Monday's much-promoted NCAA football championship was exclusive to TSN in Canada and drew an average audience of 460,000. Interesting that the number was barely half of the Rose Bowl game that determined one of the participants. Go figure.

Here are the most-watched English-language sports events from the past weekend, according to Numeris overnight ratings:

1. NFL, Cowboys at Packers, Sunday, CTV: 1,600,000

2. NFL, Ravens at Patriots, Saturday, CTV: 1,560,000

3. NHL, Pens-Habs/Wings-Caps/Sens-Coyotes, Saturday, CBC-Rogers: 1,400,000

4. NFL, Panthers at Seahawks, Saturday, CTV: 1,300,000

5. NHL, Jets-Kings/Flames-Canucks/Isles-Sharks, Saturday, CBC-Rogers: 1,100,000

6. NFL, Colts at Broncos, Sunday, TSN: 1,000,000 (CBS audience not measured)

7. NHL, Blue Jackets at Leafs, Friday, TSN (Ontario): 671,000

8. Football, NCAA championship: Ohio State vs. Oregon, Monday, TSN: 460,000

9. Curling, Continental Cup women's team competition, Saturday, TSN: 439,000

10. Curling, Continental Cup skins, Saturday, TSN: 437,000

11. Curling, Continental Cup mixed doubles, Saturday, TSN: 408,000

12. Curling, Continental Cup men's team, Saturday, TSN: 384,000

13. NHL, Hockey Night In Canada pre-game, Saturday, CBC-Rogers: 371,000

14. Curling, Continental Cup skins, Sunday, TSN: 350,000

15. NHL, Panthers at Oilers, Sunday, City: 322,000

16. Curling, Continental Cup men's team, Friday, TSN: 299,000

17. Curling, Continental Cup singles, Friday, TSN: 295,000

18. NBA, Pistons at Raptors, Monday, TSN: 258,000

19. Curling, Continental Cup women's team, Friday, TSN: 195,000

20. NHL, Bruins at Flyers, Saturday, Sportsnet: 190,000

21. NHL, Blackhawks at Oilers, Friday, Sportsnet West: 169,000

22. Soccer, Southampton at Manchester United, Sunday, Sportsnet: 168,000

23. NBA, Celtics at Raptors, Saturday, Sportsnet 360: 166,000

24. NHL, Panthers at Flames, Friday, Sportsnet One: 158,000

25. NHL, Hometown Hockey pre-game, Sunday, City: 122,000

26. Soccer, English league games, Saturday, TSN: 111,000

27. Soccer, Liverpool at Sunderland, Saturday, TSN: 110,000

28. Soccer, Manchester City at Everton, Saturday, Sportsnet: 96,000

29. Skiing, World Cup men's downhill, Saturday, CBC: 94,000

THREE TO WATCH

 Putting the curl back in curlling: The Pinty's all-star skins game gets a new twist -- actually, it returns with an old twist, when it welcomes back the women for the first time in a dozen years. The best of the best will be in action all weekend, with coverage starting Friday (8 p.m. ET, TSN.)

Docs that rock: HBO Canada continues with its own sports documentary series, chronicling the Jesse Owens Olympics story (Friday, 8:30 p.m., ET). Keep an eye open for the debut episode on the 1972 hockey summit series, which aired last week but will appear in reruns from time to time.

The Sunday before the storm: The contestants in this year's Super Bowl -- the football teams, not the endless string of entertainers and commercials -- will be decided on what really is super Sunday in the NFL. The conference finals are almost always more entertaining than the overhyped big game and it looks like this year's matchups will follow that trend. The defending champion Seattle Seahawks host the Green Bay Packers (3 p.m. ET, CTV and Fox) while the Indianapolis Colts travel to New England to take on the Patriots (6:40 p.m. ET, CTV and CBS.) Odds are, they should both be good games. The odds on officials messing up things are 3:2, if you're interested.