The Great Canadian Ratings Report: Blue Jays opener sets viewing record

The news coming out of spring training in Florida couldn't have been much worse for fans of the Toronto Blue Jays.

Not only did their team lose a key starting pitcher (Marcus Stroman), the injury bug ravaged a lineup that was already paper-thin to start with. But spring training is all about hope -- hey, everybody's undefeated in the regular season -- and apparently the hearts of Blue Jays fans are brimming with that spring-fed hope.

Sportsnet reports that an average audience of 777,000 watched the team's Opening Day victory over the New York Yankees Monday, the most-watched away opener in the team's history. Add in the fact that the game was played on a Monday afternoon, when supposedly a fair percentage of the population was supposed to be at work, and you've got a pretty impressive showing.

But that wasn't the only eye-opener regarding the Blue Jays. Friday's pre-season game from Montreal averaged 421,000 viewers -- the second most-watched pre-season game ever. On Saturday, despite being shown on only three of Sportsnet's four channels and despite going up against an all-Canadian NHL game, the Jays averaged 391,000.

That's all an indication that the Jays have a pretty solid base of fans, which will only grow if the team manages to stay in contention. But even if the team falls out of the running by July, as many predict, there's obviously a pretty large group of hard-core fans to keep the numbers from bottoming out.

The Toronto Raptors, on the other hand, can only dream of such support. Despite a solid season and despite grabbing a playoff spot, the Raptors just can't seem to gather any momentum on television. Friday's game against Brooklyn drew a relatively good audience of 219,000, but Saturday's game against the Boston Celtics could attract only an average of only 129,000 viewers on Sportsnet 360.

Even considering the fact that the game went up against the NHL and the NCAA basketball tournament, a first-place team should have a bigger pool of support than that.

The Jays weren't the only feel-good story of the Easter weekend.

The men's world curling championship put up some pretty big numbers, recording the third-largest audience of the weekend and topping the Saturday Hockey Night In Canada late game. Even the final, which did not feature Canada, drew a surprisingly large audience of 690,000.

Rogers had the biggest ratings of the season for its Hometown Hockey Sunday night experiment as a Senators-Leafs game drew an average of 1.25 million viewers. TSN closed out its NCAA basketeball coverage with a 24 per cent increase over last season, with 325,000 watching Monday's championship final. (Note that figure does not include those who chose to watch the game on CBS, as those viewers aren't recorded.)

And the Raptors weren't the only feel-bad story. Hockey Night In Canada recorded one of its poorest nights in years on Saturday, with the prime-time games averaging only 1.56 million viewers. That's not encouraging with the playoffs just around the corner, though having at least four Canadian teams in the playoffs could produce some big numbers depending how far they go.

As for the MLS, well, it's a work in progress.

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

1. NHL, Leafs-Bruins/Caps-Sens/Wings-Wild, Saturday, CBC-Rogers: 1,560,000

2. NHL, Senators at Leafs, Sunday, City: 1,250,000

3. Men's curling worlds, Canada vs. Norway, Friday, TSN: 885,000

4. Flames-Oilers/Avs-Kings, Saturday, CBC-Rogers: 830,000

5. Men's curling worlds, Canada vs. Sweden, Saturday, TSN: 825,000

6. MLB, Jays at Yankees, Monday, Sportsnet: 777,000

7. Men's curling worlds, gold medal final, Sunday, TSN: 690,000

8. NHL, Canadiens at Panthers, Sunday, Sportsnet: 580,000

9. Men's curling worlds, Canada vs. Finland bronze, Sunday, TSN: 521,000

10. NHL, Hockey Night In Canada pre-game, Saturday, CBC-Rogers: 507,000

11. Men's curling worlds, Sweden vs. Finland, Saturday, TSN: 476,000

12. Women's hockey worlds, Canada vs. U.S. final, Sunday, TSN: 453,000

13. MLB, Reds vs. Blue Jays, Friday, Sportsnet: 421,000

14. NHL, Canadiens at Devils, Friday, Sportsnet 360: 416,000

25. MLB, Red vs. Blue Jays, Saturday, Sportsnet East-West-Ontario: 391,000

16. Basketball, NCAA final, Monday, TSN: 325,000 (CBS viewers not measured)

17. NHL, Canucks at Jets, Saturday, Sportsnet Pacific: 303,000

18. NHL, Penguins at Flyers, Sunday, Sportsnet: 296,000

19. NHL, Hometown Hockey pre-game, Sunday, City: 276,000

20. Basketball NCAA final four, Saturday, TSN: 267,000 (CBS viewers not measured)

21. PGA, Houston Open final round, Sunday, Global: 247,000

22. Women's hockey worlds, Canada vs. Finland, Friday, TSN: 240,000

23. NBA, Raptors at Brooklyn, Friday, TSN 219,000

24. PGA, Houston Open third round, Saturday, Global: 210,000

25. Soccer, Liverpool at Arsenal, Saturday, Sportsnet: 176,000

26. Soccer, Stoke at Chelsea, Saturday, Sportsnet One: 138,000

27. NBA, Raptors at Celtics, Saturday, Sportsnet 360: 129,000

28. Soccer, Southampton at Everton, Saturday, Sportsnet: 123,000

29. MLB, Cards at Cubs, Sunday, TSN: 121,000

30. Soccer, Sunderland at Newcastle, Saturday, TSN: 112,000

31. Soccer, Whitecaps at L.A., Saturday, TSN: 109,000

32. UFC, Mendes vs. Lamas, Saturday, TSN: 105,000

33. Soccer, Aston Villa at Man U, Saturday, TSN: 103,000

34. Soccer, Toronto FC at Chicago, Saturday, Sportsnet One: 90,000

THREE TO WATCH

Masterful televison: As long as you turn your television's Blarney Filter on high, you're in for one of the year's great sports moments: the Masters. No matter who's playing or how bright the azaleas are or how green the spray paint is on the fairways, the Masters seldom fails to produce great moments and great finishes. Warning: There will be some Tiger Woods coverage, including exclusive video of him getting out of his car. It all starts Wednesday with the par-3 event (3 p.m. ET, TSN) and continues from there with weekday coverage on TSN and the weekend stuff on Global.

Goalmouth scramble: The NHL regular season comes to an end this weekend and things couldn't have turned out much better for the league. There are still plenty of playoff spots up for grabs and this might just go down to the wire. The most important one could come Saturday (3 p.m. ET, Sportsnet West) when Calgary and Winnipeg meet. The game could determine which, if either, continues its season.

The boys of spring: There's nothing like a Toronto Blue Jays home opener, what with plenty of thrills, great catches, big hits and even the occasional brawl. Of course, we're talking about what goes on in the stands, though the players themselves have been known to produce at least three of those. The Jays play their first home game Monday (7 p.m. ET, Sportsnet) against Tampa Bay.