[Shefte, Seattle Times] The Kraken gambled by creating their own TV network. Here’s how it’s paying off
November 22, 2024
[Shefte, Seattle Times] The Kraken gambled by creating their own TV network. Here’s how it’s paying off
21 comments
Big ratings increases from the Root days
>It was a scary undertaking, just a few seasons in. Higher viewership, usually, but less revenue. Going over the air makes the new network heavily dependent on advertising. If they can reach more fans, from Seattle to Montana to Alaska, the hope is merchandise sales and sponsorships will rise as well.
>That first part, at least, is working. According to the team, KHN is averaging 50,000 viewers per game through October and November. That’s when viewership numbers are usually lower, and despite multiple 4 p.m. starts from games on the east coast, competition from the Seahawks, election night and Halloween.
>A 6-4 win against the Philadelphia Flyers on Oct. 17, which was the first game aired on KING 5, reached over 100,000 households.
>For reference, with the team coming off a playoff run, last season’s first eight games on ROOT Sports averaged 13,781 viewers and a 0.7 rating. The previous year the Kraken in October averaged 15,103 viewers and the same 0.7 rating on ROOT over nine games, in a metro area of more than 3 million.
>In further good news, KING 5 and KONG general manager Christy Moreno said the new arrangement was bringing in almost five times the audience from pre- and postgame shows.
Does me watching them on ESPN+ help their ratings or no? Either way I’m enjoying the network
I haven’t missed a game since they moved to prime. As a fan I love the change.
With the games on king5 and the national games up north, the Kraken have been on the dial quite a bit so far this year. It’s been great!
Shefte has been doing fabulous work making the Seattle Times beat her own after Geoff Baker left to join the team.
Very happy to see the increase. It’s a top tier NHL broadcast and it deserves to be seen.
Wait, so you’re saying that making something easily accessible increases viewership? No way!
Anyone else catch this line? >[Bylsma] also suggested mic’ing up the backup goaltender.
I’d love to hear Joey shit talking when he isn’t playing!
Yeah, now I can actually watch their games without cable.
I’ll admit I didn’t know about this! Time for me to watch more hockey. I usually just watch at a bar when I can… not sure how I didn’t notice the lack of ROOT Sports on the screen lol
It’s been so nice getting to watch all the games. So much easier than finding an IP address that Disney hadn’t already blocked
Great news. I was sad to lose Root when we moved away from cable, but Prime has been superb for games and I love our broadcasters so much!
I don’t get how viewership is so low. Me and all of my pals watch every game we don’t attend. 50k average seems super low to me.
I’ve missed very few games this year. Compare to previous seasons where I couldn’t watch any except national and playoff games. The contract bs with YouTube TV was killing me. So much better this season!
“Discusses whether the Kraken have ever won a game 1-0 (no), responds to the on-air suggestion that defenseman Ryker Evans had to be among the three stars of the night (he wasn’t) and the suggestion that whoever excludes him deserves to have their “license” revoked (unconfirmed at press time).”
I love this banter
We finally ditched cable – the xfinity bill was just insane, we never watched cable other than Kraken.
So when season ended we cut, got Quantum Fiber for $75 all in, legit saved $140 a month.
Was planning to get FUBO for hockey season, then the prime news came out… so happy.
We just added ESPN+ to our Hulu Disney bundle for like 5 extra bucks, and we’re dialed. We get a statement credit for $20 towards it, so it was a no brainer.
I cannot express how much I love watching the games on Prime. I can watch the games around my schedule, on a service with way more things I will watch (as opposed to Root Sports or ESPN+, which I’d pretty much only use for Kraken games). I hope they stay!
The Stars did this with Victory+ and all the games are free to stream.
This is very beneficial for me when the Kraken play the stars. I’m technically in a “blackout” market.
I use ESPN+ every other game, though
This is the story I was hoping to see. It looks like the move to KONG/Prime is paying off and attracting more fans. It was great move on the Kraken’s management part.
I don’t have to do some weird VPN tablet to TV thing to watch home games. It’s been nice.
The video for the games on Amazon suck jittery I can pick up the game off of the air from Portland and it’s beautiful
I love that *almost all* the games are on KONG, I don’t have a Prime account, don’t even use Amazon, do have and HBO account, so I can watch almost every game. Looking to drop my cable package…
![[Shefte, Seattle Times] The Kraken gambled by creating their own TV network. Here’s how it’s paying off](https://www.rawchili.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/whodeGz97D-G-vmhNKZanS7BQJilEi2IlK-qWtyoH_A.jpg)
21 comments
Big ratings increases from the Root days
>It was a scary undertaking, just a few seasons in. Higher viewership, usually, but less revenue. Going over the air makes the new network heavily dependent on advertising. If they can reach more fans, from Seattle to Montana to Alaska, the hope is merchandise sales and sponsorships will rise as well.
>That first part, at least, is working. According to the team, KHN is averaging 50,000 viewers per game through October and November. That’s when viewership numbers are usually lower, and despite multiple 4 p.m. starts from games on the east coast, competition from the Seahawks, election night and Halloween.
>A 6-4 win against the Philadelphia Flyers on Oct. 17, which was the first game aired on KING 5, reached over 100,000 households.
>For reference, with the team coming off a playoff run, last season’s first eight games on ROOT Sports averaged 13,781 viewers and a 0.7 rating. The previous year the Kraken in October averaged 15,103 viewers and the same 0.7 rating on ROOT over nine games, in a metro area of more than 3 million.
>In further good news, KING 5 and KONG general manager Christy Moreno said the new arrangement was bringing in almost five times the audience from pre- and postgame shows.
Does me watching them on ESPN+ help their ratings or no? Either way I’m enjoying the network
I haven’t missed a game since they moved to prime. As a fan I love the change.
With the games on king5 and the national games up north, the Kraken have been on the dial quite a bit so far this year. It’s been great!
Shefte has been doing fabulous work making the Seattle Times beat her own after Geoff Baker left to join the team.
Very happy to see the increase. It’s a top tier NHL broadcast and it deserves to be seen.
Wait, so you’re saying that making something easily accessible increases viewership? No way!
Anyone else catch this line?
>[Bylsma] also suggested mic’ing up the backup goaltender.
I’d love to hear Joey shit talking when he isn’t playing!
Yeah, now I can actually watch their games without cable.
I’ll admit I didn’t know about this! Time for me to watch more hockey. I usually just watch at a bar when I can… not sure how I didn’t notice the lack of ROOT Sports on the screen lol
It’s been so nice getting to watch all the games. So much easier than finding an IP address that Disney hadn’t already blocked
Great news. I was sad to
lose Root when we moved away from cable, but Prime has been superb for games and I love our broadcasters so much!
I don’t get how viewership is so low. Me and all of my pals watch every game we don’t attend. 50k average seems super low to me.
I’ve missed very few games this year. Compare to previous seasons where I couldn’t watch any except national and playoff games. The contract bs with YouTube TV was killing me. So much better this season!
“Discusses whether the Kraken have ever won a game 1-0 (no), responds to the on-air suggestion that defenseman Ryker Evans had to be among the three stars of the night (he wasn’t) and the suggestion that whoever excludes him deserves to have their “license” revoked (unconfirmed at press time).”
I love this banter
We finally ditched cable – the xfinity bill was just insane, we never watched cable other than Kraken.
So when season ended we cut, got Quantum Fiber for $75 all in, legit saved $140 a month.
Was planning to get FUBO for hockey season, then the prime news came out… so happy.
We just added ESPN+ to our Hulu Disney bundle for like 5 extra bucks, and we’re dialed. We get a statement credit for $20 towards it, so it was a no brainer.
I cannot express how much I love watching the games on Prime. I can watch the games around my schedule, on a service with way more things I will watch (as opposed to Root Sports or ESPN+, which I’d pretty much only use for Kraken games). I hope they stay!
The Stars did this with Victory+ and all the games are free to stream.
This is very beneficial for me when the Kraken play the stars. I’m technically in a “blackout” market.
I use ESPN+ every other game, though
This is the story I was hoping to see. It looks like the move to KONG/Prime is paying off and attracting more fans. It was great move on the Kraken’s management part.
I don’t have to do some weird VPN tablet to TV thing to watch home games. It’s been nice.
The video for the games on Amazon suck jittery I can pick up the game off of the air from Portland and it’s beautiful
I love that *almost all* the games are on KONG, I don’t have a Prime account, don’t even use Amazon, do have and HBO account, so I can watch almost every game. Looking to drop my cable package…