After the Timberwolves' regular season ended, Fox Sports North put out a news release about the team's relatively strong television performance this year.
The Wolves had a 2.6 rating in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market on FSN this season, up 78 percent over a year ago. The improvement from 31 to 47 wins and the team's dramatic, ultimately successful push for its first postseason berth since 2004 surely played a role in that.
I don't recall seeing a similar release on the Wild this season — it's entirely possible I missed it — but Sports Business Daily filled in the gap nicely with a recent piece on local NHL TV ratings this season.
Per that report, the Wild had a 3.43 rating on FSN — down 22 percent from the previous year. I'm not overly surprised by the decrease. Even as the Wild churned toward a sixth consecutive playoff berth, it wasn't an overly compelling or different team than we had seen in past years. On nights when both the Wild and Wolves were televised on FSN and FSN+, the Wild might have lost some battles it previously won given increased interest in the Wolves.
So as far as TV ratings go, this is still the State of Hockey. But the gap has narrowed considerably.
Assuming this year's numbers are accurate, if the Wolves improved by 78 percent to 2.6, that means their rating for the 2016-17 season was 1.46.
And if the Wild decreased 22 percent to 3.43, it means Minnesota's rating in 2016-17 was 4.40.
A rating point in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market represents 17,600 households.
