Utahns just love watching Games

Canada won the most gold medals. The United States won the most overall medals.

And the Salt Lake television market watched more of the Vancouver Winter Olympics than anywhere else in the United States.

Nationally, NBC averaged a 15.4 rating for its prime-time coverage of the Games. Locally, that coverage averaged a 21.9 rating on KSL-Ch. 5.

That put us 30 percent above the national average.

A rating point represents 1 percent of the homes equipped with TV. A national rating point equals 1,149,000 homes; a rating point in the Salt Lake market (which includes all of Utah and parts of Idaho, Wyoming and Nevada) equals 9,440 homes.

We were also No. 1 nine of the 17 nights of the 2006 Winter Olympics and near the top the other eight.

What does all of this mean? Well, it means local viewers are more interested in the Winter Olympics than the rest of America. The 36 share that KSL averaged is a huge number in 2010. It means that 36 percent of the homes that were watching TV during the Games were watching NBC.

That's a big number for one night; for a 17-night average, it's astonishing.

It means that KSL was able to charge big bucks for its ads during the Games. It means that when the final local February sweeps ratings come out, it won't be a contest.

Other than that, it doesn't mean much. Yes, local stations use sweeps ratings to set ad rates. But no advertisers in their right mind are going use these numbers for anything.

But it does mean that we're the No. 1 Winter Olympics-watchers in America. Go us!

UNPREPARED: Did CBS College Sports analyst Steve Lappas do any preparation at all before Wednesday's BYU-Utah game?

He went on and on about how Jimmer Fredette had missed the Cougars' previous game, which wasn't true. (Fredette was ill and, after a poor first half, played only one minute in the second half against New Mexico.)

And when Lappas took time out from talking about himself, he opined that Utah would essentially have no chance if it had to face UNLV in the MWC tournament.

You think he was even aware that the Utes beat the Rebels twice this season? Didn't seem like it.