In a previous list about teams that should move, I (JP) made some comments that hockey fans took umbrage with in the comments section. I posted my response in the comments too, which was essentially that Americans don’t like hockey, and left my email address so that hockey fans could debate the topic with me. To my surprise Steve from one of the biggest hockey blogs on the interwebs, Kukla’s Korner, (specifically the Eye on the Media section) took the challenge. The following is our unedited debate. Please vote for the winner in the poll at the end.
JP
In my eyes, it’s fairly simple: Americans at large don’t like hockey. Both the anecdotal and ratings evidence support that theory. The NHL’s ratings were so low that they were dropped by ESPN and now play most of their games on the obscure Versus Network. The regular season games broadcast on NBC struggle to draw a 1.0 rating, which is worse than Wimbledon matches on a Friday and 3 times worse than the average WWE rating on cable. Even this year’s Stanley Cup Finals pulled in a 3.2, which barely beats out a mid-season Saturday baseball on FOX.
People have always told me hockey is much better live and I have to assume they’re right, so let’s look at attendance. Attendance is up, but the six Canadian teams really help the average since they sell every ticket for every game. And rightfully so, hockey is their national sport. That’s why they deserve another team in Canada more so than a small market in the US. While it’s great attendance is rising (from 0 in 2005), those are almost all the diehard fans I mentioned earlier. The NHL is not attracting new American fans very well because the sport just isn’t as appealing.
I don’t have anything against hockey or hockey fans. The fan contingent in the US is incredibly devoted and passionate to the sport. The sport itself is probably the most difficult to play, as it combines the brutality of football or rugby, the coordination of baseball and the gracefulness of figure skating. But, that doesn’t mean Americans will like it. Soccer is the most popular game in the world, yet shunned by Americans like the plague. So, don’t take it personally hockey fans. I don’t want to abolish the NHL or anything, I just simply don’t believe it will ever catch on again in the US.
Steve
Just because television ratings are low doesn’t mean you can dismiss it as Americans not liking hockey. I’ll admit it, the sport has a long way to go. They need to get the players faces and names out there, they need to get Versus to share their cable deal with ESPN or another network, and tons more. But you can’t say Americans don’t like the sport, because whenever hockey has put something on that eclipses awesomeness, Americans have tuned in, like during the Olympics.
25 Million tuned into the Miracle on Ice, which was on tape. Sure, you say, that was during a different global climate. 10 Million watched the 2002 US-Canada Gold Medal Game in Salt Lake, at 2 in the afternoon. Olympic Hockey is typically one of the top ratings draws every Olympics. Three Million folks sat down and watched the Sweden-Finland Gold Medal Game in Torino, which was at freakin’ eight in the morning. So, it’s not that people don’t care. They dig the sport. It’s just not shoved down the average American’s face like everything else in this country.
Of course there are more logistical problems for the sport. Much of the country hasn’t been exposed to the idea of playing the sport until at least the late 1980′s, when Wayne Gretzky arrived in Los Angeles. Ever since, California has become as solid a state for producing hockey players as Wisconsin or Michigan. Texas, Georgia and Tennessee have also native sons drafted. Teams are helping with the construction of leagues and rinks. It takes generations to build a fan base, and for a league that just got to 12 of it’s markets in the last 15 years, it’s not doing too bad. Of those 12 franchises, the lowest in paid attendance is Florida, who still drew 15,000 a night last season.
But look at the success stories. Dallas played to 96% capacity last season. A Tampa team that finished 30th IN THE LEAGUE played to WELL OVER capacity. Markets like New York, Philly, Detroit, Pittsburgh are healthy, and Chicago and Boston are finally starting to wake up. When these markets are healthy, the NHL is dangerous, because there are thousands of doormant fans in these cities totally willing to jump on a winner (Ever meet a Yankee fan post 1994? Or a Pats fan in the past decade?). That’s also the way you build small markets.
The point is, it isn’t that Americans don’t like the sport. It’s how they’re exposed to it, and I’m sure that’s something we’ll further get into in this debate.
JP
Using the Olympics is a slippery slope. People go crazy for gymnastics, swimming, track & field, figure skating, bobsledding and slalom every 4 years. For example, 25.7 million people watched the women’s figure skating final in 2006, which I imagine is well above the ratings for normal competitions. And that was in an Olympics with disappointing ratings. Americans watch the Olympics simply because it’s the Olympics. It is a spectacle no matter what’s going on, so Hockey as a somewhat visible sport garners a half-decent amount of viewers. But people would watch paint dry if the US had a good shot of winning the Gold.
What I don’t understand is that many American hockey fans talk about it as though it were invented 10 years ago. The NHL has been in the US since the 1920’s. That’s plenty of time to establish the infrastructure you speak of and develop local talent. The NBA started in the 40’s and it’s doing just fine. Only the NHL itself is to blame for over-expansion and something ludicrous like 12 new markets in 15 years. That kind of ineptitude is what has turned a lot of Americans off and there is no end in sight. It’s become irrelevant to the average American sports fan and most of the blame goes to the league.
I agree with your point about dormant and bandwagon fans, but like you said there are thousands out there, not millions. It is possible hockey could really make a comeback, but it’ll still be the 4th or 5th most popular pro sport at best. Not exactly a big upside. And that’s not even taking college football or basketball into account. Americans can only care about so many sports at a time and hockey is the odd man out.
You also mention that everything else is “shoved down the average American’s face” which seems to imply that media coverage is somehow partially to blame for hockey’s low popularity. To a certain degree you’re right, as marketing and access can help boost a product, but ultimately the sport should speak for itself. Major sports outlets refused to cover MMA but the sport exploded in popularity despite the disadvantage. Why? They produced an exciting product that connected to sports fans. ESPN still doesn’t cover the MMA but that hasn’t stopped them from growing.
No matter how you look at it, the current situation is clear: the American public doesn’t like hockey and it’s highly improbable it ever will.
Steve
If you go market-by-market, however, you’ll see that most of the expansions have proved to be decent ideas. Tampa, Dallas, Anaheim and San Jose are all near tops in attendance, because they bred winning teams. Carolina has screwed it’s fanbase over with 2 Finals showings (and a Cup at that) with years of futility in between. The Panthers are still drawing 15,000 after 8 years of missing the playoffs. Minnesota has sold out every game since it’s inception. Columbus, the market that drew my ire in the first place, quickly became a pretty passionate, large-scale fanbase through promotion and community marketing. Sure, Nashville and Atlanta are clear failures, but 10 out of 12 is far from ineptitude. It’s simply the NHL attempting to catch up with other leagues.
TV ratings are becoming increasingly more irrelevent. Besides, NHL teams draw well enough at the local level. The problem is, the league hasn’t been able to connect the dots with either diehard or casual fans. Casual fans will only watch a big-market Stanley Cup Final, and diehard fans are so connected to their team that they’re usually too heart broken or worn out once their team is eliminated to watch any further rounds. The tournament is the toughest on it’s players and it’s fans.
Where the NHL may be able to get itself some public acceptance is in the race to the web. NHL games are streamed online, replayed in full on Hulu, and shown in highlight form on YouTube. The sport has what I call “Made-For-YouTube” stars like Alex Ovechkin, who would’ve been left a small cult figure in the TV-only age, is now a full-blown star in this league through bloggers’ raves and well-made YouTube videos. Dion Phaneuf in Calgary, with his Scott Stevens-esque hitting style, is doing the same. The league credentialed bloggers to the Stanley Cup Finals. All of this is clearly paying off. My site, Kukla’s Korner, drew 550,000 hits a day from July 1 – July 13, and other than the opening of UFA signings, there was NOTHING really going on. KK has topped at millions of hits a day. The NHL is making waves via whatever medium it can, and it shows, the NHL draws as well as the other leagues among Adults 18-49 and 18-34, key target demographics.
It’s hard to argue that MMA has “exploded”. It’s on the same level as the NHL based on your logic. It’s got a TV contract with a smaller cable network and once in a while, a fight gets shown on network TV. ESPN ignores both. It’s kind of a natural rebellion almost. The point is, Americans are willing to take to hockey, and if the NHL keeps pushing, they’res a chance they can win a new generation of fans with the league much more settled down than in it’s FOX-lets-be-cool-roller-blading-glow-puck era. While willing to push the envelope (Outdoor game, credentialing bloggers) they are now refusing to do so at the expense of their diehard fans, which will eventually create more.
JP
If you polled average sports fans they couldn’t tell you where 8 of those 12 teams play. And if you removed NHL Hockey ’93 for the Genesis and the Mighty Ducks movie, nobody would know those first four either. That’s the thing that I don’t understand about the NHL. In the early 90’s, hockey was gaining momentum with boys my age (25 now) through video games and of course Gretzky’s popularity. I even went out into the street to play hockey without skates. Then it just died. It’s not that hockey lacks the ability to be popular, its just that it lost the chance in the early 90’s. Your stats just prove hockey is the most popular marginal sport in the country. Regionally it works, particularly in the Northeast and Upper Midwest (the cold weather helps), but America’s not going to embrace it.
I couldn’t disagree with you about TV ratings more. They’re more relevant than ever. Brilliant shows get cancelled because they don’t draw enough viewers. TV is the most powerful and far-reaching medium in American culture. It is the tastemaker for the US. For a sport, you cannot thrive unless you’re a force on TV. Period.
And arguing that even hardcore fans stop watching the Playoffs isn’t exactly helping your cause. In fact, if that’s true the NHL is in worse shape than even I thought. If the game doesn’t even appeal to hardcore fans unless their local team is involved, the NHL is nothing more than a City League with tremendously talented athletes. How is a newbie going to get into when their hardcore hockey mentor is too exhausted to watch the Semis. I know hockey fans are incredibly passionate, but passion does not equal appeal.
Your points about the web are well taken. I certainly think that is an excellent way to market the game, especially with the lack of TV exposure. But Ovechkin is like an internet meme and has yet to make the leap into the collective consciousness of average sports fans and probably never will. The success of your site is encouraging and those numbers are huge. But I have 2 questions: 1) how many of those visitors are from America? 2) How many new visitors do you average per day? Regardless of the answer, your stats blow me away.
I think your MMA point is great as well. I just perceive the MMA as a rising new sport, while hockey is flailing and trying to regain popularity. Being on the same level speaks positively of MMA, not of hockey… at least in my mind.
Honestly, I think hockey is a great sport and I appreciate the love of the fans, its just not going to breakthrough any time soon. It will be a marginal sport in America for the foreseeable future, as NASCAR passed it by quickly and MMA may do the same. I wish it were different but hockey has been and will always be a Canadian sport. That fact in and of itself ensure it won’t be appealing to Americans.
Steve
I don’t see how TV ratings are the be all-end all statistic as to survival. Go ahead and use the league as an example. They’ve been not only surviving, but producing billions in revenue with almost no T.V. money from the states. As long as the Canadian TV numbers are stellar, the league can survive in the lower 48 with whatever they can produce on television.
Nowadays, however, the sport is thriving, with improved TV ratings and attendance higher than that of the NBA, plus a larger online presence than perhaps any sport. And I’ll tell you what, once the league gets a couple generations of kids in the sun belt hooked on the sport, they’ll become fans, and their kids, and so on, and so on. Maybe it sounds a tad too Bettman-esque, but still, it’s true. It takes time to build a mass fanbase in a market. You’re just starting to see teams like Dallas reap the rewards with prospects from the area being drafted.
Once the NHL starts to produce athletes from the United States, more Americans will find players to connect to. Add in some more good Olympic showings, and the league will just keep finding ways to thrive. Add that to the league’s internet presence, and the fact that the key demographics are connected to the web from this point on.
That said, I can understand how some Americans aren’t aware of the sport, and may even have a dislike towards it. But as a national game, a majority of the country will like hockey, if they are simply properly exposed to it.
It bears pointing out that while the NHL has been in the US since the 20s, really, it’s been in the Northeast and Midwest since the 20s: New York, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, and briefly, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and St. Louis were the only American NHL markets pre-1967. After expansion, the latter three came back, along with Minneapolis and two Californian teams, Los Angeles and Oakland; other expansions throughout the 70s saw other sun belt markets tested, by both the NHL and WHA, but largely failed, thanks to almost uniformly horrendous teams (give or take a Houston Aeros). So basically, outside of LA, there was no significant professional hockey in the “Sun Belt” until about fifteen years ago, when 2/3 of the new or relocated teams went down there. The NHL, unlike other leagues, hasn’t been around in those parts long enough to garner a following, but where it has been for a while, and where the teams have been consistently decent or better — Dallas and San Jose are the gold standard for this — it’s started to take root. I think in another generation, you might see a slightly different landscape.
To piggy back the previous commenter, there are only 11 US markets that had an NHL team in 1990…not too long ago. And all were either east of Minneapolis or south of St. Louis (LA Kings)
But the problem is, basically both arguments in the debate are correct. Americans generally don’t care about hockey – in markets that don’t have a team, you wouldn’t even know the NHL existed. But in the northern markets (and some southern) that do have a team, attendance and yes, ratings, are fine.
In fact, if you check the ratings for most northern NHL markets like Pittsburgh, Detroit, Denver, Minnesota, Philadelphia, Washington DC, and New York, you will find local ratings are comparable with MLB and/or the NBA.
First off – Love the debate guys, we need more of this sort of thing to keep people talking hockey.
Second – If you really want to know how well the sport is doing take a look at the numbers on the youth hockey level in the expansion markets since the teams arrived. Since the Stars move to Dallas, youth hockey has exploded there. Carolina is doing awesome work with youth hockey and getting remarkable results. The simple fact is youth hockey is a market where you can gain and grow your new fanbase for generations to come. Invest in the kids, they are the future and route to success in gaining popularity.
Lastly – The NHL does a lousy job in marketing itself to the American public. It’s almost like they are retarded when it comes to seizing opertunities at the right time. Sure marketing players like Crosby and Ovechkin is great, but why not hype an American player in the U.S. or several U.S. born players? Americans will take to a homeboy quicker than a kid from another country. They also missed the memo that for the most part Americans are lazy and need to be told what to watch, read, etc. They need in-your-face ads demanding that they tune in or else they won’t know what to watch. The NHL needs to stage a marketing blitz and set up formats for t.v. along the lines of Monday Night Football and shove hyped up ads down everyone’s throat all week long demanding that people watch.
All three of the above arguements seem to say highlight what JP said…the sport has regional appeal, not national. You could poll sports fans and I bet 75% of them could not tell you who won the Stanley Cup 2 seasons ago. Most of those fans could, however tell you that San Antonio won the O’Brian and the Colts hoisted the Lombardi.
I think Hockey can rebound in America but the game should never have moved out of Canada and into the Sunbelt so rapidly.
Something else that should be taken into account, if you want to play basketball all you need is a ball and almost every town in America has courts that you can play on. Baseball, a glove and a bat. Even am. league play is dirt cheap. Hockey? Up here you can spend over $1000 just to play a single season. Plus if you play in a league (The only way to place ice hockey unless your graced by a state like MN or MI, you need equipment which aint cheap. I got an attic with several thousand dollars worth of stuff in it. I think it’s safe to say that no matter how hard you try… Some poor city kid is gonna have a hard time making that connection to Ovi or Syd.
Getting to the NHL isn’t a working class path either. Let’s take the two more popular sports in America(Discluding Nascar), how many schools have football and baseball teams? Pretty much every single one, except maybe some inner city schools and schools too small to field a football team. How many have hockey? I grew up on Long Island, NY a state that constantly turns out as many NHL 1st rounders as Minny. None of our schools on the Island sponsored a hockey team, there was one, but players paid their own way. Football and Lacrosse and baseball and almost any other sport, not only were they free but we had equipment provided at no cost. That certainly doesn’t help!
Another pointer, where do most of your NHL prospects come out of? Juniors and private academies with deep hockey routes. Very rare do you see first rounders that come out of Joe Shmoe Highschool of Cotton Wood Falls Kansas. Where do your number one picks from football come from? Public highschools, name any school in Texas for instance. So it’s not just the professional PR that is keeping hockey bogged down, but the whole concept within itself. I truly wait for the day I head down to the local rink for in house leagues and theres more than 5 teams, that are all at the mins to compete. But as of now, it’s going to take way more that just more tv attention and some American born stars, because if it were just that missing, we could all Rally behind Mike MOdano, Brian Leetch (btw i hate the rangers), or one of the many others. Look at Patrick Kane, first overall draft pick of 2007? IF you walked around even Chicago, how many people on the street would know who your talking about if you asked them what they thought about Patrick Kane? Thats Buffalo, New York walking around right there. Maybe one day, but not for a while I fear.