Has hockey gained popularity since scoring levels increased?

[Nineteen67]

I hate ESPN. They ruin everything.

Hockey just isn't a TV friendly sport

Because of the broadcasters. We have 8K capability and they still isolate the puck carrier.

 

[#37]

i actually hate the increased scoring because it makes the league a god damn joke

32 teams (soon THIRTY FOUR) is already enough. This sport is already not as large as it can be yet Gary Buttman truly thinks it can be 3rd? GTFO

Too many teams also dilute the lower leagues. There are 32 AHL teams and 28 ECHL teams.... so, basically, subpar hockey in 92 cities and towns across North America.... More NHL expansion won't grow interest in the game, it will actually shrink it.

 

[robertmac43]

I feel like it will but maybe it's too early to tell?

 

[Oak]

For the longest time the argument was to gain popularity scoring needs to increase. Well in the last 4 or so seasons it has. Are there any stats showing that hockey gained in popularity in the last few years? Has enough time passed?

Lot more to it than that. The sport has exploded at the youth levels in the past 10 years due to ADM and that bringing costs down. Rinks are making more money and expanding programs. Once kids and parents get hooked they seem to stay in the game regardless how insane the travel gets.

I don't like the high scoring games but most people love goals so there is definitely a possibility it is having an affect.

It's probably less popular every year, in Canada and the States. I don't think it's a quality of product issue. Honestly, if my mother didn't go to Ferris State and get me into Hockey as a kid on a great rink, I probably would have never become a fan.

I just posted about popularity growth in the USA, especially the north east, but 100% I have seen a loss of popularity in Canada at the younger levels. It's a shame really.

 

[SnowblindNYR]

Lot more to it than that. The sport has exploded at the youth levels in the past 10 years due to ADM and that bringing costs down. Rinks are making more money and expanding programs. Once kids and parents get hooked they seem to stay in the game regardless how insane the travel gets.

I don't like the high scoring games but most people love goals so there is definitely a possibility it is having an affect.


I just posted about popularity growth in the USA, especially the north east, but 100% I have seen a loss of popularity in Canada at the younger levels. It's a shame really.

This is not the thread to have this discussion. But I HATE how ridiculous scoring is in the NFL and especially the NBA. But in the NHL we're not at 80s levels. And the scoring was just too low 10 years ago. I think this is perfect amount of scoring. Plus it was also more organically done I think than the NFL and NBA that has a lot more to do with rule changes.

 

[pekka55]

No one's really marketing hockey. I mean it's a bit sad that Pat McAfee does a better job marketing hockey and the NHL than the NHL does. You're not going to get big by standing around in a corner somewhere and wishing you're more popular. You have to work for it. Also, hockey players are for the most part boring and anyone with any kind of personality get ostracized for having one.

 

[Soundwave]

Is it still played on ice?

If the answer is "yes" ... then, no. It's not more popular and isn't going to get any more popular as a big chunk of the US doesn't even have a proper winter, let alone care that much about a winter sport.

 

[coolboarder]

If we could somehow cut down to a reasonable 24 teams league with 8 teams being in West Coast, I can see hockey being popular. 32 teams are just too many teams and people don't simply have time to follow all 32 teams. They only have one team to follow for most part. It was somewhat easier to follow because you have your team play8ing against other teams more than 3 times a year. I remember having 3 games a year between Campbell and Wales teams and still know who their 3rd or 4th liner and even 5/6 D pairings are from far away cities. We just need to pare down less than 100 miles between cities as first step to cutting the trim. Get rid of Ducks, Islanders, Devils as the first step and figure out who we pare down to a reasonable 24 teams league. Maybe you would catch some popularity and expand again in 50-100 years from now.

It is difficult to follow other teams when you follow a team all year long that plays your opponent twice a year and most of the time you only know who your opponents' lesser players from playing more than 3 times a year. I even forget who those players are and that is not a good marketing. Every time we get excited for free agent signing, we are left disappointed to find out that he is not who we all thought he was from a strong playoff performance because we don't follow them that much in regular season. I would like to think that it left a sour taste in fans' mouth and stopping following hockey.

Just my theory.

 

[Voight]

People need to accept the fact that hockey will never be more popular than football/basketball/baseball/soccer. The MLB is arguably just as bad if not worse than the NHL at marketing their star players yet they saw attendance increase by almost 10% last year.

 

[vandymeer13]

Most games are boring as f***. Just stick checking back and fourth play, little physical play no fights or scrums. Some games can be exciting, but very few. I'm one of two people at my work who know and watch hockey, out of 350 employees in a northern state. And I pretty much just watch the hawks.

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

The game has become much more watered down, neutered, and stupidly expensive to attend live nowadays…so I’d say no.

 

[Jeremy Hronek]

Get African Americans playing hockey and the sport will blow up.

 

[pekka55]

Get African Americans playing hockey and the sport will blow up.

Not going to happen. What are you going to do? Build outdoor rinks in Harlem? Just doesn't work.

What has all the popular sports in common? It's easy to play. For hockey you need ice and that's expensive and hard to maintain.

 

[Spirits]

Hockey will never, ever, ever reach the level of popularity that other sports have for the simple fact that it will forever and always be viewed as a foreign or North Eastern sport that is not part of what people think of as "Americana".

I'm from Arizona, I watch hockey more than any other sport.

 

[Fire Sweeney]

Hockey will always be irrelevant. It's only watched in a handful of markets in the US and immigrants in Canada will help football take over hockey in the long run.

 

[LPHabsFan]

I'm from Arizona, I watch hockey more than any other sport.

Congratulations. How many others feel the same way you do? Unless that number is in the millions, or more likely tens of millions, the point still stands when we are looking at things more generically across the US.

 

[taemo]

We need Taylor swift to start dating an NHL player.

 

[Lolonegoal]

I don't know. I live in Southern Ontario, so people live and breathe hockey here, and the people who don't have surely been exposed to it enough to know whether they like it or not. No minor changes to the sport are really going to alter their opinion on it. Whether hockey gets more popular or not is dependent on expansion into foreign markets.

I don't know how reliable any data is considering people wear shirts who've never seen a game, team record ticket sales to tickets they've sold to organizations who give out their tickets to employees, and people stream so much that views are indicative of anything. So yeah, ask someone from a non-market if they've seen more people getting into the sport.

 

[JianYang]

To make a significant increase in popularity, the game needs to become more accessible from a cost perspective.

It needs to penerate the sporting fabric in the US, and the best way to start making that connection is to get mass appeal from the grassroots level. It's a tall order.

While the appeal may be growing, it's more a reflection of how little traction they had in some markets to begin with, but the overall hockey sandbox remains small relative to the mainstream sports.

 

[Spirits]

Congratulations.

Thanks!

 

[Spirits]

I mean it's a bit sad that Pat McAfee does a better job marketing hockey and the NHL than the NHL does.

Pat McAfee is better at entertaining than anyone besides Charles Barkley in the sports world!

 

[Rufus T Firefly]

No. Hockey in today's social circle has become extremely niche.

I see this written about hockey all the time on these boards. Do people not know what niche means?

Niche sports are like competitive fishing or korfball or disk golf.

Extremely niche are like pole-vaulting or lumberjack competitions or gaelic football.

The NHL is ranked 5th in terms of revenue out of all sports leagues in the world: List of professional sports leagues by revenue - Wikipedia

In what world is that niche?

 

[Machinehead]

The most common score in by far the most popular sport in the world is 1-0.

It was never about offense.

 

[Machinehead]

I see this written about hockey all the time on these boards. Do people not know what niche means?

Niche sports are like competitive fishing or korfball or disk golf.

Extremely niche are like pole-vaulting or lumberjack competitions or gaelic football.

The NHL is ranked 5th in terms of revenue out of all sports leagues in the world: List of professional sports leagues by revenue - Wikipedia

In what world is that niche?

Niche =/= small.

Niche means that you appeal to a portion of the market predisposed to your product, and have little opportunity for growth outside of where your appeal already resides. That describes hockey.

There are heavy metal artists that are multi-platinum. 9 out of 10 regular people still don't listen to it. It's not canonized. Hockey is very popular in the grand scheme of all sports but it's not canon to the point where the majority of people watch it, like basketball for example.

 

[KeydGV21]

I hate ESPN. They ruin everything.


Because of the broadcasters. We have 8K capability and they still isolate the puck carrier.

Football doesn’t show the whole field either and it’s TV numbers seem to be okay…