Tampa losing like this is bad for the sport

[discobob]

LOL don't compare NHL to NFL. Obviously there is no comparison and there never will be no matter what the NHL does. NFL is not ever playing an 82 game season, so apples to oranges.

You utterly missed the point. That article gives raw viewership numbers for the NHL regular season .and they are trending the wrong way, and ha e been since 2010.

You just ignored what I said and reacted to the title of the article.

 

[discobob]

Hockey will always be a niche sport in areas where snow is a rarity. These areas happen to be the ones where the vast majority of the world population lives. The NBA regular season is almost the same the same as the NHL's, yet the league's popularity is much higher. Conversely, the top leagues of the most popular sport in the world don't even have playoffs.

Your arguments explain the raw numbers, but not the downward trend. Why is the NHL now, doing g worse than the NHL of the previous generation?

I think the lack of carry over from regular season to playoffs is PART of the problem.

 

[AaronTrieu]

This is great for the sport. It’s always been stated that anything can happen if you make the show. The fight for the final 2 wild card spots is always exciting and an extension of the playoffs. Match ups matter and so does peaking at the right time.

 

[Icarium]

Your arguments explain the raw numbers, but not the downward trend. Why is the NHL now, doing g worse than the NHL of the previous generation?

How exactly is it doing worse? The revenue increases year after year.

 

[discobob]

How exactly is it doing worse? The revenue increases year after year.

Revenue is know to how they monetize the product - it is only partially tied to viewership. The best long term measure of success, IMO, is the size of the fanbase, which is what sustains a sport. That doesn't appear to be growing....

 

[Icarium]

Revenue is know to how they monetize the product - it is only partially tied to viewership. The best long term measure of success, IMO, is the size of the fanbase, which is what sustains a sport. That doesn't appear to be growing....

Based on what? The article you cited mentioned only nationally televised games on NBC and NBCSN. Last time I checked hockey was far more popular in Canada and the vast majority of games during the season are not nationally televised in the US anyway. And cord cutting is becoming increasingly popular.

 

[Harry22]

It actually is a great thing. There is a reason why the Stanley Cup playoffs are the best in sport. Anyone can win.

 

[tenken00]

Your arguments explain the raw numbers, but not the downward trend. Why is the NHL now, doing g worse than the NHL of the previous generation?

I think the lack of carry over from regular season to playoffs is PART of the problem.

Every single sport is trending down in raw TV viewership. It's a problem that they all face. The English Premier. The NFL. etc. etc.

Every single sport except maybe golf?

The NFL has been trending down in both revenue and viewership since the 2000's.

 

[davidputney1]

Honestly i'm not even surprised they lost. Their team is flawed. Big two forwards + passenger in Point (and it definitely showed this playoffs how reliant he is on the big 2). Forwards drop pretty significantly after those three.

 

[LeHab]

People love stories like CBJ. Similar to Golden Knights of last year.

 

[BF3]

Kind of tired of the Jackets’ accomplishment being dragged through the mud by edgelord takes. I get it to a certain extent because of the dominance Tampa showed over 82 games, but some people are acting like the CBJ are a bunch of lucky bums. There’s legit talent on this team, with a goalie who has twice won the Vezina, who added significant pieces at the deadline.

Yes this was clearly an upset but show some respect to Columbus.

 

[Harry Kakalovich]

Bad for the sport? Charles Barkley said on air a couple of years back that he would switch off the NBA playoffs during broadcasts to switch over and watch hockey. Why? Because of Nashville's amazing cup final run. Nashville was an 8th seed. Cinderellas are great. Few people care about the NBA playoffs because there is very little drama the past few years. I watched the CBJs take down the Lightning last night - there were other folks in the bar watching and rooting them on. It is great for hockey. Great. Everybody will be rooting for the CBJs next round.

 

[Dogewow]

Your arguments explain the raw numbers, but not the downward trend. Why is the NHL now, doing g worse than the NHL of the previous generation?

I think the lack of carry over from regular season to playoffs is PART of the problem.

Speaking as a fan of a non-playoff team, I am now MUCH more interested in the playoffs having seen what took place in the Columbus/Tampa series, and to a lesser extent the Penguins/Islanders series. It's interesting/refreshing to see major upsets like this, or teams that typically don't make the playoffs or advance, do so. I can't speak for everyone, but what I've seen around here, on social media, as well as talking with people in real life, it seems like the opposite of the bolded is overwhelmingly true.

It's already been pointed out that viewership for all sports have taken a hit, what with people cord cutting and finding other ways to watch the sport. Does the article you reference point to or provide any evidence to the bolded actually being the case?

 

[Lurkin Larkin]

You know what I mean. Don't go balls out, don't aim to dominate, just play well enough to get at least the 8th seed.

You think Columbus weren't trying, basically? Odd - because they had to fight and claw to even get here, whereas the Lightning didn't. That's probably as much as a reason why the result went the way it did as anything else, because one team had to deal with adversity and the other didn't.

This forum makes me laugh. I remember last year people were crowing on about how Vegas making the final was bad for the sport, even though it was a remarkable story that generated headlines worldwide.

And now it's a bad thing that we can get a surprise result like this? Please. I swear some of you would be better off watching the EPL/NBA, where it's the same bleepin' teams winning year after year and no-one else gets a look in.

 

[discobob]

Speaking as a fan of a non-playoff team, I am now MUCH more interested in the playoffs having seen what took place in the Columbus/Tampa series, and to a lesser extent the Penguins/Islanders series. It's interesting/refreshing to see major upsets like this, or teams that typically don't make the playoffs or advance, do so. I can't speak for everyone, but what I've seen around here, on social media, as well as talking with people in real life, it seems like the opposite of the bolded is overwhelmingly true.

It's already been pointed out that viewership for all sports have taken a hit, what with people cord cutting and finding other ways to watch the sport. Does the article you reference point to or provide any evidence to the bolded actually being the case?

All the articles / surveys that I've seen basically point to the fact that regular season viewership is down, but playoff viewership is slightly up.

I've yet to see any attempt to explain this trend with any real data. However, it does seem to say that people enjoy Hockey, but are increasingly only interested in the playoffs. I believe the clearest reason why that would be true is that playoff hockey looks and feels much different than regular season hockey. While true in all sports, it seems much more pronounced in Hockey.

Anecdotally, I know of many casual fans who love playoff Hockey, but don't watch a single regular season game. As I've said before in this thread, regular season hockey is the NHL's flagship product. It's the "Boston Lager" of the NHL. You need your flagship product strong to increase your brand awareness. The lack of carry over between regular season and postseason in the NHL seems to undercut their main product.

I hear people talking about interest that has been generated by the Tampa loss. That's great in the short term, but when the lack of success of the best regular season team is a cliche around the league, upsets become less interesting, because they are actually expected.

 

[Sstroh84]

How about the NHL stops catering to oversaturated markets like NYC and Chicago and starts to focus on growing the viewership in large but less established markets like Nashville, Columbus, etc. I am pretty sure all the hockey fans in NY and Chicago have been reached with the product.

 

[Karl Eriksson]

Parity is a bad thing. Lol.

 

[He Is Knocking]

I enjoyed the daylights out of Columbus victory in the series.

Lets look at the TDL,

Columbus went all in and Tampa's idea from ownership and their fanbase was (atleast if you listen to their fans on this site in the trade rumor section) 'no one can crack our lineup, we're already great' ....Um okay

 

[Cuphead]

would anyone watch the playoffs if the number 1 seed always won? f*** no.

the underdog winning has been good for whatever sport.

 

[Isles Junkie]

The amount of whining over lower seeded teams doing well in the playoffs is astounding. It's almost as if you people only want the 4 division winners to make the playoffs and the winners play for the cup.

The CBJ beating the Bolts is actually great for the game because it proves that an 8th seed can win. If an 8th seed can't potentially win the cup, then why the hell should there even be an 8th seed?

The Bolts lost. It is 100% their fault, not the leagues. Whatever it was, whether it was puck luck, or lack of desire, or I don't know, the CBJs just being the better team over the 4 games, it isn't something that is bad for the sport. it won't be the last time a great team loses in the 1st round. There is no reason at all to be upset by this unless you're a Lightning fan.

 

[Sentinel]

It's great for the sport.

 

[BKIsles]

Whether TBL getting their brains bashed in is a good thing for the NHL is kind of a cyclical question. Sometimes the league needs to sell parity, sometimes it needs to sell order.

I'd argue this time around, it wasn't the best look for the league that Tampa got bounced in such a convincing fashion. You have the Pittsburgh dynasty winding down, LA's been out for awhile, Chicago is down. From a league standpoint, it would have been nice to push Tampa as the next dynasty team after their dominant regular season. The NHL has to want the regular season to mean something, TBL getting swept in that fashion doesn't help that cause.

Personally, I don't care either way, I just think it's better to sell underdog stories when there is a true dominant team. Yeah Tampa had a great regular season, but they haven't won the cup in over a decade, there is a lot of parity in the NHL right now.

 

[chet1926]

Basically what I'm getting from this thread is there are a bunch of whiny fans of teams that had good regular seasons but bad showings in the playoffs.

The goal of every sports league should be parity. When an 8 seed beats a 1 seed with relative ease that's a good thing. That means the difference between the top teams and the middle of the pack teams isn't too much.

When you don't have parity you have a boring meh product like the NBA where at the beginning of every season there is maybe 3 teams that have a chance to win and every playoff series is 4-0 or 4-1.

It's not like 8 seeds are upsetting the 1 seed every season, but it's good for the league to have it happen every so often. Not only does it show parity, it also gives teams that just missed the playoffs or other low seeds more motivation to keep playing hard.

 

[JerseyMike34]

Your arguments explain the raw numbers, but not the downward trend. Why is the NHL now, doing g worse than the NHL of the previous generation?

I think the lack of carry over from regular season to playoffs is PART of the problem.

Simple answer. The games are boring.

82 games, without any meaningful hitting and animosity towards your opponent leads to less people watching. Look at how hard the league is trying to sell the SPEED of the game, that's all anyone ever talks about anymore, it's not the hitting, the heart, the passion, no no, it's all about the speed. They know they have to get rid of the head injuries or the sport will die, so they pump up the speed and how quick the players are now, hell, they want to jam microchips on players and pucks to show the viewers just how fast everything is going on.

I don't think any playoff season, or what is going on now have anything to do with the Regular Season viewership.

Add on the fact that everyone has everything they wish to watch at their fingertips, and it's a harder sell then it was when all you had was 10 channels.

 

[dogbazinho]

Personally I think it's great for the sport. They relaxed. There has always been a problem with teams so far ahead that they relax. It makes some of the end of year games less exciting and sometimes gives easier wins for teams competing with others for the last spots in the playoffs.