NHL on Disney Channel

[Kirk Van Houten]

I was intrigued about the numbers on the Disney networks and well they're intresting. A very young audience.

 

[KevFu]

A kids broadcast wouldn't have worked since you'll run into issues with child labor laws.

I meant a broadcast that was talking to children, not a broadcast done by children.

I don't know why people fall for the selling point of these being for kids or that kids are exclusively watching?

Just like the NFL games on Nickelodeon, it's adults that are watching.

Just like everyone else, when I was a kid I didn't need to watch the X-Men play hockey for me to become a hockey fan or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to pop-up on screen during a NFL game for me to become a football fan.

People watching the Big City Greens Classic tonight were adults. With a smaller subcategory of adults watching with their kids -- who probably liked it because it basically looked like a video game.

I guess I misunderstood the point of it then. I didn't need cartoons to become a hockey fan either, but if I was already a hockey fan, I'm not watching cartoons play it when I can just tune in to the actual game.

I thought the point of it was Viewers of Big City Greens who don't care about hockey, see a Big City Greens special thing and tune in, and are exposed to hockey.

 

[Anisimovs AK]

I meant a broadcast that was talking to children, not a broadcast done by children.




I guess I misunderstood the point of it then. I didn't need cartoons to become a hockey fan either, but if I was already a hockey fan, I'm not watching cartoons play it when I can just tune in to the actual game.

I thought the point of it was Viewers of Big City Greens who don't care about hockey, see a Big City Greens special thing and tune in, and are exposed to hockey.

That is the point.

 

[tarheelhockey]

I think the bigger story is how this technology could translate to a Metaverse type environment. This could lead to a totally new way to engage with the sport, regardless of age.

 

[edog37]

This has to be one of the dumbest ideas the league has come up with ever. That NFL game was unwatchable.

 

[KevFu]

I think the bigger story is how this technology could translate to a Metaverse type environment. This could lead to a totally new way to engage with the sport, regardless of age.

In English Soccer, Manchester City has been working on this kind of thing...

Their vision is to use the player/ball tracking data to digitally recreate their stadium and the game in the Metaverse, so that anyone with a VR headset can "virtually attend" games from anywhere in the world, from any seat within the stadium they choose...

... provided they buy a virtual ticket. That could be a big increase in revenue, because you're limited to ONE SALE for each seat in the real stadium, but you can sell each seat as many times as you like in the metaverse.

 

[Section 104]

I watched about two periods a couple of days after the game and I kind of liked it. I had never heard of “Big City Greens” and I am in my 60s with no kids. One nice thing is they were pretty good labeling which player had the puck which is one problem regular hockey has. Not sure how commercially succes it was, it was 145th out of 150 cable programs ratings wise. But a nice try by NHL/Disney/ESPN to get a new audience . I give it a B+/A-

One thing which hockey lacks is enough day games so people, especially from out of town. I occasionally drive down to Philadelphia for a day Flyers game, meet my cousin who lives nearby. You always see a few kids with signs “this is my first Flyers game”. who knows, maybe it’s their 50th but we always say the NHL needs to market Better

 

[tarheelhockey]

In English Soccer, Manchester City has been working on this kind of thing...

Their vision is to use the player/ball tracking data to digitally recreate their stadium and the game in the Metaverse, so that anyone with a VR headset can "virtually attend" games from anywhere in the world, from any seat within the stadium they choose...

... provided they buy a virtual ticket. That could be a big increase in revenue, because you're limited to ONE SALE for each seat in the real stadium, but you can sell each seat as many times as you like in the metaverse.

See, that's awesome and exactly the kind of thing I was speculating about. I can absolutely imagine a future where with a certain level of visual technology, we "attend" events from our couch but get an experience similar to having a ticket. And you're right, the revenue potential is completely insane. Imagine selling billions of tickets to the World Cup Final. Even if they were dirt cheap, it would be a level of revenue completely unheard of in today's world -- kind of like today's TV contracts compared to teams' total annual revenue before TV.

 

[LadyStanley]

One of the dozen weekly hockey podcasts I listen to had host relate that their kid only got to watch 1st period of game (before bedtime) and the next day asked to watch the rest of the game. They had never sat through a hockey game on TV before (even though parent watches almost daily).

It was not geared to Boomers or Xers or millenials, but the kids.

There were fun things happening around the rink (the escaped zoo animals, for instance). And the interruption of play by phone calls. (Including the voice actors live interacting with broadcasters.) And the broadcasters were into it, incorporating it all.

There was ONE chicken ref to drop puck, otherwise the referees and linesmen were unseen. (They had a plan for coach's challenge, but didn't have to implement it.) Fairly simple explanation of icing and offsides to help educate why the play stopped.

 

[KevFu]

It was not geared to Boomers or Xers or millenials, but the kids.

Fairly simple explanation of icing and offsides to help educate why the play stopped.

SEE that last part is what I was concerned with.. I was watching like 10 minutes of an ESPN+ thing -- and don't know if there was a Disney feed that was different somehow;

But what I saw had NHL announcers saying "and that will go for icing" and then talking about how well a Ranger was playing, just like any other NHL broadcast.

I didn't see any kind of "hockey doesn't us a ball, they use a puck, which is like a ball, but flat so it slides on the ice" or "That's icing. You're not allowed to just shoot the puck all the way down to the other end of the ice, because then no one would ever score and it would be boring. You have to bring or pass the puck up the ice!"

 

[BB79]

Bring back the robots

Just not that stupid laser beam puck. It made the game unwatchable

 

[LadyStanley]

Nominated for Sports Emmy