NHL possibly getting bumped for a WNBA game

[Mattb124]

Who cares about what the WNBA does in connection to the NHL. People like to complain.

Searching for something to complain about is America’s new national past time. It is a sad state of affairs how petty and entitled our society has become.

 

[joelef]

it's not even just clark. angel reese laps matthews or mcdavid in searches

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it's been trending this way for a long time. american celebrities are highly invested in women's basketball. they don't care about hockey.

the wnba is objectively still well behind the nhl, and you can make an argument that reese/clark won't stay household names forever - the reigning MVP in breanna stewart barely registers relative to crosby/ovechkin (closer to household names given that they've been around forever and play in the US) - but when you see the coverage ionescu got from being in the NBA all-star game, it's pretty clear that there's much more upside for women's basketball players.

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take this last one for whatever it's worth:

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That’s first chart is absolutely embarrassing .

Searching for something to complain about is America’s new national past time. It is a sad state of affairs how petty and entitled our society has become.

No I’m complaining because I worry about the future of the sport.

 

[archangel2]

Caitlin Clark's WNBA debut game throws ESPN's NHL Playoffs coverage into chaos


What a joke of a “ major “ league. This how mcdavid debut should’ve been treated . I don’t know how out of touch head in sand the nhl can be.

Breaking news.

THE NHL WILL ALWAYS BE A NICHE SPORT IN THE US NO MATTER HOW MUCH THEY EXPAND

 

[joelef]

Breaking news.

THE NHL WILL ALWAYS BE A NICHE SPORT IN THE US NO MATTER HOW MUCH THEY EXPAND

So is the wnba and women’s basketball and yet the nhl playoff is potentially getting for it.

 

[MuckOG]

I made them clear in my first reply:

- NASCAR is not more popular than hockey in the USA.

- College football and basketball are not counted separately than pro football and basketball when people say “big 4 sports”.



And again, if you go by average TV ratings, the second most popular sport in the world after soccer is bicycle racing.

Average TV ratings are not a reliable measure of a sport’s general popularity.

Avg TV ratings are reliable tool for networks to decide what sports they want to televise.

...and we arent talking world ratings. We are talking specifically about the US markets.

"When people say "big 4"" is also subjective. Big 4 compared to what? College football and basketball produce much higher revenue and tv viewership in the US than hockey does.

Finally, why do hockey fans care? As long as we can find the games we want to watch, I really dont care about how popular it is across the rest of the population.

 

[HBK27]

When did fanatics become the official jersey partner of the nhl?


Excuse me mlb?

Fanatics is in charge of production for MLB uniforms, even though they're still officially Nike uniforms.

I don't follow MLB closely, but it seems to have been a disaster even if it's not clear where exactly to assign the blame - baseball pants are tearing on slides...



...and are see-thru...



...sweat seeps through the jerseys...



...and the new design with smaller names/numbers has just been awful - plus the quality has gone way down with iron on patches versus sewn-in.

So the hugely popular MLB is having major issues with their jerseys/uniforms as well.

 

[joelef]

Here's my thing, though. For the people in this thread who want hockey to be more popular...why??

It costs me $200 to sit in the 200's at the Rangers game. For $100, I can go to the Liberty game and sit in 7th row.

Popularity just makes your consumption more expensive.

So we don’t have a situation liek
In Minneapolis and St. Paul and 1 st ring suburbs hockey disappears at the youth level .

 

[HabsForHire]

Just accept that women’s basketball is getting more popular. NCAA women’s final did 14 mil in viewers. The NHL could only dream of touching that.

because it's the ncaa, wnba will still be unwatched

 

[archangel2]

So is the wnba and women’s basketball and yet the nhl playoff is potentially getting for it.

Basketball is more popular that hockey in the US

 

[joelef]

because it's the ncaa, wnba will still be unwatched

Well considering last year the nhl got slighting higher then nhl you could make the case that the nhl is unwatched .

Well considering last year the nhl got slighting higher then nhl you could make the case that the nhl is unwatched .

Excuse me I Meant to say the nhl go slighting higher then the wnba.

 

[Summer Rose]

I'm not a fan of basketball, but I'm happy for the WNBA. This can only be good for them.

 

[albator71]

It may be depressing to all of us, but Caitlin Clark is a much bigger sports star than Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews, or any other hockey player.

Many more Americans know who Caitlin Clark is.

Who the hell is Caitlin Clark??? Oh she's a basketball player, well I had no idea who she was until right now. Now I know.

 

[joelef]

Who the hell is Caitlin Clark??? Oh she's a basketball player, well I had no idea who she was until right now. Now I know.

that how the vast majority of the population is when you mention once in generation player Connor mcdavid.

 

[albator71]

Not that surprising, Caitlin Clark is a household name at this point. More popular than Ovechkin, McDavid, and Matthews combined.

Well I don't think this Caitlin Clark woman has many fans in Russia or Europe for that matters. You know that America is not the whole world right???

 

[Dr Jan Itor]

Well I don't think this Caitlin Clark woman has many fans in Russia or Europe for that matters. You know that America is not the whole world right???

Well, we're talking about an ESPN broadcast, which is where again?

 

[Salsa Shark]

Here's my thing, though. For the people in this thread who want hockey to be more popular...why??

It costs me $200 to sit in the 200's at the Rangers game. For $100, I can go to the Liberty game and sit in 7th row.

Popularity just makes your consumption more expensive.

I was a kid so it might be nostalgia talking but the NHL was best when it was a rinky-dink league of broke misfit owners that didn't even have real unrestricted free agency.

NHL fans love to whine about both the high cost of attending in the popular cities while lamenting the overall lack of popularity moreover. I think they just like to complain

 

[albator71]

that how the vast majority of the population is when you mention once in generation player Connor mcdavid.

Yes I don't follow basketball at all, I'm Canadian I just care about hockey

Well, we're talking about an ESPN broadcast, which is where again?

I would say America?? Yes

 

[joelef]

I was a kid so it might be nostalgia talking but the NHL was best when it was a rinky-dink league of misfits that didn't even have real unrestricted free agency.

NHL fans love to whine about both the high cost of attending in the popular cities while lamenting the overall lack of popularity moreover. I think they just like to complain

I’m complaining because I worry about the future of the sport not ticket prices

 

[Svechhammer]

As sad as it is, the Caitlin Clark fad is going to die down and people are going to realize that the WNBA isn't what they think it is, and all the hype and hysteria will be a thing of the past, possibly by this time next year. And this isn't the first time we've seen elite talents come through college basketball, Diana Tarausi was absolutely elite when she came out of UConn, and despite ESPN trying to hype it up, it never went anywhere in the WNBA. And the same thing happens with women's soccer, where they're still badly struggling to get viewership numbers in the NWSL despite the US and Canada arguably having the top crop of talent in the world. Did you know that league is in its 12th season already? Lack of awareness isn't for ESPN trying.

I get why ESPN is trying to do this, they'll continue trying to push this as hard as long as they can because they are bleeding money and really need some of this investment into women's sports to pay off, but I'm just not convinced its ever really going to take off. Too much of a history where people just tune out once these women move on from college.

 

[GindyDraws]

Not true. This one player has a big fanbase. 99% of the sports fans I know couldn’t name 5 women’s basketball players.

She pretty much has turned my team into a household name, far more than the previous star, Tamika Catchings, ever did. Social media follow metrics have skyrocketed. Attendance, which went from 1,700 in 2022 to 4K in 2023, is expected to be at least around 8-9K this season for conservative estimates and over 12K for high marks, at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.

Her draft quadrupled the ratings of the previous record.... Set in 2004.

It would be silly for ESPN not to strike while the iron is hot.

 

[joelef]

As sad as it is, the Caitlin Clark fad is going to die down and people are going to realize that the WNBA isn't what they think it is, and all the hype and hysteria will be a thing of the past, possibly by this time next year. And this isn't the first time we've seen elite talents come through college basketball, Diana Tarausi was absolutely elite when she came out of UConn, and despite ESPN trying to hype it up, it never went anywhere in the WNBA. And the same thing happens with women's soccer, where they're still badly struggling to get viewership numbers in the NWSL despite the US and Canada arguably having the top crop of talent in the world. Did you know that league is in its 12th season already? Lack of awareness isn't for ESPN trying.

I get why ESPN is trying to do this, they'll continue trying to push this as hard as long as they can because they are bleeding money and really need some of this investment into women's sports to pay off, but I'm just not convinced its ever really going to take off. Too much of a history where people just tune out once these women move on from college.

Yet the nhl last year barely averaged a few thousand above the wnba on espn. Even when the fad dies down it’s still embarrassing for the nhl

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Why has no one mentioned yet that the NHL playoffs might be getting bumped!

The playoffs! Bumped!

 

[GindyDraws]

As sad as it is, the Caitlin Clark fad is going to die down and people are going to realize that the WNBA isn't what they think it is, and all the hype and hysteria will be a thing of the past, possibly by this time next year. And this isn't the first time we've seen elite talents come through college basketball, Diana Tarausi was absolutely elite when she came out of UConn, and despite ESPN trying to hype it up, it never went anywhere in the WNBA. And the same thing happens with women's soccer, where they're still badly struggling to get viewership numbers in the NWSL despite the US and Canada arguably having the top crop of talent in the world. Did you know that league is in its 12th season already? Lack of awareness isn't for ESPN trying.

I get why ESPN is trying to do this, they'll continue trying to push this as hard as long as they can because they are bleeding money and really need some of this investment into women's sports to pay off, but I'm just not convinced its ever really going to take off. Too much of a history where people just tune out once these women move on from college.

As far as the NWSL goes, viewership isn't exactly a gender problem when the MLS were regularly bested by A Connie Chung Christmas before they took the Apple TV deal, nevermind the Premier League. Attendance is solid unless they are talking about Chicago. But I do get the issue of making it marketable for the couch potatoes.

 

[Svechhammer]

Yet the nhl last year barely averaged a few thousand above the wnba on espn. Even when the fad dies down it’s still embarrassing for the nhl

Yeah but this is ESPN we're talking about. It was a mistake to go back to them because there is no way they were ever going to cover the NHL fairly. Too many of their high profile on air personalities completely dismiss the league as a legitimate sport because its not basketball and directly competes against basketball, which is one of ESPN's biggest moneymakers. Should have just given the entire league to Turner with TNT and TBS, they do a much, much better job of selling the game and the league.

 

[H3ckt1k]

Why has no one mentioned yet that the NHL playoffs might be getting bumped!

The playoffs! Bumped!

It's an uncomfortable reality that we don't want to accept, dad.