Olympic Myth

[Beukeboom Fan]

The TV revenue has gone down not just not gone up. The TV deal that the NHL has with NBC is the same as the deal arena football has.Tv deals are as good a measure as any of nationwide popularity. TV networks use the popularity of a sport to sell commercials etc. That is the only area in US hockey could grow revenue because hockey has always had good ticket sales leaguewide. Canada isn't an issue it is the only nation where hockey is the undisputed king. I love international hockey tournaments as well. I like to see a World Cup of hockey every 2 or 4 years, rotating the host nation(s). As for understanding hockey as a part of culture isn't the NHL's job nor is it the reason they are at the Olympics.
After all my ranting I will still enjoy watcng the Olympic hockey.

Ps. Since your Canadian, I must say my favorite international tournament was when the US beat Canada for the 96' world Cup of hockey. It was even sweeter becaues I was in Toronto during the final game.

Should change your name to Joshtroll.

The owners (approx 80% American) felt very strongly that by participating in the Olympics, they would be able to leverage the hockey coverage into additional fans for the sport. I can state this because they agreed to the players demand that the owners forego their ability to void the previous CBA in 2000, thus having it run it's course through 2004.

The poor national TV ratings could be more easily blamed on a regional product, poor marketing, or less exciting product than on the Olympic involvement. In either case, you're in no way making any sort of reasonable arguement that the NHL involvement in the Olympics have not helped the sport.

 

[miss hockey]

Are you suggesting the NHL is not a success?? Or is success to you having successful franchises down in places where most people have never skated on ice in their life?

The NHL is a 2+$ billion dollar a year industry and only a small handful of franchises are having financial difficulties in the new NHL. Hockey is the second largest sport on a global basis behind soccer. What part of this isn't success? The fact its not the biggest sport in the states?

Olympics is about growing global fan bases not just TV revenues but merchandising as well. Why did Real buy Beckham, because the value of his name in merchandising was absolutely disgusting.

Rather ironic the most "successful" sport in the world is behind even hockey in the states.

Although you do make some points, please don't pull stats out of you *** again. It makes the good side look bad.
The second biggest global sport (bigger after association football/soccer) is cricket, not ice hockey, ice hockey is probably barely top 10.
In Cricket, there is 1 billion fans in India who rank it second only to *insert god/buddha here* him/her/itself.
That 1 billion is several times than the populations of us,canada,russia,ex-soviet, czech,slovakia,finland,sweden,makebelieveland.

Shirt sales is big here yes, but the difference is: Soccer and clubs market themselves. NHL does *NOT* market itself in europe.

-- x --

don't take part in the Olympics? Fine, no wolrd cup winner will ever be able to claim its the best country. It wasn't on international ice. just how "world" is it if 90% of the games are in North America?
The day Canada-Russia world cup final is played in Moscow, then it'll be a world cup, til then, it's a glorified euro hockey tour.

either we have both, or we never have a best vs best and we'll be back to Canada is afraid to meet full strenght russia (used to be soviet union here) while the others will say russia (used to be soviets here) can't play physical.. wee, what an achievement moving 15 years back in time will be.

-- x --

A bit more about statistics, for the very first poster ,you too, stop pulling stats out of your ***.
"The NHL has been in 3 olympics now. Yet the TV ratings in the States in the last 10 years have plummeted and the NHL's growth is stagnant."

Where's the linkage? You throw two statements together and imply they are connected?

4 years ago, after the Olympics everyone was "Olympic hockey showed us just how boring the NHL is" etc etc, google it up, you'll find articles about it from half a million newspapers.
Last 10 years NHL viewership went down because less canadian teams, less canadian success. US expansion teams failed to grab and hold significant tv market, what they got they lost. Teams play each other a million times, scoring is/was down, more adverts, less superstars. Afraid the next Gretzky is going to build a dynasty around him? Hey! Injure him out of the game!

 

[Danny__K]

Although you do make some points, please don't pull stats out of you *** again. It makes the good side look bad.
The second biggest global sport (bigger after association football/soccer) is cricket, not ice hockey, ice hockey is probably barely top 10.
In Cricket, there is 1 billion fans in India who rank it second only to *insert god/buddha here* him/her/itself.
That 1 billion is several times than the populations of us,canada,russia,ex-soviet, czech,slovakia,finland,sweden,makebelieveland.

Shirt sales is big here yes, but the difference is: Soccer and clubs market themselves. NHL does *NOT* market itself in europe.

hippocritical some? You ***** at as for pulling stuff out of our *** then you come and do the exact same thing? When refering to second most popular sport i can only pass on to you what i had been informed of in the past. I don't remember the source but since you haven't provided one either i'll go with what i know til taught otherwise..

I believe when determining the most popular sports they were refering to total television viewership not either

A) participation(though those numbers joshtroll found on that webpage were complete BS anyways)

B) number of fans(socio-economic factors significantly affect viewership)

So if you have any sources which can contradict what i said by all means learn me.

 

[Jazz]

Are you suggesting the NHL is not a success?? Or is success to you having successful franchises down in places where most people have never skated on ice in their life?

The NHL is a 2+$ billion dollar a year industry and only a small handful of franchises are having financial difficulties in the new NHL. Hockey is the second largest sport on a global basis behind soccer. What part of this isn't success? The fact its not the biggest sport in the states?

Olympics is about growing global fan bases not just TV revenues but merchandising as well. Why did Real buy Beckham, because the value of his name in merchandising was absolutely disgusting.

Rather ironic the most "successful" sport in the world is behind even hockey in the states.

I'd put my money on 2nd place world-wide belonging to basketball....

 

[Jazz]

If memory serves, it was the NHLPA that insisted on participation in the Olympics, not the league, and that concession was part of the new CBA. I would imagine the league is stuck with allowing the players to go as long as this CBA is in effect.

You are correct here.

 

[RuuhkaTukka]

I'd put my money on 2nd place world-wide belonging to basketball....

Formula 1 has to be bigger.

http://www.grandprix.com/ft/ft00219.html

"Last year the FIA reckons 40 billion viewers watched something about F1 on TV in the course of the year."

Every single race draws an audience that is counted in hundreds of millions. That means Formula 1 draws billions of viewers during one season (19 races) for just the races.

My 0.02 are:
1. soccer
2. Formula 1
3. basketball/volleyball/kriket
...
??. ice hockey

 

[Ola]

You are correct here.

Not. It wasn't even sure NHL would participate before the IIHF deal was signed. Guys lets check up the facts a little bit better.

 

[Ola]

Please don't misunderstand me but bringing up India, China and Pakistan is a joke, their is no money in thoose countrys. Germany is a market with allot of money. Its actually safe to say that for the NHL 1 million viewers in Germany is worth more then 100 million in China.

 

[jekoh]

Not. It wasn't even sure NHL would participate before the IIHF deal was signed. Guys lets check up the facts a little bit better.

If you're referring to the transfer "agreement" between the NHL and the IIHF, it has nothing to do with olympic participation.

 

[grego]

The NHL could just cut a week out of training camp on the Olympic year.

Just demand that the players come to camp in shape and go with a 2 to 3 week training period to make the NHL.

I don't even pay that much attention to all the games played in the preseason and wouldn't notice that it had lost a week.

After that just lengthen the season by a week, or cut about 4 games from the schedule to make up for that week.

Then you can still have a 78 game season, and not have a compacted schedule

 

[RuuhkaTukka]

If you're referring to the transfer "agreement" between the NHL and the IIHF, it has nothing to do with olympic participation.

In Finnish press there was a lot of speculation if Russia would have their NHL players in olympics as they didn´t sign the deal right away.

 

[jekoh]

Please don't misunderstand me but bringing up India, China and Pakistan is a joke, their is no money in thoose countrys.

I don't think anyone mentionned China, but claiming hockey to be second largest sport is laughable. India may be poor, but that doesn't change the fact that there are a lot more cricket fans than hockey fans.

Consider this : among the top hockey countries, little Canada has to be considered as big country population-wise, as it is bigger than Czechia, Sweden, Finland and Slovakia put together. And in the few (really) big countries that play hockey it's traditionnally a regional sport.

 

[jekoh]

In Finnish press there was a lot of speculation if Russia would have their NHL players in olympics as they didn´t sign the deal right away.

Well Russia didn't sign the deal at all and their NHL players will still be in Turin.

 

[Jazz]

Not. It wasn't even sure NHL would participate before the IIHF deal was signed. Guys lets check up the facts a little bit better.

I'm sorry, but you are mistaken, so I will kindly ask you to look up the story.

The NHL owners (as a whole) were against Olympic participation this past spring, and the NHLPA demanded it (as a concession for letting the owners getting their way with the rest of the CBA). Bettman is for it, but quite a number of owners are not (unfortunately).

 

[grego]

I don't think anyone mentionned China, but claiming hockey to be second largest sport is laughable. India may be poor, but that doesn't change the fact that there are a lot more cricket fans than hockey fans.

Consider this : among the top hockey countries, little Canada has to be considered as big country population-wise, as it is bigger than Czechia, Sweden, Finland and Slovakia put together. And in the few (really) big countries that play hockey it's traditionnally a regional sport.

If we are talking Winters Sports, since this is the Winter Olympics then I would discount cricket as a sport so it should not be compared to Hockey.

What are the other major world sports that have more viewers then hockey on the world stage?

 

[grego]

Well Russia didn't sign the deal at all and their NHL players will still be in Turin.

Once a player has been signed by the NHL and money paid to Russia for them one time, they are considered an NHL player.

From that point on, they play in the Olympics under agreements made by the NHL, not that of the Russians

 

[RuuhkaTukka]

Well Russia didn't sign the deal at all and their NHL players will still be in Turin.

You are right. I guess it was something finnish press made up.

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/news_story/?ID=133675&hubname=

''As part of this agreement, we made very clear that we're not going to jeopardize or threaten the Olympics and that all NHL players will be free to participate for their countries at the Olympics,'' Daly told Toronto sports radio station The Fan 590 on Tuesday.

althought in the same article:

"The previous NHL-IIHF agreement, which expired in 2004, covered player transfers, as well as NHL players' participation in Olympic, world championship and World Cup tournaments."

 

[jekoh]

If we are talking Winters Sports, since this is the Winter Olympics then I would discount cricket as a sport so it should not be compared to Hockey.

You would discount football/soccer, too, but the original poster didn't. So, obviously, we were talking about summer sports as well.