Should NHL Grow The Game Towards Hispanics?

[KrisKing*]

Yes. And by that logic, the Indians should expand their cricket league in to North America. Because that will really work.

 

[No-Twitch Tabitha]

No. For once in this country, can we not make everything about color/ethnicity?

I know...

 

[Old Hickory]

Isn't the Southern / Hispanic audience the entire reason the San Jose Sharks, Anaheim Ducks, Phoenix Coyotes and Florida Panthers exist?

Wow.

 

[pdxshark]

how do you grow a game towards an ethnicity?

Back in the day when they wanted to grow the game towards bostonians did they employ a bunch of irish streotypes? Maybe they sold potatoes at the game and had deals for families over 15.

Seriously people when exposed to the game will like it or not. Its exactly what happened with football in this country. If you want to grow the game of hockey you support local hockey, rinks in all the small towns. Everybody has a football field, everyone has a basketball court, if hockey wants to be seen as a major sport it has to be grown from the ground up. People who play hockey as a kid will play hockey and watch hockey as an adult. I grew up in salem, OR...had no ice hockey rink, I played roller hockey, was hooked on the game after that. Kids will force their parents to take them to games. No place was a "traditional" hockey market their entire existance, the game was created, people were exposed to it and it took off, as simple as that.


Its not like different ethnicities are genetically predisposed to like certain sports. Well, i've not see such an analysis, maybe thats a good idea?

 

[kdb209]

The key is how to expose the population of a market to NHL hockey.

I think many Canadians (as well as many Americans) do not realize the size of the Hispanic population in some NHL markets:

Phoenix - 34.1%
Anaheim - 35.9%
Los Angeles - 29.7%
San Jose - 36.0%
Denver - 31.7%
Miami - 65.8%
Tampa - 19.3%
Chicago - 26.0%
Newark - 29.5%
New York City- 27.0%
Dallas - 35.6%

http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t6/tab05.txt

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
                                  |             |                                     Percent of total population
                                  |             |------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
                                  |             |       |                               Race                               |            |
                                  |             |       |------------------------------------------------------------------|            |
                                  |             |       |                       One race                         |         |            |
                                  |             |       |--------------------------------------------------------|         |            |
                                  |             |       |       |          |          |       |   Native |       |         |            |
                                  |             |       |       |          | American |       | Hawaiian |       |         |            |
                                  |             |       |       |          |   Indian |       |      and |       |         |   Hispanic |
                                  |             |       |       | Black or |      and |       |    Other |  Some |     Two |         or | White alone,
                                  |       Total |       |       |  African |   Alaska |       |  Pacific | other | or more | Latino (of | not Hispanic
Geographic area/1                 |  population | Total | White | American |   Native | Asian | Islander |  race |   races |  any race) |    or Latino
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Arizona                             5 130 632   100.0    75.5        3.1        5.0     1.8        0.1    11.6       2.9         25.3           63.8
Phoenix city                          1 321 045   100.0    71.1        5.1        2.0     2.0        0.1    16.4       3.3         34.1           55.8

  California                         33 871 648   100.0    59.5        6.7        1.0    10.9        0.3    16.8       4.7         32.4           46.7
Anaheim city                            328 014   100.0    54.8        2.7        0.9    12.0        0.4    24.2       5.0         46.8           35.9
Los Angeles city                      3 694 820   100.0    46.9       11.2        0.8    10.0        0.2    25.7       5.2         46.5           29.7
San Jose city                           894 943   100.0    47.5        3.5        0.8    26.9        0.4    15.9       5.0         30.2           36.0

  Colorado                            4 301 261   100.0    82.8        3.8        1.0     2.2        0.1     7.2       2.8         17.1           74.5
Denver city                             554 636   100.0    65.3       11.1        1.3     2.8        0.1    15.6       3.7         31.7           51.9

  Florida                            15 982 378   100.0    78.0       14.6        0.3     1.7        0.1     3.0       2.4         16.8           65.4
Miami city                              362 470   100.0    66.6       22.3        0.2     0.7         -      5.4       4.7         65.8           11.8
Tampa city                              303 447   100.0    64.2       26.1        0.4     2.2        0.1     4.2       2.9         19.3           51.0

  Illinois                           12 419 293   100.0    73.5       15.1        0.2     3.4         -      5.8       1.9         12.3           67.8
Chicago city                          2 896 016   100.0    42.0       36.8        0.4     4.3        0.1    13.6       2.9         26.0           31.3

  New Jersey                          8 414 350   100.0    72.6       13.6        0.2     5.7         -      5.4       2.5         13.3           66.0
Newark city                             273 546   100.0    26.5       53.5        0.4     1.2         -     14.0       4.4         29.5           14.2

  New York                           18 976 457   100.0    67.9       15.9        0.4     5.5         -      7.1       3.1         15.1           62.0
New York city/1                       8 008 278   100.0    44.7       26.6        0.5     9.8        0.1    13.4       4.9         27.0           35.0
     Bronx borough/1                  1 332 650   100.0    29.9       35.6        0.9     3.0        0.1    24.7       5.8         48.4           14.5
     Brooklyn borough/1               2 465 326   100.0    41.2       36.4        0.4     7.5        0.1    10.1       4.3         19.8           34.7
     Manhattan borough/1              1 537 195   100.0    54.4       17.4        0.5     9.4        0.1    14.1       4.1         27.2           45.8
     Queens borough/1                 2 229 379   100.0    44.1       20.0        0.5    17.6        0.1    11.7       6.1         25.0           32.9
     Staten Island borough/1            443 728   100.0    77.6        9.7        0.2     5.7         -      4.1       2.7         12.1           71.3

  Texas                              20 851 820   100.0    71.0       11.5        0.6     2.7        0.1    11.7       2.5         32.0           52.4
Dallas city                           1 188 580   100.0    50.8       25.9        0.5     2.7         -     17.2       2.7         35.6           34.6
Fort Worth city                         534 694   100.0    59.7       20.3        0.6     2.6        0.1    14.0       2.7         29.8           45.8

Any team owner who does not try to market to this demographic is just a very poor businessman - throwing away a quarter to two thirds of your potential customer base.

 

[Bixby Snyder]

Hispanic isn't even a real ethnicity or racial group so what exactly are we talking about here?

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Hispanic isn't even a real ethnicity or racial group so what exactly are we talking about here?

Query Google "How to use Google".

 

[kdb209]

Hispanic isn't even a real ethnicity or racial group so what exactly are we talking about here?

A related set of ethnic groups:

Hispanic Origin

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2000 Census of Population, Public Law 94-171 Redistricting Data File. Updated every 10 years. http://factfinder.census.gov.

Definition:

Hispanics or Latinos are those people who classified themselves in one of the specific Spanish, Hispanic, or Latino categories listed on the Census 2000 questionnaire -"Mexican, Mexican Am., Chicano," "Puerto Rican", or "Cuban" -as well as those who indicate that they are "other Spanish/Hispanic/Latino." Persons who indicated that they are "other Spanish/Hispanic/Latino" include those whose origins are from Spain, the Spanish-speaking countries of Central or South America, the Dominican Republic or people identifying themselves generally as Spanish, Spanish-American, Hispanic, Hispano, Latino, and so on.

Origin can be viewed as the heritage, nationality group, lineage, or country of birth of the person or the person's parents or ancestors before their arrival in the United States.

People who identify their origin as Spanish, Hispanic, or Latino may be of any race. Thus, the percent Hispanic should not be added to percentages for racial categories. Tallies that show race categories for Hispanics and nonHispanics separately are available.

 

[J-Zilla]

Hispanic isn't even a real ethnicity or racial group so what exactly are we talking about here?

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I consider Hispanics "white". Although it's never really been of interest to me.

 

[knights2005]

Not to overly complicate the discussion here, but has anyone given any consideration to the implications of global warming on the topic in question?

Woops, I meant to type this is the dumbest and most ridiculous subject heading I've ever read. Please carry on with this debate while I search for one on contraction.

 

[Kenadyan]

The NHL can't even grow the game in the US toward caucasian Americans, what makes anyone think they could even grow the game toward Hispanic Americans??

The best idea in this thread is the person who stated that a team in Cali like San Jose, LA, or Anaheim could have a Hispanic radio broadcast in that team's market. Of course, to be fair, there probably should be Korean, Japanese, and Chinese radio broadcasts of the games in that team's market as well.

To the person who suggested that the NHL promote the Mexican national team: I didn't know Mexico had a national ice hockey team.

 

[krudmonk]

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I consider Hispanics "white". Although it's never really been of interest to me.

You're equating Spanish (the nationality) with Hispanic. They're not the same.

The best idea in this thread is the person who stated that a team in Cali like San Jose, LA, or Anaheim could have a Hispanic radio broadcast in that team's market. Of course, to be fair, there probably should be Korean, Japanese, and Chinese radio broadcasts of the games in that team's market as well.

Don't forget Vietnamese.

 

[ThurmNYY]

Same in San Jose - there are a significant number of hispanic (and asian) fans at the game.

One big step would be to get a Spanish language radio station (there are many in the area) to do Spanish language broadcasts - similar to what the Giants do.

im not from cali but i been to san jose a couple times and no offense but thats all there is.
it would be more of a suprise to see a large white crowd there.

 

[Adityase]

im not from cali but i been to san jose a couple times and no offense but thats all there is.
it would be more of a suprise to see a large white crowd there.

As someone who lives in LA, I have to say that the Kings crowds are generally white, which definitely doesn't represents the city's racial makeup. Still, there are always a few African Americans and Hispanics at the games which is good. I agree that marketing the team to different ethnic communities is a good idea, but clearly it's mostly just about exposure.

I'm an Indian-American, the son of immigrant parents who played cricket and field hockey respectively in their youths. Why am I a hockey fan? Because we moved to Detroit when I was 6, and being a great sports town, I was simply given exposure to all 4 major team sports equally. The hockey exposure was definitely supplemented by the fact that we got CBC from Windsor on the antenna too.

I feel like if someone gets to see the game and is allowed to formulate an objective opinion about it, the game sells itself. It certainly did for me.