Why isn't hockey more popular?

[Deleted member 93465]

Anybody who thinks the NBA is declining in popularity is ignoring the mountain of evidence.

I don't even watch basketball but the friggin' evidence of its growth is undeniable.

People always latch on to ratings. Ratings, ratings, ratings. There are many ways to gauge cultural relevance that dont include ratings. An NBA game could 1.5m, but have more views on the 10 min highlight clips on YouTube.

I consume the NBA almost wholly throught box scores, podcasts, sports talkshow clips, and highlights. I consider myself an avid fan, despite never attending and only watching during late stages of playoffs.

The world will move away from its fixation on ratings towards measuring the number of people it reaches through all forms of media. On that front, NBA squashes NHL handily.

 

[Deleted member 93465]

Hockey is a good enough TV sport. It's a ball sport just like soccer and basketball, with a very simple concept. If you're interested enough in the sport watching it on television is not a problem in the slightest.

When I was getting into hockey, the size of the puck, the shifting of lines, and difficulty in telling who is who made it a very difficult sport to get into. You have to persist with it. When you need a horn and light to confirm a goal, you know it’s not easy to follow.

Compared to basketball, I felt like an expert two weeks after getting into it. The squads are smaller, so fewer people to remember. The ball is massive and easy to follow. The pace is slower it’s easier to follow. The players are easy to recognise. The stars of the game stand out more.

It’s not a ball sport like basketball and soccer. It uses a tiny disk which flies around very fast. For newcomers, it doesnt help getting into the sport.

 

[Voight]

The NFL, however, lost 23 million viewers in a single year not long ago. There is a sport starting to lose its popularity.

The NFL is an 18 billion dollar enterprise. MLB is second at roughly 11-13.

They are doing just fine.

As for the OP - mainly because the other sports are cheaper to play, even if its just fooling around at the park.

 

[Marshy71]

Its starting to gain popularity throughout non traditional countries. Im from New Zealand and we are getting games televised more regularly now. Also you see more people wearing team jerseys around the place.

 

[sr edler]

Compared to basketball, I felt like an expert two weeks after getting into it. The squads are smaller, so fewer people to remember. The ball is massive and easy to follow. The pace is slower it’s easier to follow. The players are easy to recognise. The stars of the game stand out more.

If basketball is so easy to follow and you're such an expert after two weeks, then most everyone must be an expert after two weeks, which doesn't make you stand out which doesn't really make you an expert after two weeks. I've watched some surface basketball, and it seems to have some subtle things going on with the fouling, free throws, the shot clock, the point system, the different positions, et cetera. I don't buy for one second that hockey is a complicated sport to follow if you really want to follow it. If you're just a casual fan though, yes, then I'm sure some small things can pass you by at a first glance, but that's the case in many sports. When I watch equestrian dressage I have no clue whatsoever what they're judging I just see a horse tripping around to music.

 

[hockeyguy0022]

Honestly.... the game is getting worse, from what it was even 10-15 years ago. Too soft, I wish i had the couple clips of tampa's D last year.... YIKES. Just take hitting out of the game.

Notice how playoffs come around and the game totally changes. Goes right back to a crash bang type of game. Not to mention teams like Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary get smoked because they're built small and fast.

I also think playoffs are way too long, I like playoff hockey, but I can't watch it for two months. Baseball playoffs are the best format IMO, ever pitch, every day, of every game is edge of your seat.

I guess I just find hockey boring now a days.

 

[tellermine]

Hockey is hard to start playing. You need ice and loads of expencive gear.
Damn hard to learn also.

If you compare it to basketball, baseball, soccer. Even football is easier to learn.

People like sports that they can play easily at backyard and be that heti when they score.

Here in Finland hockey is actually losing kids as it is getting more and more expencive.

 

[tony d]

I think hockey's pretty well liked all things considered. Only sport I'd really worry about of the 4 major sports is baseball.

 

[Hyzer]

I think its a combination of a few things.

I think mostly its due to the initial investment to get involved in the sport. Very expensive, you need to learn how to ice skate, then buy extra gear on top of that plus league fees.

or... you could play a pickup game of soccer at your local field, or a two hand football game, or even go to the nearest diamond and play some baseball. Hockey requires a large amount of investment and hurdles to overcome just to even play the game, unfortunately.

I think Hockey is pretty well liked though. I finally got some of my NBA/NFL only friends to go to a few games with me and watch a few, and they are actually liking it quite a bit.

 

[Deleted member 93465]

If basketball is so easy to follow and you're such an expert after two weeks, then most everyone must be an expert after two weeks, which doesn't make you stand out which doesn't really make you an expert after two weeks. I've watched some surface basketball, and it seems to have some subtle things going on with the fouling, free throws, the shot clock, the point system, the different positions, et cetera. I don't buy for one second that hockey is a complicated sport to follow if you really want to follow it. If you're just a casual fan though, yes, then I'm sure some small things can pass you by at a first glance, but that's the case in many sports. When I watch equestrian dressage I have no clue whatsoever what they're judging I just see a horse tripping around to music.

The point I was getting across is that the game is very easy to get into it for newcomers, unlike hockey. Because of all the things I mentioned, it makes you feel like you've got a great grasp on everything in the NBA within a very short amount of time. My experience with the NHL was completely opposite to that. It was overwhelming with not being able to recognize players, too many players coming on and off constantly, and an object that was hard to track at times. To this day I'm a bigger NBA than NHL fan because of the sport's accessibility. That's just an anecdote, and isn't a rule, but I'd be willing to bet there are others in the same boat.

 

[Deleted member 93465]

I think hockey's pretty well liked all things considered. Only sport I'd really worry about of the 4 major sports is baseball.

You're worried about a sport that gets over 70 million people through the gates each year? And with 10 billion in annual revenues? Strange thing to be worried about.

 

[Burke the Legend]

As some other people have mentioned probably football is in the most trouble although it's kind of a silly thing to say about something with $18 billion revenue. It's got big problems at the grassroot level when people are scared now of putting their boys into the sport because of CTE (should be more worried about soccer tho). You're going to see more and more reductions of it at the high school level because declining youth/parent popularity and also the huge imbalance it creates on high school athletics gender balance (large squad, basically boys only) means it's going to be a target for administrators in areas where it's not hugely popular. I see it's been effectively banned in British Columbia, not exactly a hotbed of the sport but still it's an indication of a growing trend. NY state was looking to impose restrictions on it but there was a popular outcry but still you can see which way the tide is going. This IMO could be one of those "gradually, then suddenly" situations, albeit over a decade but sports do rise and fall. Football's growth in market share came at the expense of boxing, horse racing and baseball, which probably nobody in 1950 saw coming. It's likewise not guaranteed it will stay at the top forever.

Meanwhile hockey still seems to be in expansion mode in the USA. Limited by expense but there seems to be net growth in rink construction, expansion in high school & college programs (easier sale to administrators that it's now girl-friendly compared to 30-40 years ago).

 

[MadLuke]

It is normal for rating to go down in a mature market like the USA or Canada I would imagine that ratings for everything live tv is a bit down.

One worrying factor for broadcaster as well and team, extremely rapid aging of the fanbase:

Sport	Avg. age in 2000	Avg. age in 2006	Avg. age in 2016
PGA Tour	N/A	59	64
LPGA	N/A	59	63
Horse racing	51	56	63
ATP tennis	51	56	61
NASCAR	N/A	49	58
MLB	52	52	57
WNBA	42	49	55
WTA Tennis	58	63	55
Olympics	45	50	53
College football	47	48	52
College basketball	44	48	52
NFL	44	46	50
Boxing	45	47	49
NHL	33	42	49
NBA	40	40	42
MLS	N/A	39	40

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

It is getting an very aging fan base (something the NBA achieved to not fall into), in my market the typical ads are quite the retirement planning, expensive cars, etc...

Has for why it is not more popular in the USA, in friends they were playing football, only watching Hockey, already a difference.

And in general, was there ever anything not produced specially for the American market to ever be popular in it. (would it be on TV, movies, sports), F1-Soccer are not specially popular either and it is really easy and cheap to play soccer, maybe the most universal sport in that regard and very popular to play in the United State, just not too watch.

 

[MadLuke]

Absurd. Fortune magazine ladt year profiled how much the NBA has grown in recent years and projects a doubling of fans in the next ten years. Plus the growth of basketball overseas on several continents ensures uts survival.

Baseball, now there is a quantified declining sport, more so than football.

You are talking about 2 different things, NBA revenues exploded (you can see with the maximum contract of players explosion) in the 2000s (2001 to 2018 below):

And a specific market TV ratings, in a market where live tv is loosing a lot of steam every year.

 

[Groo]

Hockey wasn't made for TV. The games played at a very fast pace with a little black dot.
Football seems tailor made for TV as a contrast.

 

[BlueOil]

it boils down to accessibility in my experience

if you want to play the game, as mentioned by other posters, it'll cost a premium compared to many other sports

if you want to watch and be a fan, you'll need a premium cable package or to subscribe to a premium streaming service to have regular access to games. the nfl and mlb have a lot of their games available on over-the-air or local channels, which are much more accessible to the general population. nhl games are typically only available via the premium cable sports packages. nbc starts making a limited selection of games available towards the end of the year and in the playoffs, but it's not enough to follow your team as a fan. you just won't bump into hockey the way you will the nfl or mlb on tv. makes it a lot harder for new fans and those interested to become fans.

 

[YEM]

That's really interesting. Can I ask what you base this on, and why do you think it is so?

Absurd. Fortune magazine ladt year profiled how much the NBA has grown in recent years and projects a doubling of fans in the next ten years. Plus the growth of basketball overseas on several continents ensures uts survival.

Not absurd, actually true:
Finals ratings were down:
NBA Finals ratings down nearly 25 percent
Regular Season ratings thus far this season are down a good bit:
Ratings: NBA, NHL, Miscellaneous
Finals TV ratings for the NBA are half of what they were during the Jordan/Bulls years in the mid to late 90's.

NFL ratings are up from the past 2 years, and are level with what they were before the Kaepernik kneeling stuff:
The NFL continues its ratings momentum one month into the 2019 season - CNN

 

[HugoSimon]

Hockey wasn't made for TV. The games played at a very fast pace with a little black dot.
Football seems tailor made for TV as a contrast.

Except for you know the constant pausing between plays. Complaining a sport is too fast to be popular just sounds silly. The reality is there is an incredible amount of balance between the big 4 sports. Having 4 league existing in the same environment simply does not happen anywhere else in the world. The big 4 are winners for a reason.

The NHL has a perfect niche as being the elite sport of the big 4. Simply skating is something most Americans cannot do.

The fault of the NHL was trying to use the same marketing that works in Canada on American cities.

Hockey is a foreign sport and it should be a part of the sports appeal. You have players on an exotic playing surface, with exotic last names from countries more known for their supermodels than anything else.

>

This scene shows exactly how hard the NHL has failed.

You vilify the exotic other team as just being wannabe Naziss?

I get that its just a kids film, but there needs to be a certain aspect of jealously for it to work.

American's should or at least should of in the past maintained the image of being the perpetual underdog.

In my opinion the greatest story in the history of sports other than Balboa versus Droggo was the Miracle on Ice. It doesn't work if you've built your fans up to think they've always been winners.

The act of skating is a far better gateway to being a fan of hockey than paying 10 grand a year to be in the system.

If you skate you appreciate the skill if you don't it becomes harder. The fact that its something you can't see in real life is exactly why it is so good.

 

[Groo]

Except for you know the constant pausing between plays. . The reality is there is an incredible amount of balance between the big 4 sports. Having 4 league existing in the same environment simply does not happen anywhere else in the world. The big 4 are winners for a reason.

The NHL has a perfect niche as being the elite sport of the big 4. Simply skating is something most Americans cannot do.

The fault of the NHL was trying to use the same marketing that works in Canada on American cities.

Hockey is a foreign sport and it should be a part of the sports appeal. You have players on an exotic playing surface, with exotic last names from countries more known for their supermodels than anything else.

>

This scene shows exactly how hard the NHL has failed.


Except for you know the constant pausing between plays. Complaining a sport is too fast to be popular just sounds silly.
You vilify the exotic other team as just being wannabe Naziss?

I get that its just a kids film, but there needs to be a certain aspect of jealously for it to work.

American's should or at least should of in the past maintained the image of being the perpetual underdog.

In my opinion the greatest story in the history of sports other than Balboa versus Droggo was the Miracle on Ice. It doesn't work if you've built your fans up to think they've always been winners.

The act of skating is a far better gateway to being a fan of hockey than paying 10 grand a year to be in the system.

If you skate you appreciate the skill if you don't it becomes harder. The fact that its something you can't see in real life is exactly why it is so good.

WTF is this tripe? Lets be clear here, I love NA hockey as it's been played. That doesn't change the truth

Complaining a sport is too fast to be popular just sounds silly. Yes too fast. I can't tell you the number of people I know who say it's tough to follow the play on the field because of the pace of the game. I guess that's why so many of us who are getting up in age prefer baseball.

 

[Harry Kakalovich]

Personally I don't enjoy watching hockey games that much that aren't either Habs games or playoff games. I watch pretty much every Habs game I can in the regular season and pretty much every playoff game that comes on my TV, but the average regular season hockey game does not interest me much.

 

[Deleted member 93465]

And in general, was there ever anything not produced specially for the American market to ever be popular in it. (would it be on TV, movies, sports), F1-Soccer are not specially popular either and it is really easy and cheap to play soccer, maybe the most universal sport in that regard and very popular to play in the United State, just not too watch.

How do you define popularity, or whether anyone is watching?

The 4 major soccer leagues aired in the US do OK with TV revenue for a sport no one is watching.

The EPL makes $166m a year, Champions League just signed a new $150m a year with CBS, LigaMX $110m a year, and MLS $90m a year.

All up, that's $516m a year spent on those leagues by broadcasters in the US.

The NHL makes $200m a year from its national TV contract in the US.

It has been reported that MLS made up 6% of all soccer viewing in one of the year's gone by recently. I wouldn't judge how many people are watching soccer based on MLS.

The sport isn't popular by the standards of the truly major sports in the US (football, basketball and baseball). But you wouldn't find a single country on the planet where a sport has the attendances, viewership, sponsorship that soccer has in the US and not be a major sport.

 

[Primary Assist]

People always latch on to ratings. Ratings, ratings, ratings. There are many ways to gauge cultural relevance that dont include ratings. An NBA game could 1.5m, but have more views on the 10 min highlight clips on YouTube.

I consume the NBA almost wholly throught box scores, podcasts, sports talkshow clips, and highlights. I consider myself an avid fan, despite never attending and only watching during late stages of playoffs.

The world will move away from its fixation on ratings towards measuring the number of people it reaches through all forms of media. On that front, NBA squashes NHL handily.

This in interesting - it almost sounds like you're a bigger fan of the NBA than you are of the game of basketball. This type of appeal could be huge to the NHL since the barriers to entry for actually playing hockey are so high in many parts of the world and its target demographic.

In my opinion I really don't think people playing at the youth and grassroots level is what spurns interest in sports viewership upon adulthood. Many of my friends never played any sort of organized football in their lives, myself included, but we're all huge football fans. I wonder if there's anything the NHL can do to cater towards this type of fan.

 

[NCRanger]

Personally I don't enjoy watching hockey games that much that aren't either Habs games or playoff games. I watch pretty much every Habs game I can in the regular season and pretty much every playoff game that comes on my TV, but the average regular season hockey game does not interest me much.

This is me with the Rangers.

I think a lot of hockey fans are the same way. We're fans of a TEAM, not necessarily the league.

I've noticed people that follow the NBA, follow the NBA, and not necessarily a team.

 

[NCRanger]

This in interesting - it almost sounds like you're a bigger fan of the NBA than you are of the game of basketball. This type of appeal could be huge to the NHL since the barriers to entry for actually playing hockey are so high in many parts of the world and its target demographic.

In my opinion I really don't think people playing at the youth and grassroots level is what spurns interest in sports viewership upon adulthood. Many of my friends never played any sort of organized football in their lives, myself included, but we're all huge football fans. I wonder if there's anything the NHL can do to cater towards this type of fan.

I played a ton of baseball and basketball as a kid. I played football in high school. The only major sport I did not play was ice hockey, until I was an adult.

Yet, hockey by far and away is my favorite sport.

 

[ForumNamePending]

I've said this before, but given everything working against hockey, both historically and present day, it's sort of amazing it's as popular as it is. In the sports formative years it required a very specific climate to play (and therefore to watch) and later on, and up to present day, it requires expensive facilities. On top of that, the game originated in Canada... Not exactly a country that has ever had a significant influence, via hard and/or soft power, globally. Despite all that, the sport has achieved mainstream popularity in 10 or so countries and achieved a big enough niche in a dozen or so others to sustain a professional infrastructure (and perhaps produce at least the odd "NHL level" player). Really, as far as popularity goes, hockey isn't all that different from most other team sports.

In my opinion I really don't think people playing at the youth and grassroots level is what spurns interest in sports viewership upon adulthood. Many of my friends never played any sort of organized football in their lives, myself included, but we're all huge football fans. I wonder if there's anything the NHL can do to cater towards this type of fan.

Having high youth participation certainly can't hurt a sport's popularity, but ya, I think its impact gets overplayed. As you alluded to, football isn't anywhere close to being the number 1 participation sport in America, but it's by far the most popular sport to follow/watch, and the same applies to hockey in Canada. On the other hand, soccer has probably been the number one participation in both countries for multiple generations, but it wasn't until recently, when billions were spent establishing a viable professional league, and the 5000 channel universe started broadcasting European leagues/tournaments that the sport started to flirt with the "mainstream".