Why don't people (especially Americans) like hockey?

[yankeesgiants]

Re: Why don't people (especially Americans) like hockey?

A few things to keep in mind:

1. ESPN has no beef with Bettman and never did, Bettman has a personal grudge against them because of a segment on OTL almost 20 years ago that he wanted killed but they ran it anyways. He has put his personal grudge ahead of what's best for his league. So in turn, ESPN just mocks him.

2. Calling NBCS network a crappy channel would be accurate. It's a complete fail. Bettman has signed up with Sportschannel America 2.0 for a decade. Remember that debacle?

[ImTellinTim]

Re: Why don't people (especially Americans) like hockey?

I knew that potshot was coming.

[DrJones]

Re: Why don't people (especially Americans) like hockey?

TBH, one of the only things Bettman ever did that I agree with is giving ESPN the finger.

[Amoo316]

Re: Why don't people (especially Americans) like hockey?

A few things to keep in mind:

1. ESPN has no beef with Bettman and never did, Bettman has a personal grudge against them because of a segment on OTL almost 20 years ago that he wanted killed but they ran it anyways. He has put his personal grudge ahead of what's best for his league. So in turn, ESPN just mocks him.

2. Calling NBCS network a crappy channel would be accurate. It's a complete fail. Bettman has signed up with Sportschannel America 2.0 for a decade. Remember that debacle?

If I'm not mistaken, didn't ESPN/ABC have the rights to the NHL still for the lockout season and had to scramble to find fill lots of time with greatly expanded WSOP coverage at the last minute when the lockout happened? Turned out to be a good thing for ESPN, but I would say the beef is more then one sided when you look at how the NHL has been treated since. I know ESPN definitely cancelled whatever they had left of the contract after the lockout.

[Greenevol]

Re: Why don't people (especially Americans) like hockey?

Who says Americans don't like hockey?

I'd be willing to bet that there are more people in the U.S. that like hockey than in Canada. (figure 50% (that's generous) of Canadian population of 25 mil are hockey fans, vs 5% of US pop of 300 mil).

US hockey has about as many registered youth participants as Hockey Canada (570k in Canada vs 510k in US, and US #'s have increased 500% since about 1993 when the game started to expand, per a Star article).

The fact is, for most of the last century, hockey had no presence in south of Michigan or s in the US. Now, we've got NHL teams drawing 15k+ per night, growing youth hockey programs (#'s of kids playing hockey in Florida/Tennessee/Arizona/Carolina are in the thousands in each place), etc, etc, etc.

Give the game time to grow. Baseball/Football have been part of the culture for part of 3 centuries now. Hockey has been in some states for like 20 years. You can't expect to plop down an NHL team and make millions of fans. In most of the US, we're just now having the first generation of kids who grew up exposed to the sport grow up. They'll be season ticket holders, thier kids will play hockey, etc, etc.

[Redacted01]

Re: Why don't people (especially Americans) like hockey?

Comparing the 23 US NHL teams to the 29 US NBA teams...

Average attendance is 17,453 vs. 17,321.

Now, considering several of these teams share arenas and the number of seats is LESS for hockey because of configuration, that is rather telling. To verify, let's compare attendance percentage.

96% vs. 90.4%

NHL does better attendance wise than the NBA in this country at getting people to the game (and NBA teams don't have a problem just passing out tickets in some markets). And this was post lockout. Here is 2 seasons ago before any league lockouts: NHL 91.5% vs. the NBA's 90.8%.

Closer, but still seems like hockey does just fine in America. Even if you compare the lower half of the league, the NHL does better. For 10-11, teams ranked 16th-30th (excluding Canada again), NHL is 84.5% to the NBA's 81.4%.

I think it is an assumption people make because a large part of the country doesn't have hockey "weather". Most of the teams are concentrated in the East and North, so that must mean as an entire country, we must not like hockey. As someone pointed out, because of the Predators, Nashville is more familiar with hockey than ever. I'd say another reason people think we don't like hockey is because you have some that go on about how no team south of the Mason-Dixon should sniff a hockey team... well, I mean, if you preferred when the league only had 6 teams, I guess.

Sure, hockey is bigger in Canada and parts of Europe, but I don't see how you can say we don't like it.

[ImTellinTim]

Re: Why don't people (especially Americans) like hockey?

But as a country as a whole, it is pretty fair to say that we don't like it. The NHL has a very loyal hardcore fan base, but very little in the way of casual interest. The NHL got a very desireable matchup for a Game 7 (Chicago-Detroit), and set their ratings record on NBCSN at 2.07.

Meanwhile the NBA pulled a little over a 7 for their most recent Game 7 (Miami-Indiana) on TNT (also a record for an NBA game on TNT).

Now, if you listened to sports radio outside of Chicago or Detroit, their game got a passing mention. Maybe just the score and definitely no mention of the crazy way the game ended. Meanwhile, I bet every sports radio show in the country spent plenty of time discussing every aspect of the Heat-Pacers game. And can you imagine if such a call had happened in that game?

That is the difference. It is OK to admit that America, as a whole, just doesn't care about hockey on the casual level. Sure we have our hardcore fans who will always watch and go to the games. But it will always take a backseat to the other leagues. And soccer is probably going to pass hockey by very quickly if it already hasn't.

[Greenevol]

Re: Why don't people (especially Americans) like hockey?

But as a country as a whole, it is pretty fair to say that we don't like it. The NHL has a very loyal hardcore fan base, but very little in the way of casual interest. The NHL got a very desireable matchup for a Game 7 (Chicago-Detroit), and set their ratings record on NBCSN at 2.07.

Meanwhile the NBA pulled a little over a 7 for their most recent Game 7 (Miami-Indiana) on TNT (also a record for an NBA game on TNT).

Now, if you listened to sports radio outside of Chicago or Detroit, their game got a passing mention. Maybe just the score and definitely no mention of the crazy way the game ended. Meanwhile, I bet every sports radio show in the country spent plenty of time discussing every aspect of the Heat-Pacers game. And can you imagine if such a call had happened in that game?

That is the difference. It is OK to admit that America, as a whole, just doesn't care about hockey on the casual level. Sure we have our hardcore fans who will always watch and go to the games. But it will always take a backseat to the other leagues. And soccer is probably going to pass hockey by very quickly if it already hasn't.

NBCSN vs. TNT might be a factor. Also, there's no debate that the NBA is more popular than the NHL.

But, the question was - why don't Americans like hockey?

You might make an argument that, from a sheer numbers standpoint - the U.S. has the most hockey fans of any other nation on the planet. We're certainly experienced the most growth in the last 2 decades. If the growth continues, we'll far outpace Canada in players, interest, etc, just by having more people.

The original question slights American hockey fans.

The better question and one you touched on would be - Why don't more Americans like hockey?

Then we can discuss things like poor marketing, exposure, cost of playing hockey vs other sports, etc.

[DrJones]

Re: Why don't people (especially Americans) like hockey?

If the growth continues, we'll far outpace Canada in players, interest, etc, just by having more people.

I've been hearing this, in one form or another, since the Miracle on Ice. I'll believe it when I see it.

[Redacted01]

Re: Why don't people (especially Americans) like hockey?

I've been hearing this, in one form or another, since the Miracle on Ice. I'll believe it when I see it.

Well someone else already said it really. There are, what, 35 million Canadians? If even 10% of Americans are hockey fans, it's about equal, and I doubt every single person in Canada likes hockey.

[Greenevol]

Re: Why don't people (especially Americans) like hockey?

I've been hearing this, in one form or another, since the Miracle on Ice. I'll believe it when I see it.

It's a simple #'s equation. As the population grows and more people are exposed, more people will play and become hockey fans. Hockey will never be the #1 sport in the US, but Canada is pretty much at the saturation point with hockey - there's no more you can squeeze out of it.

The US will soon have more hockey fans and hockey players than a nation with a 25 million population can compete with.

You may have been hearing it since the Miracle on Ice, but there's only been a concerted effort to market to most areas of the US since about 1993.


Hockey growth in non-traditional areas:

Non-traditional
Northwest and Northern Plains/Rockies (AK, WA, OR, MT, ID, WY, CO): 38,669 (220%)
South (FL, GA, NC, SC, KY, TN, WV, AL, MS, AR, LA, TX): 38,076 (629%)
Southwest (CA, NV, UT, AZ, NM): 29,871 (309%)
Great Plains (ND, SD, IA, KS, MO, IN, NE, OK): 24,553 (147%)



From an easily found article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2012/feb/22/nhl-most-over-rated-team-embarrassing-goal?newsfeed=true

"The U.S. has yet to catch Canada – we had 572,000 players last year of all ages, male and female. But its trend lines are better. Since the early 1990s, when the NHL embarked on its aggressive expansion in the U.S., the number of Americans playing the game has ballooned by 257 per cent. Canada's registration levels have remained comparatively flat, averaging 550,000 over the last decade."

[Majingir]

Re: Why don't people (especially Americans) like hockey?

Well someone else already said it really. There are, what, 35 million Canadians? If even 10% of Americans are hockey fans, it's about equal, and I doubt every single person in Canada likes hockey.

Every person in Canada does like hockey! After coming home from work, they go out back and play a game of hockey before dinner is cooked in their igloo.


lol, but seriously though, I said it before, the media is big reason why hockey isn't as big in USA as it is in Canada. If the media buries hockey and treats it like nothing, the people watching won't care about hockey.

I find it sorta funny though, that the big sports that are global sports(like soccer/football,hockey) aren't that big in USA(meaning there's other countries that like those sports way more than USA). Maybe that's exactly why? Cause USA isn't the #1 country at that sport, they don't care about it as much?

USA cares more about NFL,NBA,College sports, MLB(it's also a fairly global sport,but there aren't really any big baseball leagues outside of MLB,minus one in Japan) way more than hockey,soccer/football among other things.

[DrJones]

Re: Why don't people (especially Americans) like hockey?

The US will soon have more hockey fans and hockey players than a nation with a 25 million population can compete with.

35 million, actually. There's a rather big difference between "the US is experiencing a large degree of growth" and "in a few years Canada won't be able to compete with the US".

The US has double the number of registered soccer players as Brazil and 7x that of Spain. I guess it's only a matter of time before those nations not even bother sending teams to the World Cup.

[Greenevol]

Re: Why don't people (especially Americans) like hockey?

35 million, actually. There's a rather big difference between "the US is experiencing a large degree of growth" and "in a few years Canada won't be able to compete with the US".

The US has double the number of registered soccer players as Brazil and 7x that of Spain. I guess it's only a matter of time before those nations not even bother sending teams to the World Cup.

I worded that wrong - I didn't mean that Canada couldn't compete from a success standpoint.

I meant that pretty soon, the US will have more people playing hockey, and that's based on how many more people the US has. I don't care how hockey crazed Canada is, there's only so many people that can possibly be playing or hockey fans.

[DrJones]

Re: Why don't people (especially Americans) like hockey?

I worded that wrong - I didn't mean that Canada couldn't compete from a success standpoint.

I meant that pretty soon, the US will have more people playing hockey, and that's based on how many more people the US has. I don't care how hockey crazed Canada is, there's only so many people that can possibly be playing or hockey fans.

I don't doubt that. I guess the follow-up question, similar to soccer, is how many of the best American athletes will be playing hockey? The US produces lots of good hockey players, but few elite ones, and no generational ones. The most talented US-born players I've ever seen were LaFontaine and Leetch, and that was a while ago.