T.C. wrote: Fri Feb 03, 2023 7:05 am
That article is being purposefully dense. Viewership down - might possibly be due to the fact that NHL handed broadcast rights for 23 teams to a regional sports network that effectively locked out most fans and is now bankrupt. Higher social media engagement = those fans taking to social media to “engage” as they continually bitch about being blocked from viewing it, the retarded digital ads, shitty announcers, etc. It’s Occam’s razor, not rocket surgery.
I read an article that mentioned if you take out the NHL games that were directly opposed to Sunday Night Football, the ratings are pretty much the same as last year. I think the 22% thing is alarmist. What should be the issue is that's a super low viewership to begin with. All the things people bitch about are 100% valid concerns, and the NHL brushes them away. The other side of the regional broadcasts is the national numbers miss out on huge markets like Boston because they still carry the national games on their local network too. Beyond the thing's you mentioned, there are broader concerns, like the NHL's outright refusal to really market it's stars. Turn on ESPN and you hear Pat Mahomes this, LeBron James that, but when it comes to hockey it's the Lightning, the Avalance, the Bruins etc. There's no easier entry point to new fans than the best players, and the NHL is probably annoyed that they see David Pastrnak trying to sell us shitty coffee and donuts every commercial break.
Yet another example of hockey being the best sport and the NHL being the worst league.