Every part of canada I have been to, people absolutely eat sleep and breathe hockey.
Its all over every commercial, its a very deep part of their culture.
Outside of the bubble that is WNY, baseball is huge.
I can barely force myself to attend a baseball game, let alone watch one on television.
I think the nhl finals aren’t drawing the crowd’s because its just too much hockey. In may and june in the northeast, people don’t want to be glued to their tv sets when its nice outside.
By the time they get to the finals, it feels like marathon, even for the fans.
During the sabres run, I watched every regular season game, and every playoff game. Towards the end I was just getting sick of watching games. It sorta becomes your life.
Shorten up the season a bit, shorten the playoff series a bit, and I think the players would be healthier and more energetic.
Biggest failure the NHL ever did was to sign their network deal with Versus. They made hockey inaccesible to many people when they did that. Versus is an add-on packaged channel for many people that you need to pay extra to get, and many people don’t bother paying to recieve it.
Also, hockey is a sport that to the majority of this country, is foreign. It sn’t a sport they do at backyard BBQ’s or hanging out with buddies around the yard. LIke football or baseball is. It’s actually very comparable to how the rest of the world views soccer. Most of america doesn’t get soccer, while the rest of the world eat, sleeps, and drinks soccer.
America is football and baseball, and Basketball, and I suppose Nascar. Is there really room for any more sports leagues to fit in there?
Edit - And my opinion personally is watching that hockey is not even worth comparing to watching basketball, baseball, and even football.
Ugh… half of these posters are missing the theme here.
With horrible TV ratings numbers, the parties (League, Team Owners, local TV affiliates, and players) will make less & less money.
You all know how 30 second super bowl ads are bought for $1-2 million? Anyone know why? Because 100s of millions of consumers watch the game.
How much do you think that a 30 second ad in game 7 of the finals would be sold for, if only ~100,000 people were watching IN THE TEAMS OWN MARKET?
And, yes, buffalo is soooo in love with the Finals. In fact, 24,000 people tuned in. :bloated:
For the n00bs - less money is a bad thing. Less money means less payroll, which means cheaper players, which means shittier play, which means less ticket / merchandise / concession sales, which means less in arena ad revenue, which means Golisano will hemorhage money until its Adelphia Redux.
All the while leading to a league (and therefore the sport ITSELF) is about as successful & visible as curling.
Of course, all of this witty banter is hardly worth the pixels its displayed on… because the “real fans” are going to keep the league alive.
As we all know, the Sabres only went bankrupt last time because the Rigas’ refused to actually sell tickets & merch. :bloated: