There is some optimal balance to showing games free on TV vs. blacking them out, but clearly the NHL has not found that optimal balance. At this point, NHL games on TV are so rare that hardly anyone is away of the sport. Out of sight, out of mind!!!!
Growing up in the 90's I wanted to watch the Blackhawks in Chicago but couldn't. I felt like I wasn't invited to the club and became indifferent to the sport as I got older. Sure it was cool to see them win but it was never my sport
The NHL has seriously outgrown Gary Bettman. He did his job with expanding the league in the U.S., but now it’s time for new leadership, someone who can bring hockey into the age of the internet.
The NBA and the WNBA are both spiraling down in flames. LeBron is done, in hiding from scandals. The WNBA had it's best year by far last year and still lost 40 million $. Sports are in trouble from their own mistakes and never admitting or addressing those mistakes.
There was always always gambling involved, it’s more advertised now but it was 100% always ingrained into sports. Remember the 1919 World Series? It was famously completely rigged by the mafia. It’s been going on for over a hundred years easily
Just imagine if you live in a household where addiction is a thing. "Dad isn't it great to be reminded how you destroyed our lives?" "don't worry son, you'll be reminded 15 times in the next period". It's morally disgusting. Anyone feeling guilty for pirating is a simp. I'd argue not pirating makes you an immoral person.
@@dixonhill1108 I bet you don't know what gambling addiction is really like. I bet you don't know anyone who suffer gambling addiction. I have family members who are addicted gambler. They can't resist taking random bets with you. It's insufferable... I bet you didn't think about that
The NHL has a problem with Betman being at the helm He has the only mainly white sport in the US and as an Epstein, has done everything to promote woke b, put rainbows on everything, refuses to promote the sport in Russia as he HATES Russians He has also neutered the sport by removing fighting and discouraging gritty play. He has ruined the NHL He has also made it so players are petrified of their own shadows and it shows in interviews. The NBA and NFL promotes thugs - the sort of people young Ameriklown types like. The NHL promotes the likes of MacDavid the dud and Conor Bedard. Bedard is nice but dull. Macdavid is boring and unpleasant Betman has ruined the NHL Good video but I think you missed these salient points
Which is ironic, people act like it's as popular as water polo. The NHL is still one of the most dominate sports leagues on planet Earth. Football/Basketball have reach peak popularity, Baseball is on the way down. Hockey is has a big up and up to go.
The NHL has gone too far with advertising. Ads are now on players' jerseys, helmets, and even painted on the ice. The worst ads are the animated CGI ads on the boards and glass-they’re distracting, especially during gameplay, and make it hard to follow the game. It’s obnoxious and a big reason I don’t watch NHL hockey as much anymore. On top of that, blacking out local games to push cable subscriptions is ridiculous. They expect me to pay for multiple platforms while enduring intrusive ads that ruin the experience? No thanks.
he NHL as a problem with Betman being at the helm He has the only mainly white sport in the US and as an Epstein, has done everything to promote woke b, put rainbows on everything, refuses to promote the sport in Russia as he HATES Russians He has also neutered the sport by removing fighting and discouraging gritty play. He has ruined the NHL He has also made it so players are petrified of their own shadows and it shows in interviews. The NBA and NFL promotes thugs - the sort of people young Ameriklown types like. The NHL promotes the likes of MacDavid the dud and Conor Bedard. Bedard is nice but dull. Macdavid is boring and unpleasant Betman has ruined the NHL Good video but I think you missed these salient points
@@hydr5 yea the rolling puck one especially jesus ,like why do they have to be animated so stupid ,baseball i could under stand because there are standing still 98% of the time lol but hockey is non stop movement and thats when thye choose to make the ads move aswell smh
It's because they make it so fucking hard to watch any of their games. I am NEVER going to spend hundreds of dollars a year to watch the PGH penguins play. I'll watch post-game highlights on YT or watch a stream with friends online or watch it at someone else's house. I don't even know where to find them half the time. I looked a million times on Hulu over the past 3 years, didn't see any pens games when their games were occurring. This is when I saw all kinds of other NHL games on there. They are intentionally sabotaging their fans' ability to be a part of the experience. Why they make it this hard to fucking watch some hockey is beyond me. There are 80+ games in a season, you really gotta gatekeep your fans that long? I say this as someone who's played ice hockey his entire life and lived in PGH his entire life. It's completely embarrassing how stupid the NHL C-Suite executives are. Absolute damn fools.
Well said; you nailed it! As a Caps fan it is the same dumb crap here in the DMV too, so in that I have to buy two subscriptions to catch Caps games just to have freaking sports gambling ads shoved front and center. Screw that and the illegal streams are just loaded with malware/trojans, so I don't even bother. Don't even get me started on blackouts!
People getting tired of ads everywhere. Ads on the ice, digital ads on the blue line, ads on the corners, digital ads on the boards. Betting ads on commercial breaks.
ESPN+ is a good deal if your favorite team is out-of-market. But if you live in your favorite team's home market, then you are screwed due to blackouts.
I’m a Leafs fan from Indiana. I get to enjoy most of their games. But when the Leafs play the Blackhawks, Blues, or Jackets, the games are blacked out. Being in a “battleground state” like Indiana, you have to go off the board and find a team out of the region.
@eriklakeland3857 I am a Sharks fan living in Southern California. I get blacked out whenever the Sharks play the Kings. But the Ducks have their own free streaming service (Victory+) so I can still watch them. I almost wish I was a Ducks fan (or maybe not lol).
@@eriklakeland3857 I am a Sharks fan living in Southern California. I get blacked out whenever the Sharks play the L.A. Kings. But I can still watch the Ducks games because the Ducks have their own free streaming service (Victory+). Ducks fans have the best deal. The Dallas Stars are also on Victory+.
I'm a stars fan so they show 90 percent of the games on their victory plus app ( you have to live in texas ). I mostly use ESPN + to watch other teams I like on days that the stars aren't playing. Has allowed me to watch many different teams this season.
Agree but I’ll add an asterisk. The early season “hockey explosion night” or whatever the called it when all the r games were on ESPN in one night was awesome
I cut the cord when my basic cable cost more than my home and car insurance. No more ESPN plus a ton of college and professional football. The way it’s going I’ll only be able to afford to watch old black & white TV shows.
Not entirely sure actually, not really that into the NBA so not up to date with their ratings. But regardless they are doing much better than the NHL with its viewership, fluctuations are normal but constant falling stats are not. Really just need to figure out the whole blackout situation ASAP, and move on from there, really is hurting the league atm
The crazy thing is every true fan who is buying the cable package, needs to pirate as well if they're a true fan due to blackouts. Who spends $500 a year to not watch every game? If you're spending $500 a year on black out hockey, you're using those illegal streams. If you're motivated enough to pay you're motivated to pirate. The league is its own worst nightmare. I was a devoted fan who engaged in "gate way pirating" I felt no guilt as I was paying for the service at the time. I started by pirating 2 blackout games a year. I still had to do all of the prep work to be a pirate. I had to find the streams, hook up my laptop so I could watch it on my big tv(otherwise I use the smart tv app for sportsnet). I learned it was easy and a better product than what I was paying for. The league is run by idiots.
The reality is the NFL is top dog in the Big 4 as far as viewership, the NHL/ MBL/ NBA are all juggling for 2nd place. The first of those 3 to end regional blackouts and make it simple/ afforable to watch, will win 2nd and finally (actually) start competing for eyeballs.
Too many ads, jerseys with corporate ad Patch's . Sports gambling ads got annoying , regional blackouts being forced to stream . Agenda nights that nobody asked for
The gambling crap is 💩 The advertising on the ice and the digital advertising on the boards drives me nuts. For me the ice is too small for these players. They need to make it a little bigger as the players are so big and fast there's no time and space. Makes for very choppy play and a game that's more defensive played up and down the boards.
This trope of an argument has been going on for years. It ignores actual problems like view availability and is a change only the media cares about because it would give them trash clickbait.
The blackout rules are completely ridiculous. I live in north Idaho, and I am blacked out for the Kraken, Golden Knights, Avalanche, and Utah. Las Vegas is over 1,100 miles away from my home! WTF are these guys thinking?
thats funny cause if ur buying those apps and theres random blackouts then ur basicly gambling on if ur game is shown smh ,7 sportsnet channels and i think 6 tsn channels here in canada and they have the same 1 or2 games on all the sportsnet channels then 1 if ur lucky on tsn and half the time its on of the same games smhim a avs fan clearly lol and yea theres been 3 games i think in those channels all year the pens game the other day uhhhh the oilers one of course and maybe one other ,i kno the canucks game will be on but yea like jesus ,thye only show the games if a Canadian team is playing 98% of the time
I got no problem with it if the ads were static, and didn't change every 30 seconds. It's a great idea to get more revenue, but having it change during actual play.. and with horrific animations to boot.. it seriously is grating to watch it happen during play. The betting just floors me. There are KIDS watching these f*cking broadcasts.. what the actual F are you doing?
They've fucked themselves by splitting it amongst so many viewing platforms. It's all over the place and I just can't be arsed searching if the game is on the 1 subscription i can afford. I'll watch hockey night in Canada on Saturdays and that's it. Im not paying for any service if I'm only getting some of the games. Greed is ruining everything
@ciaronsmith4995 cause it's better. Nfl is 10 minutes of action, 3hrs of marketing. Basketball is 7ft guys putting a ball in an 8ft net a hundred times a game.
the viewing experience is so bad now.. ads everywhere. Ads on the jerseys, ads on the helmets, ads projected on the ice, ads projected on the glass, ads moving around on the boards DURING the play. It's so distracting... I miss the NHL that existed pre-covid... I used to watch hockey everyday and now I just can't.
It's not a clickbait video when viewership numbers literally back up with the guy is saying.. The NHL is bleeding viewership numbers and the statistics back that statement up. Just because you don't want to hear it doesn't make it a clickbait video. Hockey is dying and it's the NHL killing it. This isn't anything new, it's just something a lot of people who love hockey like to ignore because they don't want to accept it as reality.. That the sport is on the decline and it is getting worse, not better.
Every other game there's some left wing crusader shit like "today we honor trans hockey players who fought in WWI. Accepting the award is the distant third cousin of a trans hockey player who played for the Kenora Thistles in 1903."
In the 90s the players had personalities. I used to look forward to Jeremy Roenick's post-game interviews because he was so funny. Today they're all robotically polite and dull.
Місяць тому+6
@@betterdaysareatoenailaway you aint wrong there. Not sure why the marketing departments of the teams waste their time and money on these agenda nights considering how tough it is to enjoy and play hockey. I mean its like Ferrari and Chanel advertising and holding fashion shows in low-income areas.
I said the same thing. Last NHL game I went to felt like watching a very high quality pond hockey game. Never mind fights, there were hardly any hitting ir contact at all.. It was exactly what u said, boring to watch
1) Horrible marketing/publicity on social media. No one knows the players. Must hear about top stars everyday, like it was with Gretzky, Lemieux, Messier. 2) Distracting digital ads on the boards. Makes the puck/action harder to follow than it already is. 3) No games on free TV & streaming media. That's where millions of viewers are. Acquire new fans by giving them free access. 4) Poor TV presentation. Hockey is exciting. The players do remarkable things on the ice. The excitement doesn't come across on many broadcasts. Better productions are needed.
Its ever since they allowed and promoted betting. They have clear favourites every season and each season its felt more and more manufactured and disingenuous.
"The NHL doesn't market the game outside of their core audience", and they don't even do THAT well. I'm about as big a hockey guy as you'll find, but when there was the global series games to start the season, i did not know about them.
One of the biggest problems is this idea that the sport needs to be for the commoners. Hockey is game of thrones not dukes of hazard. People like watching Knights in shinning armor, hockey doesn't need to be accessible. People like to watch the elite. In football/basketball we know they are the elite. Because of their speed and size. Hockey isn't physically impressive, it's impressive via skill. The more skill based a league is, the more the costs of the sport are a benefit.
@dixonhill1108 if hockey is game of thrones, and I am the game of thrones fan, then they don't even market it TO ME. I am the audience. I am the demographic, and it's marketed to no one.
Washed down, not enough talent to go around. Rigged draft order, poor officials and officiating influencing games, blow hard dei panels.... betting on hockey, too high of salaries, high priced tickets, $10.00 beers and $7.50 hotdogs, early start times when local fans are still at work.Gary Bettman screwed this sport so badly it's almost as popular as darts.
Add to that too many teams - expansion to 32 teams was completely wrong, when there's hardly enough talent to decently fill 30 teams. Especially since the rise of the KHL, which more and more draws Russian talent there instaed of the NHL. Also, way too long season with way too many games - if the playoffs end in June, when it's already summer, why would anyone care about what's still a winter sport?
Sounds like a bad sport if you have to rely on fighting to draw viewers. Just a thought lol. We already have combat sports with dudes who can ACTUALLY fight Nhl fights are the equivalent of an average bar brawl. It is funny tho
@@sethboooooi23245 Yup, if anyone wants to see sport for the fights, he should watch boxing or wrestling. In hoockey, fights are a nice bonus, but shouldn't be the main selling point.
Cable blackouts, DEI ads, gambling, and dilution of the product- they don't even bother to name new teams at this point. In short, unfettered greed and unwanted woke poison.
They deserve this. They're making tickets unaffordable for nearly everybody, playing obvious favorites, not adapting to the changing markets, making it harder for Canadian teams to win every year, preventing fans from even watching games (more and more every year), and nobody can even afford to play the game. Gee, I wonder why their ratings are falling so much every year!!
I don't think they are making it harder for Canadian teams to win. But also, it would help if some of these Canadian teams, *cough* Maple Leafs *cough* if they were mentally capable of beating the Boston Bruins no matter what? It would also help if the likes of Edmonton, minus last season, could also actually do something with all their draft picks? Winnipeg has been a great team since moving from Arizona as well, just seem mentally blocked in the playoffs. Let's also not forget a literal riot after 2011 when Vancouver once again tried to burn their city down after losing to....Jesus Christ....the Boston Bruins. I don't think it's hard for Canadian teams to win based on the economics of hockey, I think they have just melted the fuck down when it has mattered most.
Most players seem pretty empty headed. They don't really have time and energy for hobbies an these guys didn't pay attention in school, they were busting their asses. They're not very intellectual, they're kind of simple, basic jocks.
Winning games >>>> "oh did you hear about the drama of what he said to media." This argument distracts from real problems like subscriptions and blackouts
@@chrisduncan3943 Doesn't help that the journalists ask some of the dumbest questions "What do you imagine that your infant son thinks when he sees you on the ice?"
I wouldn't feel sorry if the NHL lost millions, no player is worth the money they make in any sport nor is ownership and sport channels. It's greed beyond belief and I'm shocked people still go to games $$$... the price of a ticket, food, parking is insane. I play the game for my health and social aspect, I truly don't care about professional sports anymore.
NBA and nfl I would say yes. But nhl players don’t make an insane amount of money for the amount of games and how hard they play, streaming services and sports packages have hurt viewership more than inflated prices
@@adamtajhassam9188 the league doesn't care about Canadian teams. If they did they'd bring back the north division and give us an 8th team. East t west divisions means southern teams will always dominate in the playoffs thanks to their tax cheats.
I gladly paid the NHL for their streaming service while they had it, with a Veteran's discount it came down to about $1 a game. Well worth it. Then they allowed ESPN to get the rights......I will never pay for ESPN
You can talk about a concentrated effort to ''lower the barriers'' all you want, and that's good in theory, but that's simply not possible; equipment costs money, and maintaining a rink all year round costs money. You can't make hockey more accessible; it will always be an upper-middle-class sport because they are the ones that can actually pay the cost. This is literally like when motorsport fans complain that karting is too expensive; a chassis, engine, tyres, and fuel will ALWAYS, regardless of how much you try to reduce the cost be insanely expensive, and that's the nature of these sports that require a lot of maintaining.
They purposely removed the grit and passion and replaced it with 19 year old kids doing trick shots. They focused more on making as many variant jerseys as they could instead of focusing on the quality of the game. “Lipstick on pig”. All the flashy jerseys don’t mean a thing if they don’t represent a quality product. They also got social-political, woke. Sure it checks diversity boxes but does it improve the product? The game has gone soft, soulless and sold out. I mostly watch old games from the 90s up til the early 2000s and man the difference is clear as day. I’m a wings fan and you couldn’t pay me to go to one of their games these days. It’s an insult to the legacy that they even call themselves the Detroit red wings.
I'm with you Brian. I've got hours and hours of old 80s, 90s and 2000s games and stacks of vhs fights back when it truly was a "man's" sport. Sure miss them days.
@@betterdaysareatoenailaway late 80's/early 90s was my NHL crack addiction. The Maple Leafs runs of the early to mid 90's in no small part played a role. The grit, the battles, Wendel Clark steamrolling players, hip checks galore... it was all classic Don Cherry RockmSockm hockey!
Same I’m a wings fan, they are t the same as the used to be. They were even great in the 2000s and early 2010s. Now I can’t name 4 players. I used to know the whole line up.
The canes is an easy 20 minute drive from my house but it’s impossible to get to a week day game with kids. It’s also impossible to watch any weeknight games when they are on in the middle of bed time
I say this about all professional sports but the advertising has gotten insane. There’s some points I could pause and be looking at 12-15 advertisements on the screen at one time in hockey. And the announcers even saying “this reply is brought to you by Home Depot” “this goal is sponsored by McDonald’s”…. Pay the players a ton of money but not to the point where it ruins the experience for the fans to do it. Soccer/football still has some decency but that’s it.
I love hockey but I never played it. Part of the problem is that hockey is such a gatekeep sport and people try to make you feel like you can't watch it unless you are from where it snows or played the game.
I barely pay attention to the NHL but I go to about 30 junior hockey games a season in southern Ontario Canada. It's local, much easier to get to, much more affordable as a fan and it's great, competative hockey.
I pay an internet bill every month, and if hockey is available online through a stream that isn't "pirating" or "stealing," it's getting what I paid for.
Hell, I live in Jersey and Comcast the only cable service in my area lost its deal with MSG. I can't even watch my devils without paying 30$ a month, which is way too pricey
@@brettrossi034on average there’s 14 games per month for each team (that’s what it says online). If you divide that, each game is 2.14 bucks!! Lets round it up to 2.30 per game.. Is that really too expensive?? Lmao. You can watch hockey for the price of a plain bagel 😅, if you can’t afford that I’m genuinely sorry. These guys are busting their asses, playing insane games, incredible comebacks, highlight reel goals. I really can’t give them two and a half bucks for an hour of high level play? Dang
@@brettrossi03414 games per month. 30 bucks per month. Isn’t that 2.14 bucks per game? It’s really too expensive to pay nearly two bucks and a half for over an hour of some of the best hockey on the planet, especially with how the devils have been playing it sounds like a steal to me
This is a very clear example of Gabe Newel's "Piracy is a service model issue" statement. Stream sites have way more engaging features, they're easier to use, and the games are always available. Hulu can't even get a web player with a working pause button.
Hockey today has ZERO passion anymore, its like a corporate board meeting on ice where millionaires get together to exchange pleasantries and ask each other how their portfolios are performing! The game is made up of RICH kids "even before they become NHL players" that play the game for MONEY not cuz they love the game! And every team plays the SAME WAY! we have no hitting, no fighting it's just a horrible sport today, they get rid of the hooking and holding to make the game faster, but the hooking and holding got on the players nerves and made them play with a big chip on their shoulder and that bought the emotion to the game!
"he game is made up of RICH kids "even before they become NHL players" How many players today are sons of NHLers? Seems like there are more and more every year.
The game has gotten so expensive, especially in AAA (which you HAVE to play if you want to make the NHL). It's true. Only rich kids can play. Which is why the players are so boring. Rich people are boring. Working class people actually have personalities.
A big reason people have stopped watching is the gambling ads. Gambling makes up the bulk of their advertising now and is prompted on the boards, the jumbotron and the players themselves. Gambling has infected the sport for short term gains. I'm sure many parents don't let their children watch anymore because of how it promotes gambling. Sportsnet in particular has sold out hard to these gambling websites and what's worse is they don't seem to invest any of that revenue back into their product. Sportsnet has exclusivity rights in Canada, meaning only they get to show us NHL games on cable TV. Even with this exclusivity and money it brings with it, they have the worst production quality by far and often their broadcasts are far inferior to US broadcasts like espn or Amazon. I think I speak for most that nobody like Sportsnet and wants a new company (or everyone) to have broadcasting rights. No competition means a shitty product. Until the nhl moves on from these greedy corporations that put minimal effort into their product for maximum rewards, the nhl will continue to decline.
If you expose your kids to those ads you're a garbage parent. That's all you need to know. The NHL really couldn't read the room on this one. Gambling is a bigger scandal than concussions. Concussions hurt the players gambling hurts the audience. The NHL fails to appreciate the science. Gambling is far worst than most people understand, they understand it in terms of addiction, but they don't understand why it's addictive. Gambling addicts don't just go broke, gambling is absolutely cancerous to your neurology. It fundamental alters the structure of your brain. Once you're a gambling addict, the odds you pick up supplementary addictions or suffer from impulse control issues goes way way up. Think about it this way, our entire civilization works to conditions people to work towards the best odds for success in life, and to plan your lives as far into the future avoiding temptation all along the way. The entire point of gambling is to completely unravel that conditioning.
nhl doesn't need to conform to viral marketing. They need to market the things they value and already have because that's what hockey fans love. Less gimmicks and more hockey. instead they are half assed in both directions and alienating all consumers.
Times and things change gramps. If you don't get on board, eventually you're left behind. Just like hockey is for the last 10 years, not just the sport itself but the fans and culture, stuck in the caveman times.
The NHL has a problem with Betman being at the helm He has the only mainly white sport in the US and as an Epstein, has done everything to promote woke b, put rainbows on everything, refuses to promote the sport in Russia as he HATES Russians He has also neutered the sport by removing fighting and discouraging gritty play. He has ruined the NHL He has also made it so players are petrified of their own shadows and it shows in interviews. The NBA and NFL promotes thugs - the sort of people young Ameriklown types like. The NHL promotes the likes of MacDavid the dud and Conor Bedard. Bedard is nice but dull. Macdavid is boring and unpleasant Betman has ruined the NHL Good video but I think you missed these salient points
Bettman connsmythed himself to make Florida the champs, that finals like the last 30 has been decided in the office and by those willing to go under the desk and punch in after cleaning themsleves up after Bettman is satisfied
What do they expect when they AGREE with their advertisers to implement ads that have the INTENTION of distracting the viewer? The more intense and chaotic and crucial a given moment in a game get, the more crazy and animated the ads get. They have also caused seizures and injuries for certain epileptics, and the league is just "meh, whatevs" about it. They don't even put a disclaimer before the broadcast. I quickly got used to them and can easily follow the puck, except when they get CRAZY during intense parts of the game and start sensing where the puck is so that it can flash up a bunch of wiggly splish splash ads right as it hits the boards, or follow the puck around with the Enterprise car any time the puck wraps around the corner boards. But even in normal parts of the game with the non-insane ads, they are still very, very annoying, and EXTREMELY disrespectful to fans. Of ALL sports to implemnt that nonsense, HOCKEY is the one???? Further proof we are living in the Bizarro World. No joke. Nothing in this world makes sense.
@@casseau1996I think they are talking about the ads on the boards. Each feed runs their own set of sponsors. I am curious on what team they are watching because I haven't seen any ads run like the ones talked about here but I wouldn't put it past them since they aren't actually on seen on the boards at the arena.
I mean NBA rating are down way worse and are we going to just ignore the fact that last years playoffs was one of the most watched playoffs ever? The NHL is still the best league when it comes to attendance percentage figures.
God, financials aside, there are so many problems with hockey from a marketing perspective that I don't see it ever getting bigger with the general population. 1 - The culture of hockey is very old school and reserved. It's all about "we" not "me". Players are almost never arrogant jerks. There is a culture of soft-spoken frontier justice that just won't resonate with modern audiences, for better or worse. Personally, I love the culture of hockey players and find the egotistical antics of NFL and NBA players grotesque and lacking all honor, but it plays to the TikTok generation of kids who feel no shame at doing choreographed dances in rush hour traffic for clicks. 2 - The league flags their ideal organic marketing (UA-cam reaction content) for copyright violations. There is nothing more satisfying than watching like an inner city black kid or a British football hooligan, or a Chinese national react to hockey fights or hockey skill compilations for the first time and watching them be completely blown away. But they can't do this without the league shooting themselves in the foot by copyright striking any non-approved content. 3 - The game is actually too fast. Basketball and football are very easy to follow because they are (relatively) slow and are played with a (relatively) enormous object. People unfamiliar with hockey literally cannot follow the puck, and therefore cannot follow the game. This is a problem that can't be solved, as was showcased in the absurd 90s attempt to highlight the puck, or more modern attempts to highlight the name of the player holding the puck during power plays. It's so distracting and annoying that the cure is worse than the disease. 4 - The game has become too soft and friendly. Skill is great. Speed is great. But drama sells. And the old-school, violent, hate-filled rivalries between teams like the Avalanche and the Red Wings, Bruins and Canadiens, etc. are what really created intrigue. McDavid beating 8 guys and the zamboni driver to score is nice and all, but it cannot compare with the Bruins and Canadiens beating the shit out of each other for 60 minutes including a goalie fight and a bench brawl in terms of entertainment value. And you can't get that in a league where players from rival teams are going out to fancy dinners together the night before a game. --End of text wall
You are right about everything. I also think there are too many games as well in the regular season. If you team isn't doing well, what is the point in watching game 60/82 that doesn't matter? But I honestly hate the modern generation, the fact that hockey isn't popular amoung the young people is more of a sign that it is sensible than anything esle imo, but obviously you need to modern audience. Most things that are popular are quite trash imo, and there is a reason for that.
The games/series are often rigged. The Flames/Canucks series the year the Flames won the cup was the most obviously rigged series I've ever seen. A few years ago when Montreal went to the finals the league tried to rig the series between them an Toronto so Toronto would win the series. The year that Gretzky went to the finals with LA the league rigged the semi-finals series between LA and Toronto. I work with a guy that was a lifelong fanatical hockey fan who walked away from the sport forever because of that. It's hard to care for a sport when you constantly are seeing questionable officiating that goes beyond incompetence.
True, the fact that it being hard to follow goals happening so fast you can't tell what happened + the lack of physicality / big hits / fights compared to 20+ years ago and rivalries these days aren't the same can make it a bore to watch in the current era.
Not just the NHL, but the NBA and NFL are way down as well, there are many reasons but the main one is these leagues being run by bad commishioners who allowed their leagues to embrace 'woke' ism which turned off the majority of their fan bases, and many fans have not and will never return. The NFL is so alarmed by their drop in ratings that theyre gonna have the Commanders bring back the Redskins name that they should have never changed to begin with, but as I said they enbraced 'woke' ism and that was a big mistake.
Simple question: do people who do not watch women's basketball know who Caitlin Clark is? If the answer is "yes" (which it is) then she transcends her sport lol
3:00 hockey players are weird. Crazy and rowdy off camera but robotic and boring on camera. None of them market their personality. I think a lot of them just like to keep to themselves, whereas basketball/football players seem to care more about clout than the game itself. Seems like hockey players have less time for clout, and spend more time for training. 6:00 the idea of NHL On The Fly was NHL's redzone. Obviously, hockey is hard to do in redzone format but they should have tried to improve on the tech. There's 3-12 games per day with multiple games overlapping or at the same time.... Canning this was a huge miss by the NHL. Let us pick the main game we want to watch then have "Top shelf" go on the side
In Detroit the Wings would be on EVERY night if you had basic cable. Now some don't get most of the games if they got comcast, others still have to get ESPN+ to get additional. Jerkoffs and their short sighted money grab are penny-wise, pound foolish. Probably a stupid MBA told them to do this. It's a total turnoff it's like the hell with them. The NBA sucks too. NHL was never "dominant" but had a good core audience that they're losing now.
How to save the NHL: 1. Stop the constant betting ads 2. Get better and more committed sponsors 3. Stop shutting out fans on ESPN when they want to watch a game 4. Advertise yourself better and stop with the constant team rebrandings
Nhl is just boring...too many changes..no hitting..too many players that take too many games off...steering american markets..non stop power plays. It's not what it used to be.
I love hockey, and would happily pay 40-50$CAD a month to enjoy whatever hockey games i want, when i want, the blackouts are brutal, and i won't pay for any hockey until i can get it all in one place at a reasonable price, including a back log of older games i missed to due being busy. NHL is worth billions, make your own streaming site and sell memberships, they'll make way way more money that way.
The not being able to select your broadcast was the one that did it for me. I'm a jets fan, I can only hear a commentator mention Hellybuyck 500 times in a night, for so many days a year. The Jets are a depth team, and if you think our 1c is our captain you can't commentate on the team. It's just unwatchable when you can't get the home broadcast.
The NHL was never the dominant professional sport, especially in the US. If it's having issues, they're self-inflicted by the insane cost of going to a game, and the pain in the butt it is finding games on streaming services to watch.
@@bodanlunny1323 Yep. Canadian fans are guaranteed, so the NHL owners, players, and refs don't gain anything by a Canadian team winning the Cup. This introduces a lot of perverse incentives to favour American teams, even if they are dying in the desert.
What's killing hockey, like all other sports, is greed. Greed is everywhere! Greed operates TV viewership. Greed operates in ticket sales. Greed operates concession prices. Greed operates the salaries. And greed will eventually kill the sport. Fans have limited income for entertainment and when they reach that limit, they will just walk away.
Used to purchase the NHL App for $159/year which allowed me to watch any game with a choice of home or away broadcaster. Now, In my province; Saskatchewan, the Montreal Canadiens are blacked out. As if I could drive 3000km to the game. It’s ridiculous. The Roger’s subscription ($259/year) does not have the choices the NHL App had. Consequently, I do without, and catch the occasional game when they are available. Hockey Night in Canada is just not the same anymore. Sad, cause hockey was the only major sport I watched.
Sorry but hockey players will never meet that personality standard that other league players have. Hockey players have always been extremely cold and bland when it comes to personality off the ice and idk y. They come off as awkward or rude and it’s been like that forever. The only players that had decent personalities was pk subban and he’s the worst and Paul Biz and he was a nobody in the league.
I sort of get tired of the whole..."It's too expensive of a sport for kids to play" I used to play street hockey all the time. All you need is a stick, a ball, and a trash can.
WNBA star…she’s phenomenal. But if you don’t watch women’s professional basketball, (which is damn near impossible to find in 🇨🇦) then I understand why she’s unknown.
This point is probably irrelevant but the idea that “hockey is made for this short-attention span era” made me think of it. You know what we have on our side? If you walk into Barnes and noble (US book store chain) 75% of the sappy romance sex novels for women revolve around some hockey player. It’s “in” right now for girls, so it’s a great time to take advantage and insert it into pop culture. Get more people to play too! The only thing I fear is making the game a joke by having inauthentic drama on twitter, or changing the attitude of the game. This game is about class too and we have to remember that.
ESPN shoving DEI down our throats. Why is Emily Kaplan on a teams bench sticking a microphone in a coaches face asking stupid questions during a heated playoff game. Now they have a woman calling games.
Honestly, I watch games through streams I find online and even though it's free for me I can barely stand to watch NHL games with the animating ads on the boards. It is SO DISTRACTING. And often times the ads are brighter than they should be which makes my eyes want to focus on them. That's probably the reason they are brighter than the ice but I'm TRYING TO WATCH HOCKEY NOT STARE AT ADS.
This is what happens when your #1 objective is not the game itself, but maximizing advertising revenues. It's hard to believe that up until about 1990, nearly all the NHL rinks were ad free... nothing on the ice, glass or even the boards.
The NHL has no clue, it’s that simple. Too many teams, TV schedules are all over the map, gotta pay extra to watch , blackouts, too much focus on betting, etc … The NHL better pray that the Leafs don’t win the cup because that’s when the steep decline in ratings will happen.
TV ratings is an area the NHL has always struggled with. It's a regional/niche sport compared to NBA, MLB, NFL. Hockey is best as a live sport. It has its place firmly in 4th. The individual markets are mostly strong, attendance is strong that also happens to be what the league relies on more than the other sports, gate receipts. It can be difficult for the newcomer to the game to understand by watching a TV broadcast., largely because of how fast paced the game is. Also, due to the fracturing of TV and streaming it can be very difficult to find the place your team is playing. There isn't a simple one stop shop they way center ice used to be.
I agree that today NHL players don’t make as big of a cultural impact as other leagues. It used to be better though. During the 90s, Wayne Gretzky was definitely a “cultural icon” that most Americans knew at least knew about. Same can definitely be said about Mario Lemieux or Jamir Jagr
Yes Bettman always so concerned about "new" markets forgets about markets that have die hard fans. As an oiler fan I can relate. McDavid winning the cup would have been great for the sport. Instead it goes to a market that doesn't support it's team when it's losing.😊
Lack of physicality is hurting the game. The figure skating gets boring after a while. NBA is suffering similarly with the game becoming a three point shooting contest.
Equipment can easily exceed thousands of dollars actually. That said I grew up in a household where my parents didn’t make a ton of money and I wanted to play hockey so we got a lot of my initial gear from a Play it Again Sports for a fraction of the price. Nowadays Sideline Swap is a good option as well. I also started out playing roller hockey which is more accessible.. still to this day there are a couple local outdoor roller hockey rinks I skate on once a week when I can’t make it out on the ice. My point is.. it’s what you make of it. If you really have a desire to play.. there is a path. I also think teams and players are making an effort to showcase themselves a bit more. Not an overnight process but more a work in progress.
Hockey is definitely not a common sport for children to start since it’s a privileged sport, not only can equipment be expensive but youth teams charge thousands to play a season. Whereas kids can pick up a football or basketball and play for $40 a season. Hockey will never be as common for children as the other main sports
Snoop Dogg talked about this. He basically said the NHL has no clue how to promote itself and he’s absolutely right. Bettman and a dominant ownership have kinda ruined it for the league.
@ You need to learn how to pick and choose when someone makes a valid observation. He was absolutely right. Everyone in the world knows who LeBron James is even if they’ve never watched the NBA, but only hockey fans know who Connor McDavid is. Considering the fact that McDavid is the best player the league has had since Mario Lemieux, I would consider this particularly bad. It shows that there’s a massive gap between the NHL and the general public’s knowledge of hockey. It shows the NO ONE CARES. As a thirty year hockey fan, this bothers me. What also bothers me is the fact that you probably have a sub-80 IQ, so you think standing on a soap box and screaming like a dunderhead makes you smart. Here’s a hint: it doesn’t. And if you can’t understand what I just typed then you’ve completely validated my point. I don’t need therapy, but you clearly DO need to learn critical thinking because it’s not your forte.
The league does not truly care about viewership or fans. Just drawing in more advertisers or selling broadcast rights. The league has been successful, in that they are more profitable then ever. The salary cap goes up with profitability and is set to go up significantly next year. None of this has been good for the fans. Profits will continue to rise as the league finds ever more things to monetize. Eventually they will lose so many fans that advertising will fall as well. However, that could still be a ways off
Blacking out your cities team is absolutely insane
Yes bro I hate it 😢
There is some optimal balance to showing games free on TV vs. blacking them out, but clearly the NHL has not found that optimal balance. At this point, NHL games on TV are so rare that hardly anyone is away of the sport.
Out of sight, out of mind!!!!
Back in the seventies through the eighties you could only watch away games in N Y never a home game ever.
Growing up in the 90's I wanted to watch the Blackhawks in Chicago but couldn't. I felt like I wasn't invited to the club and became indifferent to the sport as I got older. Sure it was cool to see them win but it was never my sport
No one was watching anyways.
The NHL has seriously outgrown Gary Bettman. He did his job with expanding the league in the U.S., but now it’s time for new leadership, someone who can bring hockey into the age of the internet.
Gary is waaaaay past his best before date.
The NBA and the WNBA are both spiraling down in flames. LeBron is done, in hiding from scandals. The WNBA had it's best year by far last year and still lost 40 million $. Sports are in trouble from their own mistakes and never admitting or addressing those mistakes.
@@freedom1028 I have been a forward and goltenter since 1980 and I skate pretty well ,but the game is too expensive to play and watch these days !
@@philippemichelvidori7248 You make a good point. Cheers.
Time to have someone who actually PLAYED hockey take the helm. Bettman is such a loser and poser.
Cant stand digital ads. I don't want to see a car driving around the boards when i'm watching a hockey game.
We can tolerate stationary text or graphics - but having moving graphics is a deal killer
It's a distraction. Sometimes it's not a car it's a digital puck. Who's genius idea was that.
Yeah!
But then how are going to be reminded to buy TheSlop(tm)?
Digital ads are really a bad idea. The game's tough enough for new viewers, and then you add that distraction...😮
110% not interested in the gambling advertising on NHL broadcasts.
There was always always gambling involved, it’s more advertised now but it was 100% always ingrained into sports. Remember the 1919 World Series? It was famously completely rigged by the mafia. It’s been going on for over a hundred years easily
Ya they suck
Just imagine if you live in a household where addiction is a thing. "Dad isn't it great to be reminded how you destroyed our lives?" "don't worry son, you'll be reminded 15 times in the next period". It's morally disgusting. Anyone feeling guilty for pirating is a simp. I'd argue not pirating makes you an immoral person.
@@dixonhill1108
I bet you don't know what gambling addiction is really like. I bet you don't know anyone who suffer gambling addiction.
I have family members who are addicted gambler. They can't resist taking random bets with you. It's insufferable...
I bet you didn't think about that
@@Hydra-Yoga-Chicago betting and fantasy are 2 of the biggest drivers of sports viewership. They’re not going anywhere
Hockey is such an underappreciated sport
It's because Latinos, African Americans and other ethnic people don't watch it.
Understatement of the century (at least).
The NHL has a problem with Betman being at the helm
He has the only mainly white sport in the US and as an Epstein, has done everything to promote woke b, put rainbows on everything, refuses to promote the sport in Russia as he HATES Russians
He has also neutered the sport by removing fighting and discouraging gritty play.
He has ruined the NHL
He has also made it so players are petrified of their own shadows and it shows in interviews. The NBA and NFL promotes thugs - the sort of people young Ameriklown types like. The NHL promotes the likes of MacDavid the dud and Conor Bedard. Bedard is nice but dull. Macdavid is boring and unpleasant
Betman has ruined the NHL
Good video but I think you missed these salient points
Which is ironic, people act like it's as popular as water polo. The NHL is still one of the most dominate sports leagues on planet Earth. Football/Basketball have reach peak popularity, Baseball is on the way down. Hockey is has a big up and up to go.
The sport is great. Its the league that needs to fix a lot of things
The NHL has gone too far with advertising. Ads are now on players' jerseys, helmets, and even painted on the ice. The worst ads are the animated CGI ads on the boards and glass-they’re distracting, especially during gameplay, and make it hard to follow the game. It’s obnoxious and a big reason I don’t watch NHL hockey as much anymore. On top of that, blacking out local games to push cable subscriptions is ridiculous. They expect me to pay for multiple platforms while enduring intrusive ads that ruin the experience? No thanks.
NHL have to still lot of "learn" from Europe. Look how looks like some Jerseys or Ice in Europe leagues.
@@danielkubin3878 in europe there are no blackouts and going to see games live at arena doesn't bankrupt you so who is the real winner here?
I was shocked this year at how quickly my excitement for the start of hockey died as soon as the first sports betting ad came on.
Can't stand the moving board ads
I enjoy me some betting, but yeah I find it odd these leagues are so cozy with sportsbooks.
he NHL as a problem with Betman being at the helm
He has the only mainly white sport in the US and as an Epstein, has done everything to promote woke b, put rainbows on everything, refuses to promote the sport in Russia as he HATES Russians
He has also neutered the sport by removing fighting and discouraging gritty play.
He has ruined the NHL
He has also made it so players are petrified of their own shadows and it shows in interviews. The NBA and NFL promotes thugs - the sort of people young Ameriklown types like. The NHL promotes the likes of MacDavid the dud and Conor Bedard. Bedard is nice but dull. Macdavid is boring and unpleasant
Betman has ruined the NHL
Good video but I think you missed these salient points
@@hydr5 yea the rolling puck one especially jesus ,like why do they have to be animated so stupid ,baseball i could under stand because there are standing still 98% of the time lol but hockey is non stop movement and thats when thye choose to make the ads move aswell smh
Y’all are really clutching your pearls over sports betting?
It's because they make it so fucking hard to watch any of their games. I am NEVER going to spend hundreds of dollars a year to watch the PGH penguins play. I'll watch post-game highlights on YT or watch a stream with friends online or watch it at someone else's house.
I don't even know where to find them half the time. I looked a million times on Hulu over the past 3 years, didn't see any pens games when their games were occurring. This is when I saw all kinds of other NHL games on there. They are intentionally sabotaging their fans' ability to be a part of the experience. Why they make it this hard to fucking watch some hockey is beyond me. There are 80+ games in a season, you really gotta gatekeep your fans that long?
I say this as someone who's played ice hockey his entire life and lived in PGH his entire life. It's completely embarrassing how stupid the NHL C-Suite executives are. Absolute damn fools.
Well said; you nailed it! As a Caps fan it is the same dumb crap here in the DMV too, so in that I have to buy two subscriptions to catch Caps games just to have freaking sports gambling ads shoved front and center.
Screw that and the illegal streams are just loaded with malware/trojans, so I don't even bother. Don't even get me started on blackouts!
Every game is on Fubo for $90/month 😅
NHL network
@@MbisonBalrog I used to have the NHL channels, but the games I want to watch were all blacked out! I just catch the highlights on youtube.
@@MbisonBalrogregional blackouts.
People getting tired of ads everywhere. Ads on the ice, digital ads on the blue line, ads on the corners, digital ads on the boards. Betting ads on commercial breaks.
ESPN+ is a good deal if your favorite team is out-of-market. But if you live in your favorite team's home market, then you are screwed due to blackouts.
I’m a Leafs fan from Indiana. I get to enjoy most of their games. But when the Leafs play the Blackhawks, Blues, or Jackets, the games are blacked out. Being in a “battleground state” like Indiana, you have to go off the board and find a team out of the region.
@eriklakeland3857 I am a Sharks fan living in Southern California. I get blacked out whenever the Sharks play the Kings. But the Ducks have their own free streaming service (Victory+) so I can still watch them. I almost wish I was a Ducks fan (or maybe not lol).
@@eriklakeland3857 I am a Sharks fan living in Southern California. I get blacked out whenever the Sharks play the L.A. Kings. But I can still watch the Ducks games because the Ducks have their own free streaming service (Victory+). Ducks fans have the best deal. The Dallas Stars are also on Victory+.
@@eriklakeland3857 Considering the standing of those 3 teams it'd hardly a problem.
Yeah way way cheaper than going to a game. I live in Seattle. Good seats are out of reach here
"What happened to the NHL?"
Gary Bettman happened, the end
ESPN = Hockey Killer
how so? ESPN+ has allowed me to watch multiple games every night.
I'm a stars fan so they show 90 percent of the games on their victory plus app ( you have to live in texas ). I mostly use ESPN + to watch other teams I like on days that the stars aren't playing. Has allowed me to watch many different teams this season.
Disagree. Hockey coming back to ESPN is 15 years overdue. Plus all games are available on their ESPN+ service
Agree but I’ll add an asterisk. The early season “hockey explosion night” or whatever the called it when all the r games were on ESPN in one night was awesome
I cut the cord when my basic cable cost more than my home and car insurance. No more ESPN plus a ton of college and professional football. The way it’s going I’ll only be able to afford to watch old black & white TV shows.
Make watching impossible and not watching will become reality.
Completely agree, main issue they have to tackle and everything else will align with time and some work
@@SynoGG
Yeah but isn't the same thing happening in the NBA? I thought their TV viewing was down as well and they also have access issues for fans.
Not entirely sure actually, not really that into the NBA so not up to date with their ratings. But regardless they are doing much better than the NHL with its viewership, fluctuations are normal but constant falling stats are not. Really just need to figure out the whole blackout situation ASAP, and move on from there, really is hurting the league atm
The crazy thing is every true fan who is buying the cable package, needs to pirate as well if they're a true fan due to blackouts. Who spends $500 a year to not watch every game? If you're spending $500 a year on black out hockey, you're using those illegal streams. If you're motivated enough to pay you're motivated to pirate. The league is its own worst nightmare. I was a devoted fan who engaged in "gate way pirating" I felt no guilt as I was paying for the service at the time. I started by pirating 2 blackout games a year. I still had to do all of the prep work to be a pirate. I had to find the streams, hook up my laptop so I could watch it on my big tv(otherwise I use the smart tv app for sportsnet). I learned it was easy and a better product than what I was paying for. The league is run by idiots.
The reality is the NFL is top dog in the Big 4 as far as viewership, the NHL/ MBL/ NBA are all juggling for 2nd place.
The first of those 3 to end regional blackouts and make it simple/ afforable to watch, will win 2nd and finally (actually) start competing for eyeballs.
Too many ads, jerseys with corporate ad Patch's . Sports gambling ads got annoying , regional blackouts being forced to stream . Agenda nights that nobody asked for
The gambling crap is 💩
The advertising on the ice and the digital advertising on the boards drives me nuts.
For me the ice is too small for these players. They need to make it a little bigger as the players are so big and fast there's no time and space. Makes for very choppy play and a game that's more defensive played up and down the boards.
I agree with everything you said until the last part
Please explain to me how Hockey Fights Cancer night is an "agenda"?
You got it on ALL of them!
Not to mention the absolutely terrible officiating
Agenda nights, especially after the COVID bull crap, drove me to stop watching sports.
Hell no, I don't agree that the NHL players need to be more obnoxious on social media.
Yea but don’t make it seem like they’re NPC’s or something
They're soulless robots as of right now so they need to do something
This trope of an argument has been going on for years. It ignores actual problems like view availability and is a change only the media cares about because it would give them trash clickbait.
I disagree
A Canadian team hasn’t won the Cup since 1993. That is a big reason why viewership is plummeting in Canada.
Yup and it is rigged and they even admit if you listen to them
Well is not problem of NHL, that Canadian teams usually sucks in Stanley Cup...
singing the Canadian national anthem in Punjabi didn't help
Montreal Canadiens
The blackout rules are completely ridiculous. I live in north Idaho, and I am blacked out for the Kraken, Golden Knights, Avalanche, and Utah. Las Vegas is over 1,100 miles away from my home! WTF are these guys thinking?
Wow that’s brutal, I get Blackhawk games from Saint Louis.
"The peasants don't matter. They don't pay for our vacation homes."
- NHL Execs
That’s bizarre. I live in SLC, and only the Hockey Club is blacked out for me.
@@tomedmonds8347 cuz that’s your local market team. NHL assigned 4 teams to my local market. Brainiacs at work.
Paying for all the apps/ services, and getting blackouts are asinine. And the betting shoved in your face nonstop is a buzz kill.
thats funny cause if ur buying those apps and theres random blackouts then ur basicly gambling on if ur game is shown smh ,7 sportsnet channels and i think 6 tsn channels here in canada and they have the same 1 or2 games on all the sportsnet channels then 1 if ur lucky on tsn and half the time its on of the same games smhim a avs fan clearly lol and yea theres been 3 games i think in those channels all year the pens game the other day uhhhh the oilers one of course and maybe one other ,i kno the canucks game will be on but yea like jesus ,thye only show the games if a Canadian team is playing 98% of the time
@tophercabba exactly.
Gotta stop with the digital ads on the boards and ton down all the betting advertising.
I got no problem with it if the ads were static, and didn't change every 30 seconds. It's a great idea to get more revenue, but having it change during actual play.. and with horrific animations to boot.. it seriously is grating to watch it happen during play. The betting just floors me. There are KIDS watching these f*cking broadcasts.. what the actual F are you doing?
GET ALL CORP LOGOS OFF ALL NHL UNIFORMS (JERSEYS & HELMETS)!
The NBA profiles its stars relentlessly on social media yet its ratings are plummeting as well. Explain that.
They've fucked themselves by splitting it amongst so many viewing platforms. It's all over the place and I just can't be arsed searching if the game is on the 1 subscription i can afford. I'll watch hockey night in Canada on Saturdays and that's it. Im not paying for any service if I'm only getting some of the games. Greed is ruining everything
Why would I watch hockey when Formula 1, Soccer, NFL or the NBA exist? Serious question.
@@ciaronsmith4995 and that's why you're not real fan your band Wagner and wannabe .
@ciaronsmith4995 cause it's better. Nfl is 10 minutes of action, 3hrs of marketing. Basketball is 7ft guys putting a ball in an 8ft net a hundred times a game.
@@liammerrick6399 F1 and Soccer? Again. Hockey is backwards in almost every way.
@@liammerrick6399 your band Wagner and a wannabe .
the viewing experience is so bad now.. ads everywhere. Ads on the jerseys, ads on the helmets, ads projected on the ice, ads projected on the glass, ads moving around on the boards DURING the play. It's so distracting... I miss the NHL that existed pre-covid... I used to watch hockey everyday and now I just can't.
Arenas are not struggling to fill seats, The Hockey Guy made a post about attendance just a few days ago
Cap is going up further than anticipated due to success. More clickbait headlines.
It depends on the team
can't say I blame fans. The teams have ruined the fan experience with rules, asinine marketing and agenda nights.
It's not a clickbait video when viewership numbers literally back up with the guy is saying.. The NHL is bleeding viewership numbers and the statistics back that statement up. Just because you don't want to hear it doesn't make it a clickbait video. Hockey is dying and it's the NHL killing it. This isn't anything new, it's just something a lot of people who love hockey like to ignore because they don't want to accept it as reality.. That the sport is on the decline and it is getting worse, not better.
Didn't read the comment, huh?
The lack of physicality is the problem. NHL had a unique warrior attitude. They’ve become corporately polite.
Yep. Canadiens, Big Bad Bruins, Broad Street Bullies. Good times.
to say nothing how boring the players are nowadays. ZERO personality.
Every other game there's some left wing crusader shit like "today we honor trans hockey players who fought in WWI. Accepting the award is the distant third cousin of a trans hockey player who played for the Kenora Thistles in 1903."
In the 90s the players had personalities. I used to look forward to Jeremy Roenick's post-game interviews because he was so funny. Today they're all robotically polite and dull.
@@betterdaysareatoenailaway you aint wrong there. Not sure why the marketing departments of the teams waste their time and money on these agenda nights considering how tough it is to enjoy and play hockey. I mean its like Ferrari and Chanel advertising and holding fashion shows in low-income areas.
Hockey used to be ballet on a battlefield, now it’s just ballet. It’s just boring to watch.
I said the same thing. Last NHL game I went to felt like watching a very high quality pond hockey game. Never mind fights, there were hardly any hitting ir contact at all.. It was exactly what u said, boring to watch
Bettman has turned the NHL into the NBA on skates. Cheerleading p.a. announcers, ice girls in cheesy jazz pants, excessive in-game entertainment.
I used to watch two hockey teams play each other. Now I watch two corporations play each other
1) Horrible marketing/publicity on social media.
No one knows the players. Must hear about top stars everyday, like it was with Gretzky, Lemieux, Messier.
2) Distracting digital ads on the boards. Makes the puck/action harder to follow than it already is.
3) No games on free TV & streaming media. That's where millions of viewers are. Acquire new fans by giving them free access.
4) Poor TV presentation. Hockey is exciting. The players do remarkable things on the ice. The excitement doesn't come across on many broadcasts. Better productions are needed.
Its ever since they allowed and promoted betting. They have clear favourites every season and each season its felt more and more manufactured and disingenuous.
"The NHL doesn't market the game outside of their core audience", and they don't even do THAT well.
I'm about as big a hockey guy as you'll find, but when there was the global series games to start the season, i did not know about them.
One of the biggest problems is this idea that the sport needs to be for the commoners. Hockey is game of thrones not dukes of hazard. People like watching Knights in shinning armor, hockey doesn't need to be accessible. People like to watch the elite. In football/basketball we know they are the elite. Because of their speed and size. Hockey isn't physically impressive, it's impressive via skill. The more skill based a league is, the more the costs of the sport are a benefit.
@dixonhill1108 if hockey is game of thrones, and I am the game of thrones fan, then they don't even market it TO ME. I am the audience. I am the demographic, and it's marketed to no one.
Corporations ruin everything they touch!!
I disagree, they are so busy going after minorities and women that they have abandoned their core audience of white men
Same. Well said.
Washed down, not enough talent to go around. Rigged draft order, poor officials and officiating influencing games, blow hard dei panels.... betting on hockey, too high of salaries, high priced tickets, $10.00 beers and $7.50 hotdogs, early start times when local fans are still at work.Gary Bettman screwed this sport so badly it's almost as popular as darts.
Add to that too many teams - expansion to 32 teams was completely wrong, when there's hardly enough talent to decently fill 30 teams. Especially since the rise of the KHL, which more and more draws Russian talent there instaed of the NHL. Also, way too long season with way too many games - if the playoffs end in June, when it's already summer, why would anyone care about what's still a winter sport?
Totally watered down. Teams in cities that the NHL has no business being in.
people loved hockey because of the physicality and fighting and passion. its just not entertaining anymore
Exactly there’s no rivals anymore. Edmonton vs Calgary are boring games now
Exactly
I haven’t watched hockey in like 8 years. I’m getting back into it again. Is there really no rivalry’s anymore? wtf
Sounds like a bad sport if you have to rely on fighting to draw viewers. Just a thought lol. We already have combat sports with dudes who can ACTUALLY fight
Nhl fights are the equivalent of an average bar brawl. It is funny tho
@@sethboooooi23245 Yup, if anyone wants to see sport for the fights, he should watch boxing or wrestling. In hoockey, fights are a nice bonus, but shouldn't be the main selling point.
Cable blackouts, DEI ads, gambling, and dilution of the product- they don't even bother to name new teams at this point. In short, unfettered greed and unwanted woke poison.
3 beers cost $77 at Canucks game...not going any more
They deserve this. They're making tickets unaffordable for nearly everybody, playing obvious favorites, not adapting to the changing markets, making it harder for Canadian teams to win every year, preventing fans from even watching games (more and more every year), and nobody can even afford to play the game.
Gee, I wonder why their ratings are falling so much every year!!
I don't think they are making it harder for Canadian teams to win. But also, it would help if some of these Canadian teams, *cough* Maple Leafs *cough* if they were mentally capable of beating the Boston Bruins no matter what? It would also help if the likes of Edmonton, minus last season, could also actually do something with all their draft picks? Winnipeg has been a great team since moving from Arizona as well, just seem mentally blocked in the playoffs. Let's also not forget a literal riot after 2011 when Vancouver once again tried to burn their city down after losing to....Jesus Christ....the Boston Bruins. I don't think it's hard for Canadian teams to win based on the economics of hockey, I think they have just melted the fuck down when it has mattered most.
The economy in Canada is incredibly bad. The stats do not show how bad the situation truly is. Hockey attendance is not on the bare necessity list
ESPN is the problem, they don't care at all about hockey
100% correct, they care about your money, I will never pay them a dime
The proof was when they switched away from the Rangers playoff game last season to the Avs/Stars game!
Doesn’t help that the best players like McDavid and Bedard have the personalities of ironing boards.
Every player interview: " we uhhh had some good looks and uhhh shoot the puck" 😂
Are players told to sound monotonous and bored for every interview? That would explain why they all sound exactly the same
Most players seem pretty empty headed. They don't really have time and energy for hobbies an these guys didn't pay attention in school, they were busting their asses. They're not very intellectual, they're kind of simple, basic jocks.
Winning games >>>> "oh did you hear about the drama of what he said to media."
This argument distracts from real problems like subscriptions and blackouts
@@chrisduncan3943 Doesn't help that the journalists ask some of the dumbest questions "What do you imagine that your infant son thinks when he sees you on the ice?"
I wouldn't feel sorry if the NHL lost millions, no player is worth the money they make in any sport nor is ownership and sport channels. It's greed beyond belief and I'm shocked people still go to games $$$... the price of a ticket, food, parking is insane. I play the game for my health and social aspect, I truly don't care about professional sports anymore.
NBA and nfl I would say yes. But nhl players don’t make an insane amount of money for the amount of games and how hard they play, streaming services and sports packages have hurt viewership more than inflated prices
I haven't been to a game since 2013. It's not worth the $
I will never attend a live game in any sport. Complete ripoff. From parking to concession, it's criminal.
@@GlowingWalrusnfl players earn theirs for what they put their bodies through.
You have really nailed it down!
Another factor not mentioned is the inconsistent, and largely subjective officiating.
It's American Football levels of arbitrary and inconsistent. It makes a bad product. The Euro leagues have much better officiating.
I would pay 100 a year to watch what I want when I want, take it or leave it bigwigs.
I would want a 50 dollar discount 4 the blackouts i almost never see my tam win a Cup yet which doesnt help either. Also need better services overall.
@@adamtajhassam9188 the league doesn't care about Canadian teams. If they did they'd bring back the north division and give us an 8th team. East t west divisions means southern teams will always dominate in the playoffs thanks to their tax cheats.
I gladly paid the NHL for their streaming service while they had it, with a Veteran's discount it came down to about $1 a game. Well worth it. Then they allowed ESPN to get the rights......I will never pay for ESPN
You can talk about a concentrated effort to ''lower the barriers'' all you want, and that's good in theory, but that's simply not possible; equipment costs money, and maintaining a rink all year round costs money. You can't make hockey more accessible; it will always be an upper-middle-class sport because they are the ones that can actually pay the cost. This is literally like when motorsport fans complain that karting is too expensive; a chassis, engine, tyres, and fuel will ALWAYS, regardless of how much you try to reduce the cost be insanely expensive, and that's the nature of these sports that require a lot of maintaining.
They purposely removed the grit and passion and replaced it with 19 year old kids doing trick shots. They focused more on making as many variant jerseys as they could instead of focusing on the quality of the game. “Lipstick on pig”. All the flashy jerseys don’t mean a thing if they don’t represent a quality product. They also got social-political, woke. Sure it checks diversity boxes but does it improve the product? The game has gone soft, soulless and sold out. I mostly watch old games from the 90s up til the early 2000s and man the difference is clear as day. I’m a wings fan and you couldn’t pay me to go to one of their games these days. It’s an insult to the legacy that they even call themselves the Detroit red wings.
Dude, I'm the same. I thought I was the only one who watches old games from the 90s in my free time lol.
I'm with you Brian. I've got hours and hours of old 80s, 90s and 2000s games and stacks of vhs fights back when it truly was a "man's" sport. Sure miss them days.
@@betterdaysareatoenailaway late 80's/early 90s was my NHL crack addiction. The Maple Leafs runs of the early to mid 90's in no small part played a role. The grit, the battles, Wendel Clark steamrolling players, hip checks galore... it was all classic Don Cherry RockmSockm hockey!
Same I’m a wings fan, they are t the same as the used to be. They were even great in the 2000s and early 2010s. Now I can’t name 4 players. I used to know the whole line up.
@comradeshadovshki
And all the Domi vs Ray fights and the playoffs vs Islanders. Man I loved the Leafs back then.
The canes is an easy 20 minute drive from my house but it’s impossible to get to a week day game with kids. It’s also impossible to watch any weeknight games when they are on in the middle of bed time
I say this about all professional sports but the advertising has gotten insane. There’s some points I could pause and be looking at 12-15 advertisements on the screen at one time in hockey. And the announcers even saying “this reply is brought to you by Home Depot” “this goal is sponsored by McDonald’s”…. Pay the players a ton of money but not to the point where it ruins the experience for the fans to do it. Soccer/football still has some decency but that’s it.
Once you realize that Pro sports are rigged, there’s no point in wasting your time.
I love hockey but I never played it. Part of the problem is that hockey is such a gatekeep sport and people try to make you feel like you can't watch it unless you are from where it snows or played the game.
Dallas Stars are really good.
Yes yanks have no place in hockey
corporate greed is killing the viewer experience. and the players are more like sellout celebrities than they are athletes now.
I barely pay attention to the NHL but I go to about 30 junior hockey games a season in southern Ontario Canada. It's local, much easier to get to, much more affordable as a fan and it's great, competative hockey.
I pay an internet bill every month, and if hockey is available online through a stream that isn't "pirating" or "stealing," it's getting what I paid for.
Hell, I live in Jersey and Comcast the only cable service in my area lost its deal with MSG. I can't even watch my devils without paying 30$ a month, which is way too pricey
@@brettrossi034on average there’s 14 games per month for each team (that’s what it says online). If you divide that, each game is 2.14 bucks!! Lets round it up to 2.30 per game.. Is that really too expensive?? Lmao. You can watch hockey for the price of a plain bagel 😅, if you can’t afford that I’m genuinely sorry. These guys are busting their asses, playing insane games, incredible comebacks, highlight reel goals. I really can’t give them two and a half bucks for an hour of high level play? Dang
@@brettrossi03414 games per month. 30 bucks per month. Isn’t that 2.14 bucks per game? It’s really too expensive to pay nearly two bucks and a half for over an hour of some of the best hockey on the planet, especially with how the devils have been playing it sounds like a steal to me
@@brettrossi034if the average number of games per month is 14, divided that would be $2.14 per game. A bit above 2$ per game is too expensive?
This is a very clear example of Gabe Newel's "Piracy is a service model issue" statement. Stream sites have way more engaging features, they're easier to use, and the games are always available. Hulu can't even get a web player with a working pause button.
They need to move a couple American teams to Canada
We gave Canada the Thrashers and Flames. Maybe another Atlanta team can move there 😁
Quebec City really deserves a team.......like before, they would sell out every game but unfortunately, it is a small market.
Taking advantage of Canadians passion and pissing on it has reached it’s time and it’s over
I still believe Saskatchewan would go nuts over an nhl team. Even with only 1.2 million people.
Hockey today has ZERO passion anymore, its like a corporate board meeting on ice where millionaires get together to exchange pleasantries and ask each other how their portfolios are performing! The game is made up of RICH kids "even before they become NHL players" that play the game for MONEY not cuz they love the game! And every team plays the SAME WAY! we have no hitting, no fighting it's just a horrible sport today, they get rid of the hooking and holding to make the game faster, but the hooking and holding got on the players nerves and made them play with a big chip on their shoulder and that bought the emotion to the game!
This! I watch a lot of games and they play the same music in every barn. It's corporate and it sucks
🎯
"he game is made up of RICH kids "even before they become NHL players" How many players today are sons of NHLers? Seems like there are more and more every year.
The game has gotten so expensive, especially in AAA (which you HAVE to play if you want to make the NHL). It's true. Only rich kids can play. Which is why the players are so boring. Rich people are boring. Working class people actually have personalities.
North american sports always were corporate since day one.
A big reason people have stopped watching is the gambling ads. Gambling makes up the bulk of their advertising now and is prompted on the boards, the jumbotron and the players themselves. Gambling has infected the sport for short term gains. I'm sure many parents don't let their children watch anymore because of how it promotes gambling.
Sportsnet in particular has sold out hard to these gambling websites and what's worse is they don't seem to invest any of that revenue back into their product. Sportsnet has exclusivity rights in Canada, meaning only they get to show us NHL games on cable TV. Even with this exclusivity and money it brings with it, they have the worst production quality by far and often their broadcasts are far inferior to US broadcasts like espn or Amazon. I think I speak for most that nobody like Sportsnet and wants a new company (or everyone) to have broadcasting rights. No competition means a shitty product.
Until the nhl moves on from these greedy corporations that put minimal effort into their product for maximum rewards, the nhl will continue to decline.
If you expose your kids to those ads you're a garbage parent. That's all you need to know. The NHL really couldn't read the room on this one. Gambling is a bigger scandal than concussions. Concussions hurt the players gambling hurts the audience.
The NHL fails to appreciate the science. Gambling is far worst than most people understand, they understand it in terms of addiction, but they don't understand why it's addictive.
Gambling addicts don't just go broke, gambling is absolutely cancerous to your neurology. It fundamental alters the structure of your brain. Once you're a gambling addict, the odds you pick up supplementary addictions or suffer from impulse control issues goes way way up.
Think about it this way, our entire civilization works to conditions people to work towards the best odds for success in life, and to plan your lives as far into the future avoiding temptation all along the way. The entire point of gambling is to completely unravel that conditioning.
@@Jerbsinator personally, I find it impossible to even listen to a broadcast from a US source. If I have no choice, then I usually just mute the game.
Tickets are too high.
Clearly not since most games still sell out. The tickets are worth what people are willing to pay for them
@jk7921 waitta go and drive up the tickets! What were you thinking! 😂
Hockey got a very strong demographic fan base/following=middle class and upper middle class families.
There’s always someone that can afford them.
It depends on the season. But playoff games are always ridiculous.
Fr, caps tickets are like 300$
nhl doesn't need to conform to viral marketing. They need to market the things they value and already have because that's what hockey fans love. Less gimmicks and more hockey.
instead they are half assed in both directions and alienating all consumers.
Times and things change gramps. If you don't get on board, eventually you're left behind. Just like hockey is for the last 10 years, not just the sport itself but the fans and culture, stuck in the caveman times.
Yup, NFL and NBA are so successful because of exactly that, they know how to use social media properly.
If NHL doesn’t change then they’ll go bankrupt, maybe it’s for the best, open a new hockey organization that actually innovates
The Edmonton Oilers should start dating Taylor Swift. That will raise interest in the league, especially with young people.
😂
One of these hockey boys need to drag out a kardashian or something
The NHL has a problem with Betman being at the helm
He has the only mainly white sport in the US and as an Epstein, has done everything to promote woke b, put rainbows on everything, refuses to promote the sport in Russia as he HATES Russians
He has also neutered the sport by removing fighting and discouraging gritty play.
He has ruined the NHL
He has also made it so players are petrified of their own shadows and it shows in interviews. The NBA and NFL promotes thugs - the sort of people young Ameriklown types like. The NHL promotes the likes of MacDavid the dud and Conor Bedard. Bedard is nice but dull. Macdavid is boring and unpleasant
Betman has ruined the NHL
Good video but I think you missed these salient points
Bettman connsmythed himself to make Florida the champs, that finals like the last 30 has been decided in the office and by those willing to go under the desk and punch in after cleaning themsleves up after Bettman is satisfied
Not being able to watch games due to blackouts makes it hard to connect with the players therefore we lose interest in watching at all
What do they expect when they AGREE with their advertisers to implement ads that have the INTENTION of distracting the viewer? The more intense and chaotic and crucial a given moment in a game get, the more crazy and animated the ads get. They have also caused seizures and injuries for certain epileptics, and the league is just "meh, whatevs" about it. They don't even put a disclaimer before the broadcast.
I quickly got used to them and can easily follow the puck, except when they get CRAZY during intense parts of the game and start sensing where the puck is so that it can flash up a bunch of wiggly splish splash ads right as it hits the boards, or follow the puck around with the Enterprise car any time the puck wraps around the corner boards. But even in normal parts of the game with the non-insane ads, they are still very, very annoying, and EXTREMELY disrespectful to fans.
Of ALL sports to implemnt that nonsense, HOCKEY is the one???? Further proof we are living in the Bizarro World. No joke. Nothing in this world makes sense.
I really don’t know what you’re talking about… There’s little to no ads playing during the time you’re watching the players play.
@@casseau1996I think they are talking about the ads on the boards. Each feed runs their own set of sponsors. I am curious on what team they are watching because I haven't seen any ads run like the ones talked about here but I wouldn't put it past them since they aren't actually on seen on the boards at the arena.
I mean NBA rating are down way worse and are we going to just ignore the fact that last years playoffs was one of the most watched playoffs ever? The NHL is still the best league when it comes to attendance percentage figures.
God, financials aside, there are so many problems with hockey from a marketing perspective that I don't see it ever getting bigger with the general population.
1 - The culture of hockey is very old school and reserved. It's all about "we" not "me". Players are almost never arrogant jerks. There is a culture of soft-spoken frontier justice that just won't resonate with modern audiences, for better or worse. Personally, I love the culture of hockey players and find the egotistical antics of NFL and NBA players grotesque and lacking all honor, but it plays to the TikTok generation of kids who feel no shame at doing choreographed dances in rush hour traffic for clicks.
2 - The league flags their ideal organic marketing (UA-cam reaction content) for copyright violations. There is nothing more satisfying than watching like an inner city black kid or a British football hooligan, or a Chinese national react to hockey fights or hockey skill compilations for the first time and watching them be completely blown away. But they can't do this without the league shooting themselves in the foot by copyright striking any non-approved content.
3 - The game is actually too fast. Basketball and football are very easy to follow because they are (relatively) slow and are played with a (relatively) enormous object. People unfamiliar with hockey literally cannot follow the puck, and therefore cannot follow the game. This is a problem that can't be solved, as was showcased in the absurd 90s attempt to highlight the puck, or more modern attempts to highlight the name of the player holding the puck during power plays. It's so distracting and annoying that the cure is worse than the disease.
4 - The game has become too soft and friendly. Skill is great. Speed is great. But drama sells. And the old-school, violent, hate-filled rivalries between teams like the Avalanche and the Red Wings, Bruins and Canadiens, etc. are what really created intrigue. McDavid beating 8 guys and the zamboni driver to score is nice and all, but it cannot compare with the Bruins and Canadiens beating the shit out of each other for 60 minutes including a goalie fight and a bench brawl in terms of entertainment value. And you can't get that in a league where players from rival teams are going out to fancy dinners together the night before a game.
--End of text wall
agree 100%
You are right about everything. I also think there are too many games as well in the regular season. If you team isn't doing well, what is the point in watching game 60/82 that doesn't matter? But I honestly hate the modern generation, the fact that hockey isn't popular amoung the young people is more of a sign that it is sensible than anything esle imo, but obviously you need to modern audience. Most things that are popular are quite trash imo, and there is a reason for that.
The 'controlled violence' in hockey is a rare thing in most other team sports like soccer, football, basketball & baseball.
The games/series are often rigged. The Flames/Canucks series the year the Flames won the cup was the most obviously rigged series I've ever seen. A few years ago when Montreal went to the finals the league tried to rig the series between them an Toronto so Toronto would win the series. The year that Gretzky went to the finals with LA the league rigged the semi-finals series between LA and Toronto. I work with a guy that was a lifelong fanatical hockey fan who walked away from the sport forever because of that. It's hard to care for a sport when you constantly are seeing questionable officiating that goes beyond incompetence.
True, the fact that it being hard to follow goals happening so fast you can't tell what happened + the lack of physicality / big hits / fights compared to 20+ years ago and rivalries these days aren't the same can make it a bore to watch in the current era.
Nobody wants to be forced to buy streaming services
Not just the NHL, but the NBA and NFL are way down as well, there are many reasons but the main one is these leagues being run by bad commishioners who allowed their leagues to embrace 'woke' ism which turned off the majority of their fan bases, and many fans have not and will never return. The NFL is so alarmed by their drop in ratings that theyre gonna have the Commanders bring back the Redskins name that they should have never changed to begin with, but as I said they enbraced 'woke' ism and that was a big mistake.
katleyn did not transcend her sport. and she does not have a flair for trash talk. that’s where you lost me 🤦🏻♂️
Trash talking thing wasn’t true, but she is definitely transcending the sport like crazy, have you been living under a rock?
Simple question: do people who do not watch women's basketball know who Caitlin Clark is? If the answer is "yes" (which it is) then she transcends her sport lol
She has the personality of a door
3:00 hockey players are weird. Crazy and rowdy off camera but robotic and boring on camera. None of them market their personality.
I think a lot of them just like to keep to themselves, whereas basketball/football players seem to care more about clout than the game itself. Seems like hockey players have less time for clout, and spend more time for training.
6:00 the idea of NHL On The Fly was NHL's redzone. Obviously, hockey is hard to do in redzone format but they should have tried to improve on the tech. There's 3-12 games per day with multiple games overlapping or at the same time.... Canning this was a huge miss by the NHL. Let us pick the main game we want to watch then have "Top shelf" go on the side
In Detroit the Wings would be on EVERY night if you had basic cable. Now some don't get most of the games if they got comcast, others still have to get ESPN+ to get additional. Jerkoffs and their short sighted money grab are penny-wise, pound foolish. Probably a stupid MBA told them to do this. It's a total turnoff it's like the hell with them. The NBA sucks too. NHL was never "dominant" but had a good core audience that they're losing now.
1:21 you just compared the first game of a season to playoff games..... That is a very very weak opening point
HAHAHAH. yep
How to save the NHL:
1. Stop the constant betting ads
2. Get better and more committed sponsors
3. Stop shutting out fans on ESPN when they want to watch a game
4. Advertise yourself better and stop with the constant team rebrandings
Let a Canadian team win maybe because Many fans have had enough watching th is ridiculous bullshit 3 decades after it was already improbable
Nhl is just boring...too many changes..no hitting..too many players that take too many games off...steering american markets..non stop power plays. It's not what it used to be.
Board Ads
yes those digital ads are ridiculous.
Like everything else through the history of time, greed destroys, and never, ever creates.
They are greedy and have overpriced their tickets. Many fans have stopped going. It's mostly corporate tickets now.
NBA viewership is plummeting. Copying the NBA is a bad idea 😂
I love hockey, and would happily pay 40-50$CAD a month to enjoy whatever hockey games i want, when i want, the blackouts are brutal, and i won't pay for any hockey until i can get it all in one place at a reasonable price, including a back log of older games i missed to due being busy. NHL is worth billions, make your own streaming site and sell memberships, they'll make way way more money that way.
The not being able to select your broadcast was the one that did it for me. I'm a jets fan, I can only hear a commentator mention Hellybuyck 500 times in a night, for so many days a year. The Jets are a depth team, and if you think our 1c is our captain you can't commentate on the team. It's just unwatchable when you can't get the home broadcast.
@@dixonhill1108 true, you should also be able to choose the home or away broadcast for any NHL game you want.
The NHL was never the dominant professional sport, especially in the US. If it's having issues, they're self-inflicted by the insane cost of going to a game, and the pain in the butt it is finding games on streaming services to watch.
This is what happens when you expand too far and too fast into non-hockey markets.
Right and conversely make sure Canadian fans don’t win one and take them for fools and many are still stunned about reality
@@bodanlunny1323 Yep. Canadian fans are guaranteed, so the NHL owners, players, and refs don't gain anything by a Canadian team winning the Cup. This introduces a lot of perverse incentives to favour American teams, even if they are dying in the desert.
Great insight. Well done!
It feels like every sport is declining in viewership at some point or another...
Not the NFL or college football.
What's killing hockey, like all other sports, is greed. Greed is everywhere! Greed operates TV viewership. Greed operates in ticket sales. Greed operates concession prices. Greed operates the salaries. And greed will eventually kill the sport. Fans have limited income for entertainment and when they reach that limit, they will just walk away.
Used to purchase the NHL App for $159/year which allowed me to watch any game with a choice of home or away broadcaster. Now, In my province; Saskatchewan, the Montreal Canadiens are blacked out. As if I could drive 3000km to the game. It’s ridiculous. The Roger’s subscription ($259/year) does not have the choices the NHL App had. Consequently, I do without, and catch the occasional game when they are available. Hockey Night in Canada is just not the same anymore. Sad, cause hockey was the only major sport I watched.
Sorry but hockey players will never meet that personality standard that other league players have. Hockey players have always been extremely cold and bland when it comes to personality off the ice and idk y. They come off as awkward or rude and it’s been like that forever. The only players that had decent personalities was pk subban and he’s the worst and Paul Biz and he was a nobody in the league.
also the new woke mainstream media machine absolutely avoids hockey promotion at all costs
Sailing the seven seas to search for buried hockey treasure is akin to trying to find water in a lake. Incredibly easy and incredibly free.
I sort of get tired of the whole..."It's too expensive of a sport for kids to play" I used to play street hockey all the time. All you need is a stick, a ball, and a trash can.
'even the MLB post season drew more viewership'. Is crazy.. the MLB is more popular.. playoffs. Do you know what 'even' means?
I want to go on record saying I've never heard of Caitlyn Clarke. No idea who that is. Let's not get carried away here, pal.
Likewise, very confused, never heard of him
WNBA star…she’s phenomenal. But if you don’t watch women’s professional basketball, (which is damn near impossible to find in 🇨🇦) then I understand why she’s unknown.
She's a bigger star in America than 99% of NHL players without a doubt
Well you’re living under a rock then, Caitlyn Clark gets a lot more spotlight online than any NHL player has in years lmao
It’s because it’s an American video my guy, they think they’re the world 🤣🤣🤣
This point is probably irrelevant but the idea that “hockey is made for this short-attention span era” made me think of it. You know what we have on our side? If you walk into Barnes and noble (US book store chain) 75% of the sappy romance sex novels for women revolve around some hockey player. It’s “in” right now for girls, so it’s a great time to take advantage and insert it into pop culture. Get more people to play too! The only thing I fear is making the game a joke by having inauthentic drama on twitter, or changing the attitude of the game. This game is about class too and we have to remember that.
“Even MLB post season games outpaced NHL games…”. WTF?
This whole sports thing isn’t something you know much about.
Still rather watch hockey than football or wnba.
ESPN shoving DEI down our throats. Why is Emily Kaplan on a teams bench sticking a microphone in a coaches face asking stupid questions during a heated playoff game. Now they have a woman calling games.
You don’t get pussy if that bothers you 😂
Honestly, I watch games through streams I find online and even though it's free for me I can barely stand to watch NHL games with the animating ads on the boards. It is SO DISTRACTING. And often times the ads are brighter than they should be which makes my eyes want to focus on them. That's probably the reason they are brighter than the ice but I'm TRYING TO WATCH HOCKEY NOT STARE AT ADS.
This is what happens when your #1 objective is not the game itself, but maximizing advertising revenues. It's hard to believe that up until about 1990, nearly all the NHL rinks were ad free... nothing on the ice, glass or even the boards.
The NHL has no clue, it’s that simple. Too many teams, TV schedules are all over the map, gotta pay extra to watch , blackouts, too much focus on betting, etc … The NHL better pray that the Leafs don’t win the cup because that’s when the steep decline in ratings will happen.
@@foghornleghorn5140 No danger in Leafs winning the cup. They will always choke in the big games.
"The NHL. We hate fans." That should be their motto.
Why would the Leafs winning lead to a decline in viewership?
There isn’t too many teams. It’s the same number as the NFL
@@tombardsley3081 except hockey has about 10% of the talent pool
TV ratings is an area the NHL has always struggled with. It's a regional/niche sport compared to NBA, MLB, NFL. Hockey is best as a live sport. It has its place firmly in 4th. The individual markets are mostly strong, attendance is strong that also happens to be what the league relies on more than the other sports, gate receipts. It can be difficult for the newcomer to the game to understand by watching a TV broadcast., largely because of how fast paced the game is. Also, due to the fracturing of TV and streaming it can be very difficult to find the place your team is playing. There isn't a simple one stop shop they way center ice used to be.
The NBA has lost 48% of its viewership since 2012.
It’s the shinny hockey league now. They could probably play with just shin pads. No hitting and no passion.
Yup and Bettman won the Stanley cups 3 decades in a row
I agree that today NHL players don’t make as big of a cultural impact as other leagues. It used to be better though. During the 90s, Wayne Gretzky was definitely a “cultural icon” that most Americans knew at least knew about. Same can definitely be said about Mario Lemieux or Jamir Jagr
Keep a market like Buffalo in the basement; continue to lose popularity, it's that simple.
Yeah, i want Buffalo Sabres playoffs back so bad.
Yes Bettman always so concerned about "new" markets forgets about markets that have die hard fans. As an oiler fan I can relate. McDavid winning the cup would have been great for the sport. Instead it goes to a market that doesn't support it's team when it's losing.😊
Lack of physicality is hurting the game. The figure skating gets boring after a while. NBA is suffering similarly with the game becoming a three point shooting contest.
Equipment can easily exceed thousands of dollars actually. That said I grew up in a household where my parents didn’t make a ton of money and I wanted to play hockey so we got a lot of my initial gear from a Play it Again Sports for a fraction of the price. Nowadays Sideline Swap is a good option as well. I also started out playing roller hockey which is more accessible.. still to this day there are a couple local outdoor roller hockey rinks I skate on once a week when I can’t make it out on the ice. My point is.. it’s what you make of it. If you really have a desire to play.. there is a path. I also think teams and players are making an effort to showcase themselves a bit more. Not an overnight process but more a work in progress.
Hockey is definitely not a common sport for children to start since it’s a privileged sport, not only can equipment be expensive but youth teams charge thousands to play a season. Whereas kids can pick up a football or basketball and play for $40 a season. Hockey will never be as common for children as the other main sports
Snoop Dogg talked about this. He basically said the NHL has no clue how to promote itself and he’s absolutely right. Bettman and a dominant ownership have kinda ruined it for the league.
You,would listen to a fool called snoop dog,you need therapy NOW!
@ You need to learn how to pick and choose when someone makes a valid observation. He was absolutely right. Everyone in the world knows who LeBron James is even if they’ve never watched the NBA, but only hockey fans know who Connor McDavid is. Considering the fact that McDavid is the best player the league has had since Mario Lemieux, I would consider this particularly bad. It shows that there’s a massive gap between the NHL and the general public’s knowledge of hockey. It shows the NO ONE CARES. As a thirty year hockey fan, this bothers me. What also bothers me is the fact that you probably have a sub-80 IQ, so you think standing on a soap box and screaming like a dunderhead makes you smart. Here’s a hint: it doesn’t. And if you can’t understand what I just typed then you’ve completely validated my point. I don’t need therapy, but you clearly DO need to learn critical thinking because it’s not your forte.
@@tomfilipiak3511 Ad hominem, don't care + grow up
@@tomfilipiak3511bettman burner account
The league does not truly care about viewership or fans. Just drawing in more advertisers or selling broadcast rights. The league has been successful, in that they are more profitable then ever. The salary cap goes up with profitability and is set to go up significantly next year. None of this has been good for the fans. Profits will continue to rise as the league finds ever more things to monetize. Eventually they will lose so many fans that advertising will fall as well. However, that could still be a ways off