NHL - US TV Ratings - OOOOF

[MTH]

Winter Classic 2023 drew around 1.75M viewers. Nice increase from previous year. Expect more Penguins vs major market until Crosby retires.

[MTH]

Quote

Mark J. Burns @markjburns88·

Jan 31

NHL U.S. TV national viewership is down 22% this season, per findings from @AustinKarp. NHL regular games to date have averaged 373,000 viewers on ESPN/TNT, 2nd season of the league's 7-year pact with Disney & Turner. NHL averaged 478,000 viewers at this point last season.

Not a good report. Although cable and traditional TV is losing customers by the minute (myself included).

Most streaming services don't even offer the NHL Network.

Edited February 8, 2023 by MTH

[MTH]

Read on 'Blade of Steel' today that the NHL was caught lying about attendance at the NHL All Star Game. They were telling everyone that it was a sellout while pictures from people there say otherwise. Not that I blame people for not wanting to be in attendance for that flaming pile of poo.

FWIW - they seem to use pictures from the skill competition introductions or warm ups as evidence there were empty seats. No shit.

[coopaloop1234]

1 hour ago, MTH said:

Not a good report. Although cable and traditional TV is losing customers by the minute (myself included).

Most streaming services don't even offer the NHL Network.

Have you seen the reintroduction of the FoxTrax puck in Anaheim feeds lately? 

I felt like I was seeing things. 

I think I've watched two games in tv this year and one live. I just have a harder time watching the on ice product. Feels soulless. 

[johncho]

This seems relevant 

 

 

[jerd31]

9 hours ago, MTH said:

Not a good report. Although cable and traditional TV is losing customers by the minute (myself included).

Most streaming services don't even offer the NHL Network.

I haven't had cable in years, but with a Comcast login (thanks mom & dad!) watching Flyers games is easy through the NBC Sports app.  I also have ESPN+, which for $10/month gets a ton of games (although Flyers games on here are always blacked out for me), plus Wednesdays on TNT, overall I get pretty good coverage of games.  

 

7 hours ago, coopaloop1234 said:

Have you seen the reintroduction of the FoxTrax puck in Anaheim feeds lately? 

I felt like I was seeing things. 

I think I've watched two games in tv this year and one live. I just have a harder time watching the on ice product. Feels soulless. 

 

The Rangers/Flames game from the other night was one of the best games of the season IMO- thanks to Trouba laying people out all over the place and the Flames taking exception to that.  But other than that, yeah, the games are just blegh for the most part.  

[Almost Hip]

I have been seriously turned off by the digital adds on the boards.  I simply can't enjoy watching the play unfold, following the puck and anticipating what the next pass or shot will be because my eye is constantly distracted by these moving adds or players glitching into them.  The producers know how bad it is because the second there is a scrum against the boards they cut to a different camera angle before players disappear.  One game the white lid from the Bio Steel bottle was lit up like a light house on the back of the net.

For 90% of the hockey that is on we HAVE to pay to see it (not counting illegal streaming).  We pay for premium channels specifically Sportsnet above the basic cable package and your also paying per month for the HD cable box and even more for 4K.  The only games that are air free are Hockey Night in Canada's Saturday broadcasts on CBC which can be seen if you have the HD converter thing that replaced the rabbit ears.  It is also streamed free on CBC website.   

So paying a premium for a weakened product via the digital adds does not make any sense to me.   The only reason I still have cable is for NHL and F1.  Kids and Wife live off Disney + and Netflix.  If your familiar with F1 then the whole Abudabi 21' debacle and red bull cost cap cheating has left me falling out of love with the sport I supported since 2008, long before Drive to Survive.

I hope the digi adds are gone for playoffs....  

[MTH]

1 hour ago, jerd31 said:

The Rangers/Flames game from the other night was one of the best games of the season IMO- thanks to Trouba laying people out all over the place and the Flames taking exception to that.  But other than that, yeah, the games are just blegh for the most part.  

You need passion and emotions to gain interest in the pro sports /NHL. The networks will promote a game by showing fights and hits from two decades ago. The current teams don't care about battles of years past. Heck, most players weren't on the team 3 seasons ago. Most won't be on the team in 2 years. 

The Flyers were rivals to many teams. But in the past decade? Nothing...

Blah games today are useless. Blowouts and lop sided games decades ago would turn into a competition of different skills (punching faces). NHL has abandoned that. The no fights in the last 5 minute rule has people leaving games early. WTF?

I don't know what the NHL will become. I hope that it bottoms out so bad that they have to return it to what grew them in the 90s and 2000s. I see clubs drying up (Buffalo draw anyone anymore?). The league's quest for parody has made it boring to watch.

I care more about Nascar now than the NHL.

[MTH]

28 minutes ago, Almost Hip said:

I hope the digi adds are gone for playoffs....  

0.0% chance.

I never thought I'd see ads on the NHL uniforms. Whoops.

The boards, glass and ice digital ads are bananas.

[johncho]

I don't mind the glass and if I have to live with it, the board ones are updated "offscreen" and static are ok I guess. But the moving ones (one animated one has a gigantic moving puck? WTF?) are horrible.

That being said, I saw one feed have this on-ice metric for PP timer, that's kinda cool.

 

PS. To me some jerseys are sacred and should not have ads. There was once where Habs used to give out blank jerseys during training camp and you had to earn the CH crest which meant that you made the team. And now for some corporation to be able to buy their way on is just ick. https://uni-watch.com/2022/08/26/whoa-canadiens-training-camp-players-had-to-earn-their-logos/ 

I know it's team based and it's too late, but if they were somehow able to keep the O6 jerseys intact, that would have been something special.

Edited February 8, 2023 by johncho

[Fullright]

100% agree about the ads on the boards and the adverts on the sweaters. Appalling!

I think differently about the game itself. I think the last several years the game has tremendously improved. The players are faster, stronger, and more highly skilled than I can remember. The sport has been my passion since 1971 - I am 60 now - and the skill level is off the charts in so many respects. Everyone can skate. Everyone can pass, The systems for the O and D are better. I'll leave goaltending out of this diatribe but they are all good (but if someone can explain why Petr Mrazek is in the Show, I'm buying the beer).

There are drawbacks though. @MTH is spot on. The emotion is either absent or goes 0 to rage in 2 seconds if someone gets hammered like the hit Trouba laid on a few nights ago on Kadri. That was a clean hard hit. Nice to see the teammate stand up for Kadri but how about checking harder in response? The physicality of the game is short. I dont know whether it has to do with helmets, visors, or stop signs on the backs of youth sweaters but that part is gone. Trouba is probably the only genuine hitter in the game at this point. I dont want to see it go back to cement heads like Dave Schultz; however, speed alone isnt enough to put fannies in the stands. NASCAR and F1 had more physicality last year. 

[MTH]

21 hours ago, Fullright said:

That was a clean hard hit. Nice to see the teammate stand up for Kadri but how about checking harder in response?

The whole 'defend your teammate' act has jumped the shark.

• It does not deter future hard hits.
• The fights are typically wrestling.
• The guy defending his teammate usually couldn't punch his way out of wet paper bag.
• The refs stop the so called fight in 5 seconds.

You want to have the players stop taking liberties on other players? Easy... drop the instigation rule. Problem is eliminated as fast as the offending player is.

Nobody is looking to nail a guy with a blind side hit with these guys sitting on the bench waiting to be unleashed on you.

[Fullright]

Little off topic. There's a clown newspaper columnist here, Rick Telander, who writes for the Chicago Sun-Times. When Probert was with the Blackhawks and had cleaned up his off ice act, Telander invites him to an interview at a bar. Then, in an effort to simply be an a-hole, orders a pitcher of beer to be brought to the table while the interview is underway. To his credit, Probert didnt take the bait and pound Telander into the street and didnt touch a drop. @MTH, that glare....I hope Probert gave Telander that look. What a _itch thing to do to a person trying to pull himself together!

[Korppi32]

On 2/8/2023 at 5:54 PM, MTH said:

You need passion and emotions to gain interest in the pro sports /NHL. The networks will promote a game by showing fights and hits from two decades ago. The current teams don't care about battles of years past. Heck, most players weren't on the team 3 seasons ago. Most won't be on the team in 2 years. 

The Flyers were rivals to many teams. But in the past decade? Nothing...

Blah games today are useless. Blowouts and lop sided games decades ago would turn into a competition of different skills (punching faces). NHL has abandoned that. The no fights in the last 5 minute rule has people leaving games early. WTF?

I don't know what the NHL will become. I hope that it bottoms out so bad that they have to return it to what grew them in the 90s and 2000s. I see clubs drying up (Buffalo draw anyone anymore?). The league's quest for parody has made it boring to watch.

I care more about Nascar now than the NHL.

I bet NHL could do many things better and game has changed in last decades, maybe better maybe worse. But I hate that "everything was better before", the biggest thing which has changed is YOU. You used to be a young person, now you are old and angry.  I don't follow Nascar, but I guess 40-50 years old Nascar fans say that thing were better in 90s. Music used to be good, now it's odd and you can't listen it. 

 

I have watched only few NHL games this season and I stopped to play ice hockey, because I just don't care right now,  but it's not ice hockey's fault. I really enjoy to follow Euro- football (=soccer) and there's lot of people saying there is too much money etc. and things used to be better...

[MTH]

On 2/12/2023 at 5:41 AM, Korppi32 said:

I bet NHL could do many things better and game has changed in last decades, maybe better maybe worse. But I hate that "everything was better before", the biggest thing which has changed is YOU. You used to be a young person, now you are old and angry.  I don't follow Nascar, but I guess 40-50 years old Nascar fans say that thing were better in 90s. Music used to be good, now it's odd and you can't listen it. 

 

I have watched only few NHL games this season and I stopped to play ice hockey, because I just don't care right now,  but it's not ice hockey's fault. I really enjoy to follow Euro- football (=soccer) and there's lot of people saying there is too much money etc. and things used to be better...

No doubt. ha ha

It's not everything was better in the day. MLB is better now than when I was kid. The NFL is way better too. But I hear you and you're right. Big difference being 45 vs. 15 and having the time to watch and care for every game. I do try to watch the NHL here and there but get bored of it quickly. 

I'll watch or listen to every Phillies game (i'm in Philly) every night or day through the baseball season. 

I'm not saying the NHL was better before. Obviously the worst player in the league today is likely more skilled than Wayne Gretzky. I just think the league needs to evolve a little to get some more passion back into the game. I want to be all in again with the NHL.

[MTH]

On 2/10/2023 at 4:56 PM, Fullright said:

Little off topic. There's a clown newspaper columnist here, Rick Telander, who writes for the Chicago Sun-Times. When Probert was with the Blackhawks and had cleaned up his off ice act, Telander invites him to an interview at a bar. Then, in an effort to simply be an a-hole, orders a pitcher of beer to be brought to the table while the interview is underway. To his credit, Probert didnt take the bait and pound Telander into the street and didnt touch a drop. @MTH, that glare....I hope Probert gave Telander that look. What a _itch thing to do to a person trying to pull himself together!

Did you watch the Probert movie from a few years ago? I think it's on Prime now. I re-watched it a few weeks ago. It's really good and goes through what Probert dealt with like those interviews. They didn't sugar coat his life. They showed how he was garbage at times to his wife and family and did some illegal things often. 

[Korppi32]

I watched a bit of Vegas - Ducks game, I think it wasn't sold out or atleast there were empty seats, was it because the Super Bowl day or is their boomtime over?

[tubby34]

On 2/7/2023 at 11:25 PM, MTH said:

Read on 'Blade of Steel' today that the NHL was caught lying about attendance at the NHL All Star Game. They were telling everyone that it was a sellout while pictures from people there say otherwise. Not that I blame people for not wanting to be in attendance for that flaming pile of poo.

FWIW - they seem to use pictures from the skill competition introductions or warm ups as evidence there were empty seats. No shit.

Skills competition was empty, not alot of fans in the seats. It sucked IN the arena. 5 mins of action then 30 mins of sitting. Alot of people left an hour in when they realized it sucked. I was in Bettmans section apparently. Really really bad and too many corporate sponsored tickets. One section was all jackass businessmen in checkered blue shirts.

The all star game was packed, but they had ALOT of things going on in the concourses. Jameson bars, food, merchandising and LONG MENS bathroom lines. There was also a large outdoor bar as well. All of those looked packed between "games" and even during from what friends said.

Problem was, the fans were in the seats. The free tickets to sponsors were too busy in the other areas.
I sat in seats in the lower bowl until midway through period 2... at that point the seats owner actually showed up.

[tubby34]

From what I remember too- someone said last year there were no blackout rules for games in local markets. Now there are blackout rules. Major markets that drive ratings are not included anymore. NY, PIt, Phi, Bos.

[MTH]

16 hours ago, tubby34 said:

From what I remember too- someone said last year there were no blackout rules for games in local markets. Now there are blackout rules. Major markets that drive ratings are not included anymore. NY, PIt, Phi, Bos.

Flyers stink.

There are few folks who care about them here. I didn't even know they were blacked out. I haven't heard anyone talk about it. I spend every evening and weekends in hockey rinks too.

[jerd31]

37 minutes ago, MTH said:

Flyers stink.

There are few folks who care about them here. I didn't even know they were blacked out. I haven't heard anyone talk about it. I spend every evening and weekends in hockey rinks too.

Flyers games telecast on ESPN are usually blacked out, but NBC Sports always has the games on.  I barely watch them, though- if there's other games on ESPN or TNT I'll usually watch an out of market game vs. watching the Flyers.  They're a .500 team that plays incredibly boring hockey.  

[MTH]

National broadcast games stink for the local markets anyway. What's the point when they are broadcast locally already?

Billion years ago there was a channel called 'SportsChannel' that was national that would just broadcast the local feed for games out of market. Seems easy. They also mostly played the Blackhawks (who were good then) so you kinda had a second team that you watched on top of your local team.

This was in the 90s. 

Flyers were rally bad in the early 90s, so we all latched onto the Blackhawks then as they were a killer team and always on tv.

The NHL kicked SportsChannel to the curb and went back to ESPN in 1992. SportsChannel wasn't available as much as ESPN was nationwide.

The NHL package allows fans to watch the home team broadcast. It's better IMO (even the commercials are cool). 

[tubby34]

I think the ESPN or TNT feeds are blacked out in NY, where you can only watch the local feeds. Pretty much its destroying the ratings not having all the Rangers fans not watching the National Telecast while Florida and other states do.

[Cool Runnings]

I think the problem lies in two major areas - (As far as the ads all over the place, they need to go, although the static digital boards aren't that big of a deal to me.) As for the major 2 NHL killers.. 

The first one is what was already mentioned and that players aren't around as long. The NBA is having the same problem, players don't stay on teams long enough to have any kind of rivalry or fan loyalty to a team. People follow players a lot now and it's so boring when players Jump Around to different teams all the time. It's not as bad as the NBA of course, but it is kind of true that these years old rivalries don't really exist anymore.

The MAIN reason in my opinion is even easier than that, and it's the obvious, you just can't watch hockey on tv, you have to subscribe to some stupid app or use someone else's login to catch a game. It's no wonder there's no viewership. There was some huge game on and I figured it would be on ABC or something, nope had to go login to my wife's ESPN Disney account just to catch the game. Completely absurd. All of these winter classics, outdoor games, or big old school rivalry games between top teams, need to be on the premier Network on ESPN or ABC. They just don't do that, ESPN would rather have a women's college basketball game on, than hockey. It's so difficult to watch the sport when you're trying to, it's almost as bad as it was when versus had it or the outdoor Network whatever it was called back then.

In my opinion, Doc Emrick saved the sport. Now ESPN killed it again. 

[MTH]

On 2/20/2023 at 5:37 PM, Cool Runnings said:

I think the problem lies in two major areas - (As far as the ads all over the place, they need to go, although the static digital boards aren't that big of a deal to me.) As for the major 2 NHL killers.. 

First - good post as a whole. I just had a thought similar to this part.

The advertising is growing non stop. The owners will say that they need the additional revenue stream to play the players. Players salaries are growing on pace with the league's income.

It's the chicken or the egg.

I wonder:

1. If the NHL cut salaries. Would players leave? It feels like the NHL is competing with itself for paying the most.
2. I realize the 'league' is the collective group of owners. So the league pushing teams to not make as much money will never ever be done. Could you imagine if they did?
3. If the league stopped the over advertising and returned to a clean ice sheet and static ads on the walls and no ads on the uniforms (and helmets) could they still survive?
4. Non fans will say they don't watch because they can't follow the puck. I fail to see how moving wall ads and graphics on the ice are helping. Would more people try watching if they stopped all the distractions?
5. Do all these additional ads even work? The fans that the NHL has knows all the ads already. The NHL has the same companies all the time. I wonder if fewer ads would get more attention?
6. Can you watch the games with an ad blocker type software yet? 
7. If the NHL maxes out revenue ways and still can't keep up with salaries - will the league crash again?
8. Could the profit for the owners could be the same if the league receded some with lower salaries and reduced advertising. The 'more in more out' model is in place now. Could 'less in less out' work? I feel as a fan the less is more line would be great.
9. Nascar reduced the number of racers at their top tier (cup series) races from 43 to 38. I wish the NHL would drop a few teams. No chance they'd do this on purpose. I kinda hope for dark days for the NHL to make them backtrack a little for the better of the league.