Do you like the NHL being 4th in the 'Big 4' or do you wish it was more popular?

[bobbyking]

the NHL is full of boring robots

 

[D1az]

My only concern is if the linguistical twist if football becomes increasingly popular in North America, and the American marketing has its way, that the rest of the world will have to suffer with the term "soccer" being used more extensively outside of North America, when talking about football.

 

[adsfan]

I was attracted to hockey by the violence and skill. I don't care how popular it is in the US past it's ability to get televised. So for that, I'm glad it's not as unpopular as cornhole.

Bags is popular in Wisconsin. People 8 to 80 play it. I have seen people playing it at wedding receptions in a park.

I wish hockey was more popular in the US. About 7% of people are fans.

I run into a lot of ignorance about hockey. "I am not going to watch it because nobody else does." ignoring that 18K people were at a game in Boston or Chicago or New York last night. "They spend all their time fighting" even though the NHL averages about 1 fight per 5 games in recent years. I like to tell those people that there seems to be more fighting in the NBA, including between the players and fans. The latter almost never happens in hockey.

I went to a professional society leadership training meeting about 20 years ago. They asked people about their unusual interests. A guy who stated that Citizen Kane was his favorite movie got some time. A lady who knitted scarves spoke for a minute or two. My slip about watching hockey starting from age 5 must have been tossed in the trash. Since neither of the other two are unusual at all to me, I came to the conclusion that hockey will always have an uphill path to gaining popularity in the US.

 

[OG6ix]

My only concern is if the linguistical twist if football becomes increasingly popular in North America, and the American marketing has its way, that the rest of the world will have to suffer with the term "soccer" being used more extensively outside of North America, when talking about football.

Don't worry about that - all signs point to soccer never being that popular in the states from a spectator perspective.

 

[HanSolo]

I only care in the sense that it'd be nice to have more people I can meet and talk to about hockey in social situations.

But I also recognize that it will never go any higher than fourth and I can only hope the numbers can organically increase to be closer to the other three.

Football gets the benefit of organically grown fandom with virtually every high school in America having their football team as the biggest "school spirit" crutch which bleeds into a massive and rabid college football culture. Football is embedded into American culture from our youth. I just never really got hooked because I found hockey young. Inexpensive to play.

Baseball has less of a school grown benefit and more of a historic one as it was really the first major American sport to capture the US's wide attention and you see at least 2 baseball fields in just about every town and city in the country. Live viewership and attendance may be down but it's still way way ahead of hockey in terms of presence and people's following. Also inexpensive to play.

Basketball also has the benefit of history, ease of access to play it, a huge collegiate following, and as a whole the NBA seems to figure into general discussion of the sports the most commonly. At least from what I've seen. And you're going to see at least one basketball court at most elementary, middle, and high schools. It's probably the cheapest and easiest to maintain type of playing field around which is why they are so prevalent.

Hockey is expensive to play, expensive to maintain the field of play, it has the lowest scoring numbers of the big four, in being encouraged to be gentlemanly public figures, hockey players tend to have the least personality on display, and the NHL just doesn't market the sport well at all.

 

[Foppberg]

Does not matter.

 

[Rants Mulliniks]

Wish it was more niche and spent less time trying to appease.

 

[JoelWarlord]

Don't care, although I recognize some of that is because I live in Canada where it's the big 1 sport that's miles beyond the other 3, if I lived in the US I'd probably want the game to be more popular so I could chat with co-workers and friends about hockey but in Canada that's not an issue. I'd be happy if the league made efforts to be more inclusive and invested in growing the game in poor communities which would inherently come with a rise in popularity, but otherwise I just don't really care as long as the NHL doesn't ever slip to a CFL tier of production quality and player conditions where half the players have real jobs outside of football.

I'm not a purist and I don't have anything against new fans, but as someone that follows MLB (2x NHL revenue) intensively and watches the NFL (3x NHL revenue) fairly often I can't really identify anything about the experience of being a baseball or football fan that's meaningfully better than being a hockey fan due to the top leagues being more popular and 2x or 3x more profitable. I don't really care to hear Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless shouting hot takes and as far as I can tell that's about the extent of what we're missing with the NHL's current level of popularity.

I only really care that the league stays above a floor of a reasonable level of revenue to stay as the undisputed premiere hockey league in the world and where the franchises aren't in danger of folding or constantly relocating. Otherwise I don't really care if that number is 2 or 12 billion. I can watch top level hockey with high quality broadcasts almost every night from October to May/June and there's not really anything I feel like I'm missing as a fan that I'd be getting if the sport were more popular.

 

[powerstuck]

I agree that coverage would most likely be better if the sport was ranked higher. Kinda like World Cup of Soccer is on every channel of every network. I mean it can't be compared to a Super Bowl given it's one game vs a series of up to 7 games. But contrary to SB, it feels like hockey only matters in the two cities that are in the finals and here on HF.

Now, it being more popular I feel like it would also be much more expensive. Tickets, merchendise and everything else would rise in price given the ''increased demand''.

 

[HisIceness]

So since I last posted here:

The Hurricanes I feel have gained some footing in getting new audiences in North Carolina which is great. Winning/climbing up the standings ladder brings new audiences of course but the team has an identity now that people like and are interested in.

I've enjoyed seeing more Hurricanes apparel pop up outside the Triangle (Raleigh region), most of these people though are not NHL fans, but thats okay.

 

[DonM]

Honestly I wish it was lower (and it will be if it isn't already). It's likely to be first in Canada for awhile, so it'll always be televised here. The less US exposure it gets, the fewer people there are trying to make it more like the NBA or some other sports league. Teams like the Coyotes could just fail, and hockey could be left to places that are culturally compatible with it, like Minnesota, Michigan and New York. If the league wasn't so big, the teams wouldn't be worth nearly so much and payrolls would not be as ridiculous as they are, and Quebec could potentially get a team again.

I don't get why Canadian fans would ever want the game to be bigger. There's really no benefit and plenty of downsides. The only thing I've heard as an upside is players like Auston Matthews wouldn't have started playing without hockey in Arizona, but that's a trade off I'd make a thousand times over without a second thought.

 

[PROGFAN66]

I keep reading the cost of the sport (Hockey) as the main reason why it’s not as popular as the other mainstream sports in the states. It’s a factor but it’s deeper than that in my opinion from someone who lives in the States. We know hockey is a top two/three sport in many European countries and in Russia. Hockey is Canada’s most popular sport and growing in popularity in some of the Asian countries.

However, people in the States tend to like to stop and go type of sports. I said this in another thread but for example Baseball and Football have more dead time than actual game time in their sports. You can have 12 minutes of actual action in a 60-minute football game and baseball with no time clock has more dead time than the actual action in the sport.

Basketball while not as fast as hockey the overall pace of the sport makes it much easier to follow than hockey. Soccer is a much more slower and methodical sport in comparison to hockey as well.

What separates hockey from the rest is the degree of difficulty to skate and at the speed that they do while navigating a puck on ice. If you put your head down for a few seconds you risk getting pummeled. Its just a harder game to follow in real time due to the speed of the sport.

The game is much different than the other sports with numerous tactics and styles of play that are just absent from the other sports. For example, like Face/offs, Power Play/Penalty Kills, Special Situations like delayed penalties, pulling a goalie to add extra attacker, 4 on 4 , 3 on 3 play etc. Not to mention the offside and icing rules make the game even harder to understand.

It is so much easier to get ten people off the street and get a pickup game for Basketball, Football, Soccer and Baseball. You just can’t get ten people off the street let alone find ten people who can skate very easily.

Lastly, the leadership of the NHL need to a better job marketing the sport which includes eliminating fighting from the sport IMO.

 

[David Bruce Banner]

I'm sick of hockey trying to appease the casual and non-traditional fan. So long as the game is entertaining, I could care less where it ranks compared to other sports.

 

[joelef]

I'm sick of hockey trying to appease the casual and non-traditional fan. So long as the game is entertaining, I could care less where it ranks compared to other sports.

Then don’t complain when max kellermen bashes the sport or complain that you can’t find on the tv

 

[joelef]

There nothing wrong with wanting to be a niche sport just don’t whine and moan when it get the niche sport treatment

 

[kerrabria]

I feel like "big four" is an outdated category in 2022. Correct if I'm wrong, but I'd imagine that these four leagues were labeled so because they were the only four leagues that had a national presence in major markets and on television.

Now that you can watch any college football game, any college basketball game, any international soccer game etc...I feel like singling out the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL as a big four is just a mislabelling of the present sports landscape. Pro hockey is the most popular sport in Canada. College football is the most popular sport in the Southern US. Pro basketball is the most popular sport in specific cities around the United States. The MLB has become a niche sport increasingly only followed by old people and those who actually were involved with baseball as teens/young adults.

Just don't see these four leagues as head and shoulders above the rest of the sports world any more.

 

[David Bruce Banner]

Then don’t complain when max kellermen bashes the sport or complain that you can’t find on the tv

I don't know who Max Kellerman is and in our current day and age, if you can't find a way to watch hockey, you aren't trying hard enough.

 

[Voodoo Child]

The league is in a decent place now, and this is after Covid: it was probably the strongest it’s ever been before Covid in terms of revenue, profits and overall team health.

Even now, there’s more teams that generate a profit than lose money.

Losing the Olympics was a blow, but did you really not see it coming?

I’m in a non-traditional hockey state and the game is pretty popular, lots of team swag and generally the average 18-45 year old male can name at least one or two players.

There’s a few changes to the game I’d like to see that I think are mostly organic with how the game is going but why complain?

MLB is awesome in the fall but full of meaningless games.

The NBA has become ‘try for a three, if not get back to defend against the three, and oh, we’re playing a superstar so don’t expect any calls.’

The NFL? ‘And here’s the snap, and the pass is incomplete, but wait there’s a flag on the field so we’ll be standing here doing nothing for the next 90 seconds!’

Like others have said, I’d like the barriers to access lowered, but that won’t happen overnight.

 

[Seras]

There are more than enough idiots following the NHL already

 

[JianYang]

Honestly I wish it was lower (and it will be if it isn't already). It's likely to be first in Canada for awhile, so it'll always be televised here. The less US exposure it gets, the fewer people there are trying to make it more like the NBA or some other sports league. Teams like the Coyotes could just fail, and hockey could be left to places that are culturally compatible with it, like Minnesota, Michigan and New York. If the league wasn't so big, the teams wouldn't be worth nearly so much and payrolls would not be as ridiculous as they are, and Quebec could potentially get a team again.

I don't get why Canadian fans would ever want the game to be bigger. There's really no benefit and plenty of downsides. The only thing I've heard as an upside is players like Auston Matthews wouldn't have started playing without hockey in Arizona, but that's a trade off I'd make a thousand times over without a second thought.

All I'm concerned about is that it stays in its niche, and still attracts some of the best athletes in the world.... So I certainly don't want it's footprint to become smaller, but I'm not losing any sleep on whether it catches up with the mainstream sports either.

It's just better for the product to have increased exposure, and accessibility, and salaries that somewhat keep up with the other sports, to continue to attract at least some supreme athletes. As such, some growth will always be required.

 

[traparatus]

I care about the grass roots of the game. That's were talent comes from. So, when I see that grass roots hockey in, for example, California exploded beyond all expectation over the past two decades, this makes me very happy.

Popularity of the NHL, I don't really give a shit about beyond some bare minimum. When I started watching the Canucks in the early 2000s, 15+ games every year were on pay per view. Some games were not broadcast at all. There was no question of following an out of market team. That sucked. Now I can watch any game, of any team, whenever I desire. That's all that matters to me. Beyond that, I don't care how popular the NHL is.

 

[JianYang]

I feel like "big four" is an outdated category in 2022. Correct if I'm wrong, but I'd imagine that these four leagues were labeled so because they were the only four leagues that had a national presence in major markets and on television.

Now that you can watch any college football game, any college basketball game, any international soccer game etc...I feel like singling out the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL as a big four is just a mislabelling of the present sports landscape. Pro hockey is the most popular sport in Canada. College football is the most popular sport in the Southern US. Pro basketball is the most popular sport in specific cities around the United States. The MLB has become a niche sport increasingly only followed by old people and those who actually were involved with baseball as teens/young adults.

Just don't see these four leagues as head and shoulders above the rest of the sports world any more.

I measure it more by revenues and salaries. I don't have the data, but I have the theory that hockey has slipped over the last couple decades in terms of its peice of the sporting pie relative to the other three sports, but it would be interesting to see if anyone can find that data.

 

[Recipe Unlimited]

I definitely would prefer if it was more popular. It is my #1 hobby and I'd love to share it with others. I also love consuming hockey content, so the more popular the sport is, the more content there is

 

[joelef]

I don't know who Max Kellerman is and in our current day and age, if you can't find a way to watch hockey, you aren't trying hard enough.

Max krllermen from ESPN said it wasn’t big 4 sport and no one cares that nobody was playing and hfnoard and hockey fans threw a fit . Also are you that naive you never heard during the old versus years that you couldn’t get the channel?

 

[MrazeksVengeance]

It sucks because we miss out on the best talent to far less superior sports. Guys like Allen Iverson would have been so fast and creative with the puck, Randy Moss would be fast explosive and strong while being 6'4. Then picture a athletic 6'9 Kevin Durant being one of the best offensive players in the game.

The players would enjoy hockey a lot more too.

The only one I can actually see happen is Randy Moss. AI could have been someone like Marty St. Louis, but there was no notable hockey player who was like KD to my knowledge.