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

[Enga Olly]

Making it bigger means making it more appealing to Americans, and as an old timey Canadian, that would not be a good thin. NHL Hockey is about as popular as any sport could ever be in Canada, so in my world NHL is #1 of the Big 4. Shit I think 10 pin bowling gets higher ratings in the US than NHL.

 

[txpd]

Not sure why it matters?

 

[PaulD]

How popular it is or isn't does not change my view one bit.

I was a huge fan of the game in every era.... they have added more teams, more press, more games on TV........ and I don't love it any more or any less .
The game, once they drop the puck is all that interests me. I'm not guided by the talking heads. I have no skin in the business.
Eg. I love corvettes ...... but I don't care how many they sell or don't sell. Know what I mean.

 

[notDatsyuk]

Hockey is #1 in Canada. It's the fastest, most exciting sport in the world.

If it is #4 in the U.S., that's fine with me, and their loss. And if it means we don't have to put up with more insolvent messes like Arizona, so much the better.

With the goonery becoming less and less evident, there will likely be even less interest south of the border.

 

[chaz4hockey]

Give baseball a few more years of mismanagement and hockey will move up.

Don’t see NFL nor NBA losing status though.

Wild card is soccer…continues to gain popularity in North America.

 

[thekernel]

When it comes to this discussion, the only thing I care about is growing the game for the sake of growing the game. Not for the sake of making it more popular than other sports. I wish it was more accessible; if the gear ever gets cheap for example, the quality of the game will take a quantum leap forward. But that's in a vacuum.

 

[Fisticuffer]

Couldn’t care less where it ranks.
I love it.

 

[ziggyjoe212]

Depends on the location. NHL is #2 or 3 on some places.
In Pittsburgh it's #2.

 

[Soundwave]

It's not really no.4 in the US, lol. College basketball and college football are bigger in the US, hockey is maybe no.6 or 7.

 

[canuckster19]

Why do we have to "grow the game" in the US when even American's on here say we don't deserve a chance at the NFL or MLB?

 

[Cotton]

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.

Except once they look into the story about Matthews you can see the Coyotes weren’t necessary to him gaining interest. His uncle was, who was a Red Wings fans and gave Auston a positive experience while exposing him to the game. We’ve seen players come from places with no local teams, let alone the examples we have in Europe, so the argument that without the Coyotes there would be no Matthews is false - his exposure would have happened regardless.

As for the bigger question, I prefer the NHL niche. The potential of money, not even realized money, has seen the league become deformed and too Americanized in its presentation. Ironically, this has moved the game further away from what made it tough and exciting. The Disney on ice we have now is intended to be palatable to the casual family audience. And the ads on helmets, jerseys, ice, boards and glass from Tik Tok, Amazon, Wal-Mart and the like isn’t because anyone is starving, it’s because the game is run by a council of pimps who couldn’t care less about the optics.

I’m 50/50 at this point on wanting the league to fold in hopes the one that springs up in its place will realize what makes hockey appealing, stick to the formula, and not try and overreach their audience.

 

[David Bruce Banner]

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?

Sounds like a hot take from a largely irrelevant talking head.
And yeah, old arguments are just that, old arguments.

 

[HisIceness]

Why do we have to "grow the game" in the US when even American's on here say we don't deserve a chance at the NFL or MLB?

Hey look I'm all for the Expos being reborn as an expansion team, one less spot that Charlotte can get.

You can have the Carolina Panthers too while we're at it.

 

[tp71]

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.

The term soccer was first used in the UK.

 

[didimentionlarseller]

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 .

no one knows or cares who this is

 

[D1az]

The term soccer was first used in the UK.

I have only heard people claim it here so I had a look and it apparently is and abbreviation of "Association football", and indeed recorded back in the 19th century, but this is as stated an abbreviation.

What’s The Origin Of The Word "Soccer"? | Lexico.com

And the "soccer" term is mainly in use in the territories with some other "football" present (although I have spoken to quite a few South Africans and Australians and have never heard them refer to football as "soccer")

Association football - Wikipedia

So this is mainly a term used in the end by North Americans, who for some reason managed to call a sport where the object isn't really a ball and the feet are hardly used for anything but running "football", which of course is exceptionally logical.
So essentially just about 96% of the planet uses "football" for football and "American football" for whatever that other sport is.

 

[Andy6]

The term soccer was first used in the UK.

Yes, it's strange because when I was young in the 1960s it was very commonly referred to as "soccer" by British people.

 

[tp71]

I have only heard people claim it here so I had a look and it apparently is and abbreviation of "Association football", and indeed recorded back in the 19th century, but this is as stated an abbreviation.

What’s The Origin Of The Word "Soccer"? | Lexico.com

And the "soccer" term is mainly in use in the territories with some other "football" present (although I have spoken to quite a few South Africans and Australians and have never heard them refer to football as "soccer")

Association football - Wikipedia

So this is mainly a term used in the end by North Americans, who for some reason managed to call a sport where the object isn't really a ball and the feet are hardly used for anything but running "football", which of course is exceptionally logical.
So essentially just about 96% of the planet uses "football" for football and "American football" for whatever that other sport is.

Calling it football has nothing to do with the action more than how its played. Many sports were known as football as they were played on foot and not on horseback.

For instance as we now know above, Association Football (Players being called Assoccers, thus shortened to Soccer) is an example.

Rugby was called Rugby Football (nicknamed Ruggers). And in the American sense, it was called American Football (not for the use of feet) because they played the game on foot.

The same reason you have Aussie Rules Football (they do more kicking than American football, but do more things with their hands as well).

In the US, the term Soccer stuck, where as in the UK and most of the rest of the world, it didn't. And you saw Football stick, while Rugby is no longer called "Football".

It'd be similar to Ice Hockey and Field Hockey. In North America, it's just hockey. In other parts of the world, you say hockey...they may think field first.

 

[G50]

I find it quite amazing, for being the #1 sport and league in terms of broadcasting access to most of the world, NHL can continue to be less followed than the pathetic escuse for broadcasting sports. This will be comparing radio access, on-tv broadcasting, and pay to win access.

NFL - #1 worst broadcasting league and it's not even close. National fan connection is entirely non-exist outside of randomly chosen broadcasts you pretty much have to guess if your team makes the list every week. Radio the same non-access as everything not named Hockey. Let's not forget the fact that it's the only sport that cuts fans off of their own game in the middle of it depending on the score. Also iirc, this is the only league that ESPN+ doesn't give you access to non-Monday Night Football games.

College Football - Hilariously, they have better broadcasting access than the pros, nearly all teams in the Power conferences you have a 90%+ chance they're on tv somewhere.

College Basketball - Less than CFB access, mainly due to the broadcast rights being more geared to the conference networks.

NBA/WNBA - rights are pretty similar since they do share networks, just WNBA has more local than national access. ESPN/+, TNT, NBA Newtwork. Radio the bigger issue here.

MLB - Radio access non-existent, they compensate national issues with the free game of the day feature every day. For the giant season they have, Radio should've been free to everyone.

MLS - Excluding the Revs who have all-access free radio to everyone, broadcasting availability is a bit lower than some of the others. Compensated by their contract with ESPN+.

-------------------------

NHL - Now this is where NHL trumps everyone. No matter where you are in the US, and in countries around the world, you have free access to every single game. If you have money problems? No problem! Radio is available for every game for everyone.

============

I personally think NHL's free radio access should have been a thing for all sports, not just hockey, especially MLB with their giant seasons.

 

[LGBlues]

It matters, we are one step away from it being on pay-per-view. I don't know who or when any teams are playing on TNT - had to look up the station number for the Winter Classic. Used to have NHL Game Center now they have messed that up too [end of rant lol]

 

[Brutananadilewski]

It matters, we are one step away from it being on pay-per-view. I don't know who or when any teams are playing on TNT - had to look up the station number for the Winter Classic. Used to have NHL Game Center now they have messed that up too [end of rant lol]

Rangers had a game that was only shown on ESPN+, and a lot of people from our boards either had to watch it on an unofficial stream on their computer, or they just followed what was being posted.

 

[RorschachWJK]

And to put things in perspective, basketball is the only one of these that is in the global top 4. The rest of them are not even close.

 

[Dread Clawz]

I mean realistically, hockey will never trump baseball, football, or basketball in the U.S. Definitely not baseball or football. Basketball is the only one it has a shot at, and I feel like basketball has only gotten more popular since I was a kid. I'm 41 now, and hockey has always been #4 so it makes no difference to me.

 

[joelef]

no one knows or cares who this is

This forum did

 

[stokes84]

The lockouts hurt hockey much more than other sports. In the 90’s, NHL superstars were more mainstream and the niche was respected. After the NHL left ESPN, Gretzky and Lemieux faded away, the league lost prominence. I always felt like this was Bettman’s fault, trading short term profit for long-term health.