All The Kings Men
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Just out of curiosity
How do you gauge that? You seem certain of it but I'd like to know what makes you SO certain.
On being a long time fan.
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How do you gauge that? You seem certain of it but I'd like to know what makes you SO certain.
Axl Rhoadz
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All The Kings Men
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Axl Rhoadz
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Just from what I see, keep in mind, I started playing in 1980.....it was there.....you had pillars of the hockey community, Pickwick, Culver, Paramount, Norwalk, the old Thousand Oaks barn, Van Nuys barn, West Covina before they closed, Pasadena,the old Costa Mesa rinks the old Ontario barn, etc, there are probably 3-4 that I am missing cuz old age sucks....Gretzky came along, so you had that craze, West Valley, etc, then Anaheim gets a team, so Lakewood, Anaheim, and probably another 4-5 other rinks open in and around the IEL, OC, etc....you had the Jr. Kings, and the Jr. Ducks, and you had the very very very beginnings of the WSHL Junior B is what is started out as....
Now.....I believe the WSHL is Junior A, and a feeder system into the NAHL etc, but you have sponsored high school leagues, the registration for the area is sky high, you have a ton more grass roots options than you did....even after Gretzky.....
I don't have concrete numbers.....but I was there before Gretzky, during Gretzky, after Gretzky.....and the options that a player has now playing in Southern California, is a helluva lot better way back when.......and I don't know if it was winning the SC that did that.....but I am sure if I dug around, I could find the registration #s for 2010, 2011, and compare them to 2014, 2015 and you will see a significant jump....
All The Kings Men
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Axl Rhoadz
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Dude, you are a blogger turned into team employee. You think that would of ever happened had the Kings not turned into a championship caliber franchise? (that's meant to be kinda humorous, but there's probably some real truth to it)
Schrute farms
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Did you seriously think you'd get a better response than that?
I actually think you did not and that's why you asked (lol)
Axl Rhoadz
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you want me to lie and say I have cold hard data to back up my opinion? I don't...but I would bet it all that I'm right if we had that said data. (LOLZ)
Herby
How could Blake have known?
I can't imagine that the Kings are less popular in LA than they were in 2011, there had to be a decent amount of people who became fans after the 2 cup wins.
But SoCal has barriers that will prevent hockey from ever becoming really popular, with the makeup of the population and competition from other sports, especially one in particular. In most cities when the NFL season ends in January, the sports focus shifts to basketball and hockey. In LA the Kings have to compete with a basketball team that is basically what NFL teams are in every other city in America for the entire season.
But SoCal has barriers that will prevent hockey from ever becoming really popular, with the makeup of the population and competition from other sports, especially one in particular. In most cities when the NFL season ends in January, the sports focus shifts to basketball and hockey. In LA the Kings have to compete with a basketball team that is basically what NFL teams are in every other city in America for the entire season.
beedee
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I'll co-sign on this.
For lack of better words, rinks started sprouting up all around SoCal after Gretzky came to LA.
Lt Dan
F*** your ice cream!
All The Kings Men
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So this is a much better answer than "common sense" and I ask this out of curiosity NOT combativeness or disagreement...
Does recreational participation in a sport translate to "popularity" in the context that we're using here?
I'm certainly not going to pretend that hockey hasn't grown in popularity over the 50+ years since the Kings were founded but I frequently hear people talk about the boom in local interest in the Kings and the NHL and hockey as a result of the cup wins and yet I see complaint after complaint from the same 20 people about how the local media is all employed by the team.
That is because the actual local media doesn't cover the team. Because they believe there isn't a sufficient audience to make it worth their time.
I hear complaint after complaint from season ticket holders that they're unable to find buyers for their tickets when they try to sell them on the secondary market.
So it seems to me that this bold confidence in the growth of the sport locally is always SORT of defensible because naturally over time things grow... but as a fan and team employee I'm always a bit skeptical that hockey has any kind of serious foothold in "the community" at large.
sure but I think the question was whether or not the Cup wins boosted the popularity of the team in LA was it not?
I think you have 3 different arguments there.....you see complaints from the same 20 people....and half of those think they should be running the Kingdom, instead of whomever is doing it, I'd take those "complaints" with a huge grain of salt....
Local media doesn't believe it's worth their time, because even now....8-9-10 million 15 million across the Great LA area, IEL, OC etc? And your percentage who pays attention/plays is still 2-3% it's grown in people playing because before Gretzky, that number was maybe in the tens of thousands....etc.
Hockey as much foothold as it can given the expensive sport that it is, $400-$500 for an hour of ice vs.....free playground for BB, football, baseball etc.... $1,000 to equip....vs a few hundred.....and $4-5-6K to play a season vs a few hundred.....
All The Kings Men
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Local media doesn't believe it's worth their time because it's not... and based on the shrinking media presence since 2012 (which is what we're talking about) it's become LESS worth their time, not MORE worth their time.
The original comment was about popularity in LA following the Cup wins.
Youth participation I'm sure is way up thanks to the Ducks and Kings investing locally. Adult recreational participation may also be up and that may or may not have to do with the Cup wins but I wonder how much of that is simply an expansion of opportunity. It's not necessarily a reliable gauge of overall "popularity".
Sure but that's all participation based.
The question I saw in this thread and the one I frequently think about is this...
Are the Kings, and hockey in general, more "popular" in LA as a result of the Cup wins in 2012 and 2014?
I'm not sure the answer is yes.
Like I said, it's boost in popularity, that's a given, I will see if I can dig around.....to see usa hockey registrations in 2010-2011 vs 2014-2015 that will generally tell you if there was a boost solely due to cup runs
Herby
How could Blake have known?
Jesse is right about that. I once got to talk to someone who worked at 710 and he told me people just turn the dial if they ever try to talk about hockey, his exact words were "There is a reason we talk about the Lakers so much"
According to SBJ the Kings had the 3rd lowest local tv ratings in the NHL, only the Devils and Ducks were worse. Some of that might be that a lot of natives have left the state in the last decade or so and the ones moving in may either not be hockey fans or may be fans of different teams. I have noticed in seeing the Kings live in Chicago, Detroit, Minnesota and Nashville that the amount of Kings fans has increased, I assume that is even more noticeable in places like Dallas, Phoenix and Vegas where many people who leave end up.
Jesse is also right, there are more people playing because both teams have done a hell of a job building rinks. When I was a kid growing up in OC I think there were 2 or 3 rinks. Now there are a ton.
According to SBJ the Kings had the 3rd lowest local tv ratings in the NHL, only the Devils and Ducks were worse. Some of that might be that a lot of natives have left the state in the last decade or so and the ones moving in may either not be hockey fans or may be fans of different teams. I have noticed in seeing the Kings live in Chicago, Detroit, Minnesota and Nashville that the amount of Kings fans has increased, I assume that is even more noticeable in places like Dallas, Phoenix and Vegas where many people who leave end up.
Jesse is also right, there are more people playing because both teams have done a hell of a job building rinks. When I was a kid growing up in OC I think there were 2 or 3 rinks. Now there are a ton.
Yep....and you can't really blame local media, when there's a specific subset of hockey fans.......media is going to ignore the 14 million to focus on the 1 million...thats not smart business....
Interesting discussion.
Have to ask to get some perspective on the idea of popularity.
Popular compared to what? How popular the team was before, during and after the cup seasons? Or popular compared to other sports in LA?
Have to ask to get some perspective on the idea of popularity.
Popular compared to what? How popular the team was before, during and after the cup seasons? Or popular compared to other sports in LA?
What, shit we have context in this board??????
But yea, I thought we were talking as a sport...not as a team
- May 9, 2014
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It’s a niche sport.
Hockey fans are passionate beyond belief and the arguments we have on here are a by product of that. However if the US is anything like the UK it’s not a sport that grabs the casual fan. It isn’t in the conscious of people that are bored on a given evening and do not know what to do. They’d not only rather go ten-pin bowling instead of hockey, they wouldn’t consider hockey in the first place. Watching a game for hockey fans on TV is a poor substitute, I think we’d all agree. However, if you’ve never seen it live it’s incredibly difficult to watch on tv and people give up quickly. That’s the sports Achilles heel IMO, there’s a reason they trialed the streaking puck (or whatever it was called).
I will argue all day that hockey is the best sport on the planet, but I also understand it’s a hard sport to get people to get engaged with. Once you’re in though, your are in for life. So, I bet the hockey ultra fan population grew with the cup wins, without a doubt, but the penetration with the casual fans remained fairly static.
Axl Rhoadz
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I wouldn't know where to get this info, but I'm sure it's out there -- wouldn't ticket sales be a pretty good indicator? I'm sure the average ticket sales/season from 2012 to say 2016 was significantly greater than the previous 4 season.
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Really? I’m surprised but I’m sure you’d agree it is hard to pick up as a newbie on to.
If you are flipping channels and have no idea....I would say it's the equivalent to an American flipping through and trying to pickup cricket and rugby and australian rules football....
I think if it intrigues you, you will watch it......but people watch what they grow up with, I remember when we got a sattelite dish, and I'm talking one of those big holy hell he's contacting aliens dish....that rotated and you had to remember what satellite you wanted to go to etc, I found games upon games, I could watch hockey from 4pm til midnight....all day every day......most kids are like that with baseball, basketball, and football, that's what they grew up with etc....
I can't tell you how hard it was to pickup on it.....I can't even tell you if I think it's hard, I don't think it is....you just have to be intrigued a little bit, to watch it more....
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