News Article: Playoff Viewership tanking

[DaBadGuy7]

Do you have these tweets still?

The tweets are back up if you want to check them out

 

[Summer Rose]

If they add another team in some non traditional market, I'm gonna be convinced the league is somehow a pyramid scheme.

You mean you're not somehow convinced that they are already? How optimistic of you!

 

[Drew4u]

Yes this makes sense. Canadian interest is at an all-time low. There are less Canadian teams, less Canadian players. "Canada's sport" is no longer. When you visit the major Canadian cities, you"ll notice very few hockey fans.

All the other major sports, football, basketball are increasing in interest. Canadian culture in general is gone and has been for at least 8 years.

This league is dying and will soon get overtaken by the WNBA.

GGs NHL, it was fun while it lasted.

 

[Bolt32]

Honestly the playoff format is stupid as hell. I know it is to decrease travel, but at the end of the day you know the first two rounds are always going to be the same teams. Know why the rivalery of the Avs and Detroit were so genuine? Because they were organic, and not forced fed the same matchup year after year. They had to strive to excellence and they met up because both teams were awesome. It's the same in the NHL, go back to old format. Each Division winner gets a top two seed in their conference depending on their standings, then the chips fall where they are to round it off. You'll get new matchups every year and not the same ol same ol as of now.

As far as the regular season....yeah regional blackouts hurt way more than they help. Remove them. I used to watch 70 games or so a year, this past year with HULU and Espn+ I watched the playoffs, and one regular season game. I'm a freaking diehard, and your cutting me out of my own market. If someone in Boston loves the Bruins, but the service that he has can't broadcast the games to him because of a blackout, then that Boston fan more than likely is going to miss a ton of games, which hurts NHL viewership. Basic logic, and it's a problem.

 

[jackjohnson]

It's a combination of a handful of big markets (Boston, New York, Philly, Vancouver) all missing the playoffs, repetitive matchups and horrible distribution rates as @AvroArrow outlined.

No matter how good you advertise Edmonton/LA, the more casual audience is going to get sick of the same two teams playing each other every season. Hell, most of us are tired of it and we're the fanatics.

I also think it's a huge mistake the NHL hasn't tried to move into streaming services yet. Amazon is absolutely perfect for them given its popularity, but nope, let's stick with Sportsnet and their highway robbery.

This is why i hate NHL and Buttman. They always have to change something or mess around with rules or formats even when things arent broken. There was absolutely no reason to change playoff format from the traditional way where matchups are determined by overall points in standings. The moron that changed the format is responsible for all the repetitive matchups in playoffs now. As the saying goes, if it aint broke, dont fix it.

 

[jackjohnson]

Honestly the playoff format is stupid as hell. I know it is to decrease travel, but at the end of the day you know the first two rounds are always going to be the same teams. Know why the rivalery of the Avs and Detroit were so genuine? Because they were organic, and not forced fed the same matchup year after year. They had to strive to excellence and they met up because both teams were awesome. It's the same in the NHL, go back to old format. Each Division winner gets a top two seed in their conference depending on their standings, then the chips fall where they are to round it off. You'll get new matchups every year and not the same ol same ol as of now.

As far as the regular season....yeah regional blackouts hurt way more than they help. Remove them. I used to watch 70 games or so a year, this past year with HULU and Espn+ I watched the playoffs, and one regular season game. I'm a freaking diehard, and your cutting me out of my own market. If someone in Boston loves the Bruins, but the service that he has can't broadcast the games to him because of a blackout, then that Boston fan more than likely is going to miss a ton of games, which hurts NHL viewership. Basic logic, and it's a problem.

The whole NHL marketing ia a disaster, from the availability of broadcasts to mickey mouse production done by some of these broadcasters. Best to make NHL viewing region free, available world wide from one streaming service like Netflix. Netflix would be available in most countries and most people will have it or will subscribe to it as it will have NHL to see sports, premium events like boxing and WWE events plus movies, TV shows, games etc. One service to rule them all and the price will reflect the product value.