News Article: Playoff Viewership tanking

[Daximus]

Unfortunately, the decline in playoff viewership isn't a new thing. It continues the general decline the NHL had throughout the regular season. Interestingly, the Four Nations tournament was a massive success among viewers, according to a related article. Hockey can obviously be a viable product; it seems to depend on how it's marketed and who's playing whom.

People have pointed out the absence of legacy American teams in the playoffs as a possible reason for the drop-off, but that doesn't explain why the regular season suffered from a similar drop.

Could be because those same legacy teams were bad in the regular season as well.

 

[Power Surge]

There are major markets missing from the playoffs. No Bruins or rangers is a huge blow for viewership I’d imagine.

When you account for this Anaheim Ducks see largest local viewership increase in NHL this season after moving to free streaming platform

Yes the numbers are whacky everywhere. I think it's a matter of adjusting post cable era.

 

[Team_Spirit]

*on espn. I bet it's up overall.

800k Americans watched Ottawa/Toronto this is actually impressive

 

[Nineteen67]

Playoff hockey and hockey in general has been trending downwards in quality.

We have these potential great series and so far none of the series are "Must see tv" it's more "ehh if you have time, check us out"

Tonight is a periodically check the scores and if watch the end of one goal game or OT type of night.
But when I do watch there’s not enough to keep me interested in a game. Last night the Leafs Sens game had the intensity of a Tuesday game in February.
I’m too old to bother with Western games, maybe they’re better.

 

[eXile3]

Yes because no one can watch it. Streaming is the number one way people watch entertainment now and almost none of these games are streaming.

It’s incredibly how incompetent the league can be. You have people who want to watch and can’t.

 

[HFBS]

No Boston, no Chicago, no Rangers, no Flyers this post season.

I agree with this, although not with your order of teams.

 

[Nineteen67]

Nah ESPN has history with the game plus the iconic theme some of us grew up with. ESPN just needs a better cast. It's a bad mix of old school staff that used to cover the NHL and talentless commentators that need to cover another sport.

TNT is ok (much better cast than espn) but a lot of us prefered Fox. Similarly they have a NHL on Fox theme that's iconic. NHL on Fox has been dead since early 2000's

AND Fox is more accessible than TNT

Bring the TNT/NBCSports crews and I don’t care where it is. ESPN seems to be low budget.

What are the Fox channels?

 

[Nineteen67]

Yes because no one can watch it. Streaming is the number one way people watch entertainment now and almost none of these games are streaming.

It’s incredibly how incompetent the league can be. You have people who want to watch and can’t.

Literally every game is streamed.

 

[Power Surge]

Bring the TNT/NBCSports crews and I don’t care where it is. ESPN seems to be low budget.

What are the Fox channels?

Fox is a main (local) channel like CBS NBC and ABC. That's why it's more accessible than TNT.

But they do have a couple of sports channels on cable like FS1 and FS2.

 

[eXile3]

Literally every game is streamed.

Literally they are not. So far Max has only streamed the weekend games. None of them have been on ESPN+

 

[Grinner]

No Boston, no Chicago, no Rangers, no Flyers this post season.

No Pens

 

[BenningHurtsMySoul]

Because the league is obsessed with advertisements and sports betting.

 

[Sasha Orlov]

Combination of needing ten streaming subscriptions to watch games and then once you can watch the games the refs try to be the stars of the show

 

[Fatass]

down 22% compared to last year.

NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs Viewership Decline

The NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs are experiencing a significant decline in viewership, with early games showing double-digit percentage drops compared to last year.

www.newsbreak.com

Pretty much expected US viewers would decline when the four US original six don’t make the playoffs. With the Leafs and Habs both in, I suspect Canadian viewers will increase.

 

[CycloneSweep]

I mean the Minnesota Vegas game didn’t start till like midnight on the east coast. Lots of games have been starting late on weekdays and a ton of the matchups aren’t really exciting. So it makes sense. It’ll pick up in the later rounds.

 

[End of Line]

No Penguins, Bruins, Rangers, Blackhawks, or Flyers will do that

 

[ElysiumAB]

ESPN needs to keep it on ESPN+. People with ESPN + might be saying no when being asked to jump through hoops.

This. If you have ESPN+ but not cable, it seems you need to get Fubo or Sling to get the ESPN games, which are fringe products each with their own issues.

To get the TNT games you need a service like HBO Max.

On top of that nonsense, they schedule games for 11 pm, start them late, and switch from ESPN/ESPN 2 depending on what else is being shown and running late.

Add blackouts on top of that and the whole thing is a mess that's arguably not worth the trouble to figure out.

The crazy part is watching a free stream is the same quality, reliability, and avoids all of the above issues. They've spread themselves across so many platforms and made it so difficult to just pay money and see games easily that they deserve the negative consequences. The whole thing is a cash grab with huge barriers of entry in order to just watch the f***ing games.

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

But what about the Four Nations!

I knew that was just a temporary fad in the U.S. for about one week that wasn’t going to carry over once the season resumed.

The 4 O6 teams being out of it certainly have something to do with it. Along with other legacy teams like Philly and Pitt.

 

[MartyOwns]

add a puck tracker, similar to the fox robots era. it's hard for me to follow the puck on tv most of the time, and i've been watching hockey for 30 years. casual fans will never get into it if they can't even see the puck. especially along the near side boards.

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

*on espn. I bet it's up overall.

800k Americans watched Ottawa/Toronto this is actually impressive

Massive Sens fan base here in the states

 

[BenningHurtsMySoul]

Yes because no one can watch it. Streaming is the number one way people watch entertainment now and almost none of these games are streaming.

It’s incredibly how incompetent the league can be. You have people who want to watch and can’t.

They've made it hard to watch because everything is segmented, comes in packages with shit you don't want, and is regionally blacked out.

 

[DaPhazz]

Some of the (south) markets generate little interrest outside their few own fans

 

[John Mandalorian]

Literally they are not. So far Max has only streamed the weekend games. None of them have been on ESPN+

He's right in that the channels theyre on are available on strraming services like Sling. Don't get too bogged down with this classification dispute though. It doesn' t take away from the substance of the points you're making.

 

[RiverbottomChuck]

No Bruins no views

 

[MuckOG]

Doesn't help when the team in your market has 10:15 pm start times.