News Article: Playoff Viewership tanking

[Fatass]

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

Wings too. The historically traditional US hockey markets are not in the playoffs. What are the next big hockey markets in the US after the traditional ones, like the original six? Minnesota must be good. Washington?

 

[seafoam]

There’s no way to watch it.

 

[ijuka]

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

Shocker that people aren't watching when they keep making it harder and harder to watch.

Maybe if they want the viewership numbers to go up they need to make it easier to watch. Crazy concept.

 

[Roshi]

Habs & Sens in might have big impact.

Random non-playoff Canadian is more likely to watch playoff-hockey even when their team is out. And they likely gather around in pubs or friends houses to see their team actually play (watch parties too).

Also for average American viewer Rangers-Caps is more interesrting than Caps-Habs.

 

[Kranix]

The NHL should put every game for free on twitch.

 

[the_fan]

All the younger fans stream it illegally how do they account for that?

This..

If they make cable cheaper, maybe people will actually subscribe and watch it legally and ratings will go up

 

[Whalers Fan]

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.

Not for me. I hated the Fox glowing puck trailer. I also dislike ESPN putting player name labels up during power plays. Both make it look too much like a video game.

Fortunately, we have YouTube TV, so have access to all the playoff games. During the regular season, though, I only subscribed to ESPN+ for part of the season. I get it for the out of market Canadiens games, but during January and February there were so many blackouts, plus the Four Nations break, that I let the subscription lapse for those two months. The blackouts need to go.

 

[Chainshot]

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

Maybe the league should rethink how many services one has to sub to in order to watch all of their games -- why was it better when we could pay a single price to watch all games and now it's fractured to needing ESPN, ESPN+, Hulu/Max, a cable provider with NHLNetwork. Add in Amazon next year? C'mon. They're so interested in wetting their beak in every provided that it screws the fans.

 

[eXile3]

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.

Buying a $85 cable package through a streaming service is still cable. That’s all sling is.

 

[TD Charlie]

I cut cable because my Comcast bill was changing from $150 to over $220 just to keep the channel that the Bruins were on

That didn’t even include the streaming apps needed to watch these games.

I’m not paying $300 for one channel and three different apps to watch a shit hockey team for six months.

If they put everything onto the center ice package without blackouts, I’d probably pay a handsome fee for it. Until then I’m a phenomenal swimmer in open waters

 

[The Gr8 Dane]

This..

If they make cable cheaper, maybe people will actually subscribe and watch it legally and ratings will go up

I don't think viewership is that much down it's just people don't wanna pay for a garbage service so they sail the high seas instead , I don't know a single person under the age of 30 who pays for television anymore. Personally I couldn't care less if the NHL and these broadcast companies are "losing money" due to poor viewership , serves them right for selling an overpriced product

 

[Ossific]

It's because everyone streams it now. I paid $27.99 of a month of Sportsnet + on Prime only to find out that the digital platform isn't carrying game 2 of the Jets series for some reason. Awesome!

They make it so hard for you to try and watch games legally these days.

 

[Power Surge]

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

I'm not particularly replying to your post but I've seen this argument on this thread numerous times.

Lets just say this was the number 1 reason:

Then why does the league continue to Expand if its going to be a problem? Expansion made this possible. People scream on these boards all the time "WE NEED MOAR TEAMS GARY, GET IT UP TO 40, GROW THE GAME" without considering that it takes years for tv viewership to grow in new markets to get to the same level with traditional ones.

 

[the_fan]

I don't think viewership is that much down it's just people don't wanna pay for a garbage service so they sail the high seas instead , I don't know a single person under the age of 30 who pays for television anymore. Personally I couldn't care less if the NHL and these broadcast companies are "losing money" due to poor viewership , serves them right for selling an overpriced product

Yeah, it’s really ridiculous. During regular season we do get cheaper viewing option like ESPN+, but come playoff time, you need TNT, ESPN, so you need to pay hundreds of dollars just to have those channels and a lot of people simply don’t wanna do that

 

[The Gr8 Dane]

I used to proudly pay for NHL center ice or whatever it was that gave you every single NHL game right on the NHL app with no Blackouts on any device , that lasted what 2-3 years? Before they sold all the rights to these scummy TV companies that implemented these blackouts everywhere. Screw that bro

 

[CharasLazyWrister]

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

Don’t let the obvious answer take down the people who want to claim Gary Bettman is the devil or the “knowledge” that hockey is “obviously” declining in quality.

 

[voyageur]

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

I'd be interested to know how having Boston, New York, Detroit and L.A. (X2) all competing in the NBA playoffs affects viewership. Do the local fans jump teams in their preferred sport, or sports in their markets?

Also the NBA got a full slate of game involving all teams , while the NHL had 3 Canadian teams playing among the 5 games, in the opening weekend of playoffs.

 

[Power Surge]

I'd be interested to know how having Boston, New York, Detroit and L.A. (X2) all competing in the NBA playoffs affects viewership. Do the local fans jump teams in their preferred sport, or sports in their markets?

Also the NBA got a full slate of game involving all teams , while the NHL had 3 Canadian teams playing among the 5 games, in the opening weekend of playoffs.

So are you implying that traditional NBA markets are in the playoffs and viewership is still down in the NBA? Interesting.

 

[the_fan]

I used to proudly pay for NHL center ice or whatever it was that gave you every single NHL game right on the NHL app with no Blackouts on any device , that lasted what 2-3 years? Before they sold all the rights to these scummy TV companies that implemented these blackouts everywhere. Screw that bro

Yeah but having NHL center ice has always been for the regular season. You always need that expensive cable package to watch the playoffs

 

[voyageur]

So are you implying that traditional NBA markets are in the playoffs and viewership is still down in the NBA? Interesting.

I don't know a damn thing about NBA attendance/viewership. I won't watch a single game. I'm just wondering if fans in those markets are loyal to the market or the sport. You didn't answer that.

 

[Darren McCord]

I honestly have no idea how to watch these games even though I have Espn+

That is probably a problem

 

[Power Surge]

I don't know a damn thing about NBA attendance/viewership. I won't watch a single game. I'm just wondering if fans in those markets are loyal to the market or the sport. You didn't answer that.

Neither do I but I was asking you. I'd imagine Boston NY and Detroit are still traditional markets in that sport which makes the argument that the "Brooons" not being in the playoffs as the reason.

There are currently decent Markets in the NHL like Minnesota and LA maybe Vegas that should be driving the viewership up. The 2 Florida teams are engaged and since its very populous state those numbers should be up too. The Devils are in the NY market so that isn't void either.

 

[Elysian]

I tried to watch some of the games on last night on ESPN+ and it wanted me to login to my cable provider. I don't have cable. Couldn't even watch games that were literally listed as ESPN+ games.

 

[voyageur]

Neither do I but I was asking you. I'd imagine Boston NY and Detroit are still traditional markets in that sport which makes the argument that the "Brooons" not being in the playoffs as the reason.

There are currently decent Markets in the NHL like Minnesota and LA maybe Vegas that should be driving the viewership up. The 2 Florida teams are engaged and since its very populous state those numbers should be up too. The Devils are in the NY market so that isn't void either.

No Boston I would suspect has some affect. I'd be interested to know how many Rangers fans can get behind the Devils. Seems like sacrilege.

Start times, matchups that don't have a national appeal, and accessibility are also likely reasons for the decline.

It would be interesting to see if Rogers has an increase this year, with Montreal in the prime time spot, on opposite nights of the Leafs.

 

[Power Surge]

No Boston I would suspect has some affect. I'd be interested to know how many Rangers fans can get behind the Devils. Seems like sacrilege.

Start times, matchups that don't have a national appeal, and accessibility are also likely reasons for the decline.

It would be interesting to see if Rogers has an increase this year, with Montreal in the prime time spot, on opposite nights of the Leafs.

Granted NYR are the main but NY is that big that two other teams can be supported well, The Devils (The Prudenciel) is technically10 miles from NYC.