There are as many NHL fans in Calgary or Boston as Los Angeles

[TonySCV]

Heck of an interesting (and long and wonky - don't bother reading if you have no interest in statistical analysis) article primarily about why Canada hasn't won a Cup in a long time, but it's also got some interesting detail about actual #'s of NHL fans in particular cities.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/31/why-cant-canada-win-the-stanley-cup/#more-40212

"Compare the cities of Los Angeles, Boston and Calgary. There are about 17 million people in the Los Angeles media market, 6.2 million in Boston’s and 1.6 million in Calgary’s. Based on their Google search traffic, however, I estimate that only 6 percent of the population in Los Angeles are serious N.H.L. fans, compared with 17 percent in Boston (high by United States standards) and 67 percent in Calgary (high even by Canadian standards). As a result, the three markets are roughly equivalent on hockey terms: each has about 1.1 million serious N.H.L. fans."

Click to read more...

 

[Herby]

Heck of an interesting (and long and wonky - don't bother reading if you have no interest in statistical analysis) article primarily about why Canada hasn't won a Cup in a long time, but it's also got some interesting detail about actual #'s of NHL fans in particular cities.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/31/why-cant-canada-win-the-stanley-cup/#more-40212

"Compare the cities of Los Angeles, Boston and Calgary. There are about 17 million people in the Los Angeles media market, 6.2 million in Boston’s and 1.6 million in Calgary’s. Based on their Google search traffic, however, I estimate that only 6 percent of the population in Los Angeles are serious N.H.L. fans, compared with 17 percent in Boston (high by United States standards) and 67 percent in Calgary (high even by Canadian standards). As a result, the three markets are roughly equivalent on hockey terms: each has about 1.1 million serious N.H.L. fans."

LA is a basketball town, always has been, always will be.

Even listening online and with iheart, the hockey talk is picking up, but most people still seem to be more concerned with what the Lakers will do.

Calgary is obviously a Canadian city, and Boston always maintained a decent hockey fanbase, and is more of a balanced sports town than LA is when it comes to fan support of each team.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I think the Kings now have over 60 consecutive sellouts at Staples Center dating back to last season. I always felt that the Kings had a cult following in LA. Even during the dark days after Gretzky's departure and the post-Rob Blake era where the Kings were always out of the playoffs, the attendance at games was still fairly solid considering that this city is known as a Dodgers/Lakers town.

 

[Herby]

I think the Kings now have over 60 consecutive sellouts at Staples Center dating back to last season. I always felt that the Kings had a cult following in LA. Even during the dark days after Gretzky's departure and the post-Rob Blake era where the Kings were always out of the playoffs, the attendance at games was still fairly solid considering that this city is known as a Dodgers/Lakers town.

I always tell people this same thing when they ask about hockey in LA. LA is full of casual Laker fans, people who can name a few players, watch a few games a year, celebrate a bit when they win and move on to something else when they lose. That also describes a lot of hockey fans in Chicago.

I don't know any people who are casual Kings fans, whenever I have ever met a hockey fan in SoCal they go to a ton of games, they know the entire roster, they can tell you who the Kings played last Thursday. There certainly isn't a lot of hockey fans in California, but they are almost all die hards.

 

[TonySCV]

I just thought it was interesting that in terms of actual #'s of fans, it's essentially equivalent in all 3 of those cities.

 

[Stupid Sexy Flanders]

Although the column is obviously the result of some very serious work, I gotta question the validity of the major premise. It seems to me that serious fans don't google the term "N.H.L." and so I don't know why that's a reasonable proxy.

 

[Rorschach]

Although the column is obviously the result of some very serious work, I gotta question the validity of the major premise. It seems to me that serious fans don't google the term "N.H.L." and so I don't know why that's a reasonable proxy.

For the Kings they might, but for the other teams yeah.

 

[agentfouser]

Although the column is obviously the result of some very serious work, I gotta question the validity of the major premise. It seems to me that serious fans don't google the term "N.H.L." and so I don't know why that's a reasonable proxy.

I think it's as useful as any other simple proxy because it can be applied anywhere, so it's at least measuring the same thing across space.

Plus, it's not just that people are searching for "nhl," but for ANY search that includes the term "nhl": "nhl stats," "nhl highlights," "nhl kings" or "nhl bruins" (to distinguish between the Sacramento Kings and UCLA Bruins, say).

 

[TonySCV]

I think it's as useful as any other simple proxy because it can be applied anywhere, so it's at least measuring the same thing across space.

Plus, it's not just that people are searching for "nhl," but for ANY search that includes the term "nhl": "nhl stats," "nhl highlights," "nhl kings" or "nhl bruins" (to distinguish between the Sacramento Kings and UCLA Bruins, say).

Agreed... it's being consistently applied where it's being sampled, and one of the few options that 1. most people who follow the NHL in every market would use and 2. is not team or region-specific.

 

[KingPurpleDinosaur]

LA is a basketball town, always has been, always will be.

Even listening online and with iheart, the hockey talk is picking up, but most people still seem to be more concerned with what the Lakers will do.

Calgary is obviously a Canadian city, and Boston always maintained a decent hockey fanbase, and is more of a balanced sports town than LA is when it comes to fan support of each team.

it's not just that it's a basketball town, there's just a lot of noise in Los Angeles. If we were to do a straw poll on HF boards, I bet more people would recognize Miley Cyrus over Matt Greene. Even among hardcore hockey fans, pop stars are more famous than an alternate captain of the stanley cup champions.

how many cities have to compete with that? In some cities, having a sports team is a big deal. In LA, that's just an event in the events calendar

 

[Ron*]

Basketball was a niche sport in the 1970s and early 1980s in Los Angeles. I was considered something of an expert because I could name most of the players in the league...I was a basketball junkie in Los Angeles long before the Lakers of today were so popular.

Did you know when the Lakers won the title in 1972, there wasn't even a parade or celebration?

Or that when the Lakers won in 1980, only 5,000 fans showed up for the celebration?

Hockey has always been a niche sport in Los Angeles, but that may change with a few more deep runs into the playoffs. Perhaps the most surprising event of all last year was seeing 250,000 fans show up for the Stanley Cup celebration.

 

[MynameisKing]

I was gonna reference this earlier but decided somebody would do it lol! Look at the avidity of the NHL for L.A., We are 9th in terms of overall NHL fans although we have only 6% of the total populace. Who knew we would be top 10 in the sun belt for a winter sport. This means we are more marketable despite everything else that can provide entertainment here than the other 22 cities in this league.

 

[Captain Mittens*]

I always tell people this same thing when they ask about hockey in LA. LA is full of casual Laker fans, people who can name a few players, watch a few games a year, celebrate a bit when they win and move on to something else when they lose. That also describes a lot of hockey fans in Chicago.

I don't know any people who are casual Kings fans, whenever I have ever met a hockey fan in SoCal they go to a ton of games, they know the entire roster, they can tell you who the Kings played last Thursday. There certainly isn't a lot of hockey fans in California, but they are almost all die hards.

This sums it up.

 

[higherlimits]

I don't know about market size but I know I was able to get tickets to a Round 3 game in LA fairly easily and there would be absolutely no chance of that happening in Calgary..

 

[Vamos Rafa]

I think it's pretty sad that after 40+ years of the frachise's existence, we're still talking about this issue. Are the Sharks an afterthought in the Bay Area? What about the Blues, who came into the league as part of the original expansion with the Kings? Are they also lacking popularity in St. Louis?

 

[KBA4life]

I don't know about market size but I know I was able to get tickets to a Round 3 game in LA fairly easily and there would be absolutely no chance of that happening in Calgary..

Ticketmaster or stubhub?