Top-200 Hockey Players of All-Time

[Hockey Outsider]

Back in 2019, I wrote a post about Ron Francis specifically to address future questions about why we didn't include the 5th highest scoring player in NHL history on the top 100:

"The other point to make about Ron Francis (and then I'll stop talking about him) is I don't think he's as good as his numbers suggest (which is a strange thing to say about a player who was very good defensively, and who developed into a well-respected leader).

From 1982 to 1991 (covering ages 18 to 27), Francis was never in the top ten in scoring in any season. Nor was he in the top ten in scoring overall (that's also true if you exclude his rookie season, or even if you cherry-pick his few best years in that range).

I think there were some challenges in getting him integrated with the Pens' killer offense (65 points in his first 84 games in Pittsburgh). But once he started getting top icetime, his stats shot upwards. He was a top ten scorer four times in a row (three of those in the top five) from ages 31 to 34. It's not impossible that Francis got better with age, but it's much more likely that his stats got a big boost by getting so much ice time with Lemieux, Jagr and Robitaille.

Corroborating that notion is, as soon as Francis left Pittsburgh, his offense plummeted (he scored 25 fewer points in 1999 - dropping from tied for 5th to tied for 69th in scoring - despite playing basically the same number of games in both years). That same year, Jagr had his best offensive season - I don't doubt that playing with Francis helped Jagr, but it seems clear who needed who more.

The only other time in Francis's career when he placed in the top ten in scoring was in 2002, when he was tied for 9th. That's routinely regarded as one the weaker years for top-end talent (for example, Forsberg missed the entire regular season; Lemieux missed two-thirds; Lindros, Bure, Thornton and Kovalev all missed enough to keep them out of the top ten).

I actually like and respect Ron Francis a lot as a player. As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, he's pretty much the perfect complementary player for a championship team. But even though he's the 5th highest scoring player in NHL history, he's not anywhere close to a top five (or probably even a top fifty) scoring talent - his numbers are what they are thanks to a perfect storm of playing in a high-scoring era and having his numbers boosted by playing on a run-and-gun team after his offensive peak "should" have ended."

 

[Hockey Outsider]

In terms of Stastny vs Francis - this was discussed extensively during the project. (I'm not expecting anyone stopping by to read the thousands of posts we wrote during the project, but a lot of the rankings that look objectionable have probably been discussed dozens of times throughout the voting). Here are some examples:

Hockey Outsider - The new additions are Ron Francis (quite similar to Stastny through seven years, then pulling ahead after that) (in reference to VsX, an adjusted scoring method)

tarheelhockey - I've never really thought of him this way before, but isn't Francis basically a Stastny-ish offensive presence (less goals, more assists, similar impact) with far better defense and far better longevity?

TheDevilMadeMe - Stastny was easily better offensively than Francis when you consider he was the top dog on his line when he was putting up those numbers... Francis definitely has the defensive advantage over Stastny.

ProfessorWhat - Personally, I think we're very, very close to where Stastny should be... I'd have him ahead of Francis on balance, but not by much. Anyone who logically argued for Francis jut ahead of Stastny would probably get a shrug and an "I can see that" from me.

tarheelhockey - Don't get me wrong, Stastny circa 81-84 hit an offensive level Francis never reached without a lot of help in Pittsburgh. But the offensive gap isn't really as big as the numbers make it appear, is it? (then goes into a deep dive about quality of linemates) I think a context-neutral comparison would have Stastny as something like a 10% better offensive player in his prime. After that, Francis would win any other area of comparison, whether that be defense, longevity, leadership, playoffs, whatever.

seventieslord - There are reasons to take Francis over Stastny (just abut everything except regular season offense) but we should not pretend he was anything close to the offensive talent Stastny was.

Dennis Bonvie - Yes, Stastny was clearly a better offensive player, especially in their first eight years. But it should be noted Francis's first 8 season start when he was 18 year old-old. Stastny started when he was 24.

tarheelhockey - And Francis was also playing defense while doing that, and was a pass-first playmaker who rarely played with anyone who was a threat to score, on a team that struggled to take the puck away from its opponent.

seventieslord - Yes, Stastny sucked defensively, but Francis was not that special in Hartford either. Scouting reports of the time call him "fairly good" defensively, updating to "a fairly complete" player by the turn of the decade. He grew into that role in Pittsburgh.

Black Gold Extractor - (after posting some interesting data): Despite putting up better numbers in Pittsburgh, Francis on average produced less than expected relative to his total on-ice goals for, which indicates that his fairly good* linemates were the ones carrying the mail offensively, so to speak... Stastny was carrying the weight in Quebec, but geez did he ever start declining rapidly in New Jersey. (this was then challenged in a long, stat-heavy, and very interesting post by overpass)

ProfessorWhat - Two things that I don't think are getting enough consideration in the Francis/Stastny discussion -- one for each man... Francis: I really feel like discussing the offensive aspect of his game is pulling away from the big picture. This man was elite defensively, and when you talk about forwards who were strong at both ends of the ice, his has to be one of the first names that comes up. Perhaps he's not someone that you'd argue is at the tip top of the talent pile, but boy, did he ever pour his heart into the game, and not just in select circumstances... Stastny: He's done an injustice if his play before his defection isn't considered. He'd been playing at a consistent, high level for four years before arriving in Quebec. Granted, the level of the Czechoslovakian league wasn't NHL standard, but when you look at how level his performance was during those four years, it somehow doesn't seem unfair to suppose that, had he made it to Canada at age 20, he'd have four more seasons of similar caliber to his early NHL campaigns. He still wouldn't stack up to Francis for longevity, but his NHL career doesn't tell that story, and his numbers would be larger.

blogofmike - Peter Stastny outscored Francis as late as the 1991 Devils-Pens series, and was far more likely to deliver post-season scoring. Aside from the Pens eventually winning, was Stastny’s 1982 series against Boston that pushed Quebec to the conference finals any less impressive a showing than Francis had against the 92 Rangers?... Peter Statsny’s Nords never went to the Finals, but I’m less inclined to blame the guy who posted a 24-57-81, +3 over 64 playoff games where his team was 28-36.

Batis - Thank you for posting the summary of Stastny’s pre-NHL career. I definitely agree with your conclusion that Stastny only had one meaningful season during his career in Czechoslovakia. One minor correction regarding the bolded though as Stastny also did finish 8th in scoring during the 1976 WHC. Championnats du monde 1976 de hockey sur glace

TheDevilMadeMe - He might be the best offensive player this round - I think once you take into account a) Stastny likely lost a prime NHL season stuck in Czechoslovakia; b) Stastny played in the most defensive division in the NHL... he needs a small mental boost over his base stats. Plus, he had some post-prime years as an actual two-way player, which is nice

These are just some of the posts that covered Stastny vs Francis. I don't have any issues with someone ranking Stastny higher (for the record, I had Stastny more than 10 spots ahead on my original list, and during the voting round, I continued to have him ahead). But it's crazy to suggest that Francis was ranked higher due to Canadian bias rather than thousands of words of thoughtful discussion.

 

[SwedishFire]

Doug Gilmour had one year the same way someone like Joe Thornton had one year; of course, one year stands out a bit, but both had two other seasons where they ended up Top-5 in Hart voting (on top of their big seasons).

While Ron Francis had ....check notes ... zero.

EDIT : Joe Thornton actually had 3 other seasons other than 2005-05 where he was a Top-5 in Hart voting, but point remains the exact same.

The Gilour case is extremly weak. The later years of gilmours career was inferior to Francis, who had a very solid career.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Later years as in...?

 

[wetcoast]

The Gilour case is extremly weak. The later years of gilmours career was inferior to Francis, who had a very solid career.

People can complain about the mileage that Gilmour gets from his 2 peak seasons in Toronto but he was basically a 2way Gretzky in the regular season and playoffs for the Maple Leafs in the 92-93 and 93-94 seasons.

Yes he was that good go check the numbers and those teams and his dominance.

Francis was never that type of player in his peak.

 

[Pominville Knows]

Where is Jason Pominville?!? A f***in all-star!

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

People can complain about the mileage that Gilmour gets from his 2 peak seasons in Toronto but he was basically a 2way Gretzky in the regular season and playoffs for the Maple Leafs in the 92-93 and 93-94 seasons.

Yes he was that good go check the numbers and those teams and his dominance.

Francis was never that type of player in his peak.

Who was?

 

[MXD]

Who was?

On top of my head, Henri Richard and Bobby Clarke had a few seasons that were very similar to Gilmour's 92-93. But Clarke never had similar playoffs and I don't think Richard had the playoffs timed with the RS's, not to mention he "lost" those type of seasons because he got very little power play time.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

The Gilour case is extremly weak. The later years of gilmours career was inferior to Francis, who had a very solid career.

I'm not going to spend another 20 minutes pulling quotes on Gilmour vs Francis (since you didn't acknowledge the previous post on Stastny vs Francis). But there were many posts talking about Gilmour's strengths and weaknesses in the first three rounds of voting.

At a high level, Gilmour had a much higher peak than Francis, and was a much better playoff performer. Those two points, I think, are self evident. Francis was a good player for longer, and they were only ranked 8 spots apart. If Francis didn't have an edge in longevity, Gilmour would have been something like 20-30 spots ahead.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Back in 2019, I wrote a post about Ron Francis specifically to address future questions about why we didn't include the 5th highest scoring player in NHL history on the top 100:

"The other point to make about Ron Francis (and then I'll stop talking about him) is I don't think he's as good as his numbers suggest (which is a strange thing to say about a player who was very good defensively, and who developed into a well-respected leader).

From 1982 to 1991 (covering ages 18 to 27), Francis was never in the top ten in scoring in any season. Nor was he in the top ten in scoring overall (that's also true if you exclude his rookie season, or even if you cherry-pick his few best years in that range).

I think there were some challenges in getting him integrated with the Pens' killer offense (65 points in his first 84 games in Pittsburgh). But once he started getting top icetime, his stats shot upwards. He was a top ten scorer four times in a row (three of those in the top five) from ages 31 to 34. It's not impossible that Francis got better with age, but it's much more likely that his stats got a big boost by getting so much ice time with Lemieux, Jagr and Robitaille.

Corroborating that notion is, as soon as Francis left Pittsburgh, his offense plummeted (he scored 25 fewer points in 1999 - dropping from tied for 5th to tied for 69th in scoring - despite playing basically the same number of games in both years). That same year, Jagr had his best offensive season - I don't doubt that playing with Francis helped Jagr, but it seems clear who needed who more.

The only other time in Francis's career when he placed in the top ten in scoring was in 2002, when he was tied for 9th. That's routinely regarded as one the weaker years for top-end talent (for example, Forsberg missed the entire regular season; Lemieux missed two-thirds; Lindros, Bure, Thornton and Kovalev all missed enough to keep them out of the top ten).

I actually like and respect Ron Francis a lot as a player. As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, he's pretty much the perfect complementary player for a championship team. But even though he's the 5th highest scoring player in NHL history, he's not anywhere close to a top five (or probably even a top fifty) scoring talent - his numbers are what they are thanks to a perfect storm of playing in a high-scoring era and having his numbers boosted by playing on a run-and-gun team after his offensive peak "should" have ended."

re: being the perfect complementary player, one thing i'm curious about is the last hurrah francis. was he freed up to score so much because he had brind'amour taking over what would normally be the ron francis duties that francis used to take on for mario?

that year, francis led the league in PP pts, RBA led the hurricanes in ES TOI and ES scoring but wasn't especially productive on the PP, finishing with just 55 total pts. all three of francis, kapanen, and o'neill were in the league's top six in PP TOI, while brind'amour was sixth in PK TOI.

all to say, it seems interesting to me that francis has that last great year, where he finishes top ten in scoring and leads his team to the finals, which is usually used to dispel the idea that he feasted offensively off jagr/mario. but it makes sense that as he aged, his 200 foot responsibilities would diminish and they'd make it easier for him to score. at the same time, it also feels curious to me that brind'amour has this mid-career scoring lull that coincides with him going to carolina, and then after the lockout, the first year without francis, he rebounds in a major way (coinciding with him also getting all his old PP time back).

but also, re: francis' offence plummetting after leaving pittsburgh, in 2000, he did finish 17th in scoring, six pts out of #10. not a top ten, but consistent with the best of his age group (yzerman was 10th, robitaille was one pt up at 16th, gilmour was tied with him for 17th, oates was two pts back of them).

 

[Professor What]

Why is it that it seems every time complaints like this come up they're over players that ended up being close? It's not like the project determined that any of those guys were far better than the others. The gaps are really pretty negligible, and they don't suggest that any shuffling of the order of the guys in question would be out of order.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Can a mod add a link to this thread to the OP?

HOH Top-200 Players of All-Time Voting Results & Aggregate List

Hi everyone, My humblest apologies for how long it took me to do this. There's no excuse. As acting administrator, this is part of the duties I (was?) signed up for. And in the HOH section, we always take pride in the transparency of our process when putting these lists together. This was...

forums.hfboards.com

 

[Johnny Engine]

Can a mod add a link to this thread to the OP?

HOH Top-200 Players of All-Time Voting Results & Aggregate List

Hi everyone, My humblest apologies for how long it took me to do this. There's no excuse. As acting administrator, this is part of the duties I (was?) signed up for. And in the HOH section, we always take pride in the transparency of our process when putting these lists together. This was...

forums.hfboards.com

Taken care of

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Here's a response I wrote on the main boards to someone asking how we could rank Jaromir Jagr above Howie Morenz. I think there's some value in posting this here (because it anticipates a lot of the "how can you rank Eddie Shore above Nicklas Lidstrom" type of questions):

The intention of the Top 100 project (and other, similar projects) is to rank the "greatest" players. That isn't the same as the best players. Obviously, if Howie Morenz were teleported into the league today (with the flimsy skates and sticks from a century ago, no knowledge of modern tactics, and without the benefit of 21st century medicine and training), he wouldn't belong in the NHL.

Virtually all of the changes that have made hockey players better - improved equipment, better medication, changes in tactics, and yes more financial incentives - are things that the hockey community has developed over time. It's clearly unreasonable to penalize Morenz for not having access to things that haven't been invented yet. I'm not smarter than Isaac Newton because I have a calculator and a (basic) knowledge of the theory of relativity. A 15 year old on YouTube isn't a better guitarist than Jimi Hendrix because they know how to do two-hand tapping.

As a result, nobody is saying that Morenz is objectively a better hockey player than Jagr. That's obviously an absurd position. That, I think, seems to be your objection.

On HOH, we've tried to take into account how good a player was relative to his era, and how strong the era was overall. For example, Morenz is almost certainly the greatest player through hockey's first 50 years. Jagr is somewhere between the 3rd and 6th greatest player of the past 30 years. If all eras were treated equally, Morenz would rank far ahead (because he was clearly the best player of his era, and that covered a longer period of time). They're only a few spots apart, because Jagr has (rightfully) been given credit for playing against a deeper, more talented groups of competitors. Obviously that's a judgmental exercise (but literally tens of thousands of words have been written about how different seasons/eras are valued on HOH).

(Another example - we ranked 12 players born between 1958 and 1972, a span of just 14 years, ahead of the 4th best player born between 1880 and 1920, a span of 40 years. That was largely due to the belief that the late baby boomers / early Gen X was one of the best and deepest cohorts in hockey history, and a vastly deeper pool of talent than what was produced over the sport's first 40 years. Again, the extent of this can be debated, but it's clear that we were trying to make these assessments, rather than pretend that every generation was equal).

This approach isn't unique to hockey. I did a Google search for greatest baseball player, and looked at the first ten lists. Nine of them had Babe Ruth ranked first, and one of them had him ranked 2nd. Ruth was born in the 19th century. He was overweight. He never competed against African Americans - let alone the global talent pool currently in the MLB (Dominicans, Venezuelans, Cubans, Japanese, Canadians, etc). It's inconceivable that he'd be able to be an all-star as both a power hitter and a pitcher. Yet Ruth is still (usually) regarded as the greatest player ever (or at least very close to the top of the list with Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, and others who played decades after him). There should be appreciation for those who dominated the sport, even if it was decades ago.

 

[wetcoast]

Here's a response I wrote on the main boards to someone asking how we could rank Jaromir Jagr above Howie Morenz. I think there's some value in posting this here (because it anticipates a lot of the "how can you rank Eddie Shore above Nicklas Lidstrom" type of questions):

The intention of the Top 100 project (and other, similar projects) is to rank the "greatest" players. That isn't the same as the best players. Obviously, if Howie Morenz were teleported into the league today (with the flimsy skates and sticks from a century ago, no knowledge of modern tactics, and without the benefit of 21st century medicine and training), he wouldn't belong in the NHL.

Virtually all of the changes that have made hockey players better - improved equipment, better medication, changes in tactics, and yes more financial incentives - are things that the hockey community has developed over time. It's clearly unreasonable to penalize Morenz for not having access to things that haven't been invented yet. I'm not smarter than Isaac Newton because I have a calculator and a (basic) knowledge of the theory of relativity. A 15 year old on YouTube isn't a better guitarist than Jimi Hendrix because they know how to do two-hand tapping.

As a result, nobody is saying that Morenz is objectively a better hockey player than Jagr. That's obviously an absurd position. That, I think, seems to be your objection.

On HOH, we've tried to take into account how good a player was relative to his era, and how strong the era was overall. For example, Morenz is almost certainly the greatest player through hockey's first 50 years. Jagr is somewhere between the 3rd and 6th greatest player of the past 30 years. If all eras were treated equally, Morenz would rank far ahead (because he was clearly the best player of his era, and that covered a longer period of time). They're only a few spots apart, because Jagr has (rightfully) been given credit for playing against a deeper, more talented groups of competitors. Obviously that's a judgmental exercise (but literally tens of thousands of words have been written about how different seasons/eras are valued on HOH).

(Another example - we ranked 12 players born between 1958 and 1972, a span of just 14 years, ahead of the 4th best player born between 1880 and 1920, a span of 40 years. That was largely due to the belief that the late baby boomers / early Gen X was one of the best and deepest cohorts in hockey history, and a vastly deeper pool of talent than what was produced over the sport's first 40 years. Again, the extent of this can be debated, but it's clear that we were trying to make these assessments, rather than pretend that every generation was equal).

This approach isn't unique to hockey. I did a Google search for greatest baseball player, and looked at the first ten lists. Nine of them had Babe Ruth ranked first, and one of them had him ranked 2nd. Ruth was born in the 19th century. He was overweight. He never competed against African Americans - let alone the global talent pool currently in the MLB (Dominicans, Venezuelans, Cubans, Japanese, Canadians, etc). It's inconceivable that he'd be able to be an all-star as both a power hitter and a pitcher. Yet Ruth is still (usually) regarded as the greatest player ever (or at least very close to the top of the list with Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, and others who played decades after him). There should be appreciation for those who dominated the sport, even if it was decades ago.

Great post, as per usual, even if I think Jagr has a really good case to be ahead but that's a lot to do with the Mythical status of Morenz and his untimely death that gives him that extra boost in an all time sense.

Sort of the highest achieving example of this, Hobey Baker being a much lesser one.

But I came to say that using the MLB example of baseball and some of the views down there, both historically and current, isn't the greatest comparison but then again even as I write this I think back to some longtime NHL fans, commentators ect... really disliked the players from Europe and it clearly showed.

But maybe at the end of the day it doesn't matter in how some people feel but I really think it's there even if it is subconscious to some degree.

 

[Pominville Knows]

Terribly sorry:

A little bit late to the party, but is that not his brother? I'm looking at the face kinda just don't see Anze there.

But yeah, he was very young when in Sweden his first time.

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

A little bit late to the party, but is that not his brother? I'm looking at the face kinda just don't see Anze there.

But yeah, he was very young when in Sweden his first time.

His brother never played for Södertälje. I agree he’s kinda hard to recognize as a fresh faced kid, but I’m quite sure that’s Anze.

 

[Theokritos]

A little bit late to the party, but is that not his brother? I'm looking at the face kinda just don't see Anze there.

But yeah, he was very young when in Sweden his first time.

His brother never played for Södertälje. I agree he’s kinda hard to recognize as a fresh faced kid, but I’m quite sure that’s Anze.

I think that's Nik Simšič, another Slovenian player who was with Södertälje SK.

Nik Simsic - Stats, Contract, Salary & More

Eliteprospects.com hockey player profile of Nik Simsic, 1997-03-12 Ljubljana, SLO Slovenia. Most recently in the undefined with Olimpija Ljubljana. Complete player biography and stats.

www.eliteprospects.com

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

I think that's Nik Simšič, another Slovenian player who was with Södertälje SK.

Nik Simsic - Stats, Contract, Salary & More

Eliteprospects.com hockey player profile of Nik Simsic, 1997-03-12 Ljubljana, SLO Slovenia. Most recently in the undefined with Olimpija Ljubljana. Complete player biography and stats.

www.eliteprospects.com

Well, now I feel stupid. You’re absolutely right.

I seem to have taken the image off an article with the headline “Is the new Anze Kopitar emerging in Sweden?”, in Slovenian.

Third time’s a charm to finally drive home my joke two years later then:

(I hope this time it’s the right player wearing a sufficient percentage of red and white)

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Reading through some of the criticisms of the Top 200 (and similar projects) from the main board, many of the comments can be grouped into two categories:

1) The list is flawed because there's group-think. Nobody challenges anything.

2) The list is flawed because some people have wacky, unsupportable opinions (such as Gretzky being ranked 7th - and there are plenty of other examples).

The irony is, these two criticisms are contradictory. If there was pervasive group-think, then there wouldn't be wild, controversial opinions. If there are strange takes, that suggests that group-think isn't all-encompassing.

(I've said many times - these lists aren't perfect. But when both of these contradictory criticisms are made, that suggests that perhaps we found a good balance between the two extremes of group-think and incoherency).

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Can a mod add a link to this thread to the OP?

HOH Top-200 Players of All-Time Voting Results & Aggregate List

Hi everyone, My humblest apologies for how long it took me to do this. There's no excuse. As acting administrator, this is part of the duties I (was?) signed up for. And in the HOH section, we always take pride in the transparency of our process when putting these lists together. This was...

forums.hfboards.com

Just looking at the voting records and I see mine is the top 100 consensus, not my actual voting record. The 101-2220 is accurate.

This seems to be the case for a couple of others too.

I am distraught seeing Bobby Orr as #3 and Gretzky as #1 for my voting.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Can a mod add a link to this thread to the OP?

HOH Top-200 Players of All-Time Voting Results & Aggregate List

Hi everyone, My humblest apologies for how long it took me to do this. There's no excuse. As acting administrator, this is part of the duties I (was?) signed up for. And in the HOH section, we always take pride in the transparency of our process when putting these lists together. This was...

forums.hfboards.com

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

Just looking at the voting records and I see mine is the top 100 consensus, not my actual voting record. The 101-2220 is accurate.

This seems to be the case for a couple of others too.

I am distraught seeing Bobby Orr as #3 and Gretzky as #1 for my voting.

You sure you didn’t submit the consensus for the first 100 names of the list, or that you only submitted your 101-220 at the beginning of the project?

For obvious reasons, most didn’t put much of any effort for the top 100 names since that project had recently been finished, but some did submit a list of 220 names and did stray from the final results of the top 100-project during their process.

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

The irony is, these two criticisms are contradictory. If there was pervasive group-think, then there wouldn't be wild, controversial opinions. If there are strange takes, that suggests that group-think isn't all-encompassing.

(I've said many times - these lists aren't perfect. But when both of these contradictory criticisms are made, that suggests that perhaps we found a good balance between the two extremes of group-think and incoherency).

I’d like to add some further criticisms against these projects:
Some rely too heavily on eye test
Some rely too heavily on stats
Some rely too heavily on peak
Some rely too heavily on career value
Some rely too heavily on team success
Some rely too heavily on individual accolades
Some are too influenced by adjusted metrics that say a point isn’t a point
Some aren’t sufficiently accounting for relative strength of eras and that a point isn’t a point
Some have favorite players and teams they watch more
Some didn’t watch certain players and teams enough to make qualified comparisons
etc

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

I’d like to add some further criticisms against these projects:
Some rely too heavily on eye test
Some rely too heavily on stats
Some rely too heavily on peak
Some rely too heavily on career value
Some rely too heavily on team success
Some rely too heavily on individual accolades
Some are too influenced by adjusted metrics that say a point isn’t a point
Some aren’t sufficiently accounting for relative strength of eras and that a point isn’t a point
Some have favorite players and teams they watch more
Some didn’t watch certain players and teams enough to make qualified comparisons
etc

Correct, some did.