Why is McDavid so little known outside of hockey?

[BTO]

The NHL is a North American league so, yes, it's a niche sport based on where it ranks within its target market. Hockey is big elsewhere, but I don't see McDavid being marketed in Russia or Sweden. Marketing hockey in North American remains a challenge as long as the sport is perceived as distinctly Canadian. The US isn't likely to embrace it like they do with American-born sports like football, baseball, and basketball, all of which have generations of history and culture behind them. There's no American hockey culture.

Soccer's target market is Europe and parts of South America. Obviously it's not a niche sport there.

there's only like 6 or 7 "good" hockey countries in the world

yes, it's niche on a global scale

It’s not a niche sport from where I’m sitting - in Canada. I just think that if people are going to claim that “hockey is a niche sport” they’d might like to specify where it is that it is such a “niche sport” rather than assuming that “in America” is implied or assuming that because it is a niche sport in America that it’s a niche sport full stop. Hockey is not “a niche sport, full stop”. Hockey is a niche sport in America (and maybe most of the rest of the world too. But if that’s the case then baseball and football are niche sport as well, as might be everything else save soccer), and even then not necessarily in all of America, as it’s not necessarily a niche sport in Minnesota or New England. End rant.

 

[Suntouchable13]

Americans don't give a f*** about NHL hockey to the level of knowing players outside of maybe their local team (and even then most of them don't even know their local team players).

If this whole theory was going to be true, Patrick Kane should have been a huge marketing star.

American born superstar? Check.

Pretty good/funny personality? Check.

Flashy style of play? Check.

Multiple Cup wins? Check.

Plays in a major US TV market? Chicago? Check.

Patrick Kane was a fart in the wind in US athletic marketing. Good luck to anyone else.

To be fair, though, I think you are wrong on the personality part. Kane was/is a douche. Nothing funny or good about his personality. But I do agree with the rest of what you’re saying.

 

[jackjohnson]

He's the most electrifying player since Mario Lemieux and a human highlight reel. Blazing speed, soft hands, elite vision, passing, and IQ, scores goals, gamebreaker, he's got it all. So why hasn't his name broken out outside of hockey circles?

One argument I often hear is that he isn't a big media personality but neither is Crosby and he's the most famous player since Gretzky or Lemieux. In fact, I would argue Crosby was more famous before even playing his first game. The hype leading up to his draft was unprecedented in the world of hockey and made him a bigger media sensation than McDavid despite his wooden and typical NHL personality.

Another one I hear is the market he plays in, but Gretzky's heyday was in Edmonton and it didn't stop him from being the most famous player of the time by a wide margin. Surely, Edmonton wasn't a bigger city in the 80s than it is now? Washington also wasn't a particularly large hockey market before Ovechkin.

There is also the cup argument, but Ovechkin was a superstar even non-hockey fans knew about for years before he made the playoffs. I would argue he was also more popular than McDavid ever was before he played his first NHL game.

McDavid just won a Conn Smythe in a losing effort, but this has done nothing for him. Even to this day, people outside of hockey circles might know Crosby or Ovechkin. McDavid's name never approached their level despite being arguably better than either of them. He should have overtaken them by now as these are his prime years and these two are in the twilight of their careers, yet their status outside of hockey eludes him.

Even in his historical 2022-23 season, his jersey wasn't even in the top 5 most sold ones. In fact, I don't think McDavid ever had the top-selling jersey in his career in a given year.

I don't think there has ever been such a disparity between talent and fame. What is the reason for this?

Because he plays for Deadmonton which no one really cares about. Put him on NYR and he will have many more sponsorships and would be a lot more popular.

 

[ottawa]

Because the UFC did an exponentially better job of growing it's sport.....
Hockey had a gigantic head start.
Ironically hockey was peaking in popularity when the UFC started in 1993, Bettman just blew it

Yes, I agree that the UFC did a better job but what I'm also saying is that the UFC should and would have always been the bigger sport regardless.

 

[NeverForget06]

Same jabronis in here talking about McDavid having a milktoast personality would be yapping about how his personality is preventing him from winning cups if he actually had one lol

Soundwave makes the best point - Patrick Kane didn't become well known despite being one of the greatest American players of all time and resurrecting a historic NHL franchise in one of the largest American cities

 

[12ozPapa]

He’s boring.
He hasn’t won a Cup.

 

[Soundwave]

To be fair, though, I think you are wrong on the personality part. Kane was/is a douche. Nothing funny or good about his personality. But I do agree with the rest of what you’re saying.

He's good on camera, funny and according to my wife anyway he's not bad looking, lol.

There's no reason he shouldn't be reasonably popular in the US. Again he's American too on top of all the other things going for him.

If Patrick Kane can't break out and even be as popular as a B/C-tier NBA star, good luck to anyone else.

 

[Suntouchable13]

He's good on camera, funny and according to my wife anyway he's not bad looking, lol.

There's no reason he shouldn't be reasonably popular in the US. Again he's American too on top of all the other things going for him.

I agree and I think that we shouldn’t care how popular our sport is. It is what it is and that’s fine by me.

 

[onetweasy]

How can the average non-hockey fan get excited about McDavid when even hardcore hockey fans outside of Edmonton and the pundits who are selling the game spend the majority of the year telling us how he is a one-dimensional offensive player who doesn't make his teammates better, cant play defense and apparently choked in the SCF finals........

But seriously, it is because hockey is a niche sport.

 

[Strangle]

The NHL is run by morons who don't know how to market. Outside factors like video games and movies have marketed hockey better than the NHL ever has

Look at what Dana White has done with a fringe sport.

Can we bring in Dana white to be the new commissioner?

 

[Soundwave]

He’s boring.
He hasn’t won a Cup.

C) The average American doesn't give a f*** about any hockey player.

McDavid would lose marketing deals if he went to the US is the irony.

Crosby has 0 nationwide big ticket marketing deals in the US. McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Nike or Adidas, Playstation or XBox .. nope, nope, nope, and nope. The biggest sponsor he has is Gatorade and Gatorade actively removes him from their US marketing, lol, so his Gatorade TV commercials only run in Canada (maybe they run in the Pittsburgh local area, I would hope so but I know for sure in other parts of the country they remove him from their athlete montage commercials). Gatorade's US marketing department says "lose the hockey guy" when it comes to Crosby.

Chris Paul, a C-tier NBA star has a bigger nationwide marketing campaign in State Farm than anything Crosby does, Crosby's main endorsements are in Canada, Tim Horton's, Gatorade/Pepsi Co. Canada, hockey equipment manufacturers, etc .

 

[The Gr8 Dane]

The people in here blaming McDavids boring personality and playing in Edmonton as reasons he's not popular are so out of touch with the reality of how little the sport is popular across the globe (and for good reason , the sport is borderline unplayable even from a participation standpoint at the youth level) they are like ostriches hiding their heads from the truth in front of them

 

[Lshap]

It’s not a niche sport from where I’m sitting - in Canada. I just think that if people are going to claim that “hockey is a niche sport” they’d might like to specify where it is that it is such a “niche sport” rather than assuming that “in America” is implied or assuming that because it is a niche sport in America that it’s a niche sport full stop. Hockey is not “a niche sport, full stop”. Hockey is a niche sport in America (and maybe most of the rest of the world too. But if that’s the case then baseball and football are niche sport as well, as might be everything else save soccer), and even then not necessarily in all of America, as it’s not necessarily a niche sport in Minnesota or New England. End rant.

I think we're talking about two distinct things: Product and brand.

Hockey as a 'product' is popular as a sport played in various countries. Russia, Sweden, Finland, etc. have their own leagues and stars and marketing that have nothing to do with the NHL.

NHL hockey is a 'brand' that's only sold here in North America. And any brand within this continent is measured by its penetration of the US market. My point was that NHL hockey (and hockey in general) hasn't yet established an American culture, so it remains behind American legacy sports.

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

It’s not a niche sport from where I’m sitting - in Canada. I just think that if people are going to claim that “hockey is a niche sport” they’d might like to specify where it is that it is such a “niche sport” rather than assuming that “in America” is implied or assuming that because it is a niche sport in America that it’s a niche sport full stop. Hockey is not “a niche sport, full stop”. Hockey is a niche sport in America (and maybe most of the rest of the world too. But if that’s the case then baseball and football are niche sport as well, as might be everything else save soccer), and even then not necessarily in all of America, as it’s not necessarily a niche sport in Minnesota or New England. End rant.

but the point of the thread is "why is McDavid so little known outside of hockey"

because outside of a few countries, no one cares about the sport

 

[DamonDRW]

The NHL is run by morons who don't know how to market. Outside factors like video games and movies have marketed hockey better than the NHL ever has

Look at what Dana White has done with a fringe sport.

Who is Dana White?

 

[Soundwave]

The people in here blaming McDavids boring personality and playing in Edmonton as reasons he's not popular are so out of touch with the reality of how little the sport is popular across the globe (and for good reason , the sport is borderline unplayable even from a participation standpoint at the youth level) they are like ostriches hiding their heads from the truth in front of them

McDavid if anything has *more* endorsements because he is in Canada. He has more marketing deals than players like Patrick Kane and Nathan MacKinnon have.

If you're a big ticket hockey player in Canada you can get big time marketing deals here with corps like Rogers, Tim Hortons, CIBC, hockey equipment manufacturers, etc. in the US big companies don't want hockey players in their marketing campaigns. The equivalent to that in the US would be a hockey player having commercial deals with Verizon, McDonalds, Wells Fargo, and Nike.

Gatorade's refusal to use Crosby in US marketing and leave him to Gatorade Canada spots is proof positive of that.

 

[JFedol]

Celebrities in general aren't as famous as they used to be.

It's been much lamented but there's not many new movie stars, studios are still leaning on Tom Cruise damn near 60 to sell films.

Taylor Swift is famous sure, but is she more famous than Michael Jackson's hey day in his 80s/90s? I don't think so.

Is anyone in the current Royal Family as famous as Princess Diana? Nope.

The NBA has the greatest marketing machine in sports, but they have not been able to make LeBron or Kobe or anyone else as popular as Michael Jordan was.

Tiger Woods 20 years versus anyone today in popularity? Forget about it.

In the 90s, a nothing start up TV show like Beverly Hills 90210 could go from a very small audience to within a year being so demanded in pop culture that the cast of the show had to be taken out of mall appearances in laundry baskets to prevent a riot of teenagers in the mall, lol.

Any TV show on network TV with anywhere near that kind of clout? Social media has watered down any single person's individual popularity, the 80s/90s/2000s was really the hey day of all that.

Absolute facts lol. The whole media market now and the forms of different consumption are way too heavily fragmented now compared to the past which makes it 100x harder for celebrities now to be THAT famous compared to the celebrities of the past. Entertainment back then was way more centralized and it was almost guaranteed that everybody would be listening to the same music, watching the same shows, same movies all at the same time etc. Big events were like collective shared memories in the 70s/80s/90s, shit like that is just straight up non-existent nowadays with the landscape. Only sports may bring that type of collective sense, like the world cup IMO.

People like MJ (Jackson) who I consider to be the most famous celebrity/person ever besides maybe religious figures like Jesus. Muhammad are once in a lifetime celebrities in terms of shared factors like timing, musical + pop culture dominance, media landscape and popularity lol. Mike, along with Elvis and The Beatles had reign's that were insane but Michael's was 100x bigger.

 

[BLNY]

Because the league is full of boring white dudes that went to the Crash Davis School of Clichés.

 

[Rebels57]

No personality, obscure Canadian city (to the majority of Americans), and awful marketing by the NHL.

 

[12ozPapa]

C) The average American doesn't give a f*** about any hockey player.

McDavid would lose marketing deals if he went to the US is the irony.

Crosby has 0 nationwide big ticket marketing deals in the US. McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Nike or Adidas, Playstation or XBox .. nope, nope, nope, and nope. The biggest sponsor he has is Gatorade and Gatorade actively removes him from their US marketing, lol, so his Gatorade TV commercials only run in Canada (maybe they run in the Pittsburgh local area, I would hope so but I know for sure in other parts of the country they remove him from their athlete montage commercials). Gatorade's US marketing department says "lose the hockey guy" when it comes to Crosby.

Chris Paul, a C-tier NBA star has a bigger nationwide marketing campaign in State Farm than anything Crosby does, Crosby's main endorsements are in Canada, Tim Horton's, Gatorade/Pepsi Co. Canada, hockey equipment manufacturers, etc .

Very true!

 

[Soundwave]

Absolute facts lol. The whole media market now and the forms of different consumption are way too heavily fragmented now compared to the past which makes it 100x harder for celebrities now to be THAT famous compared to the celebrities of the past. Entertainment back then was way more centralized and it was almost guaranteed that everybody would be listening to the same music, watching the same shows, same movies all at the same time etc. Big events were like collective shared memories, shit like that is just straight up non-existent nowadays with the landscape.

People like MJ (Jackson) who I consider to be the most famous celebrity/person ever besides maybe religious figures like Jesus. Muhammad are once in a lifetime celebrities in terms of shared factors timing, musical + pop culture dominance, media landscape and popularity lol. Mike, along with Elvis and The Beatles had reign's that were insane but Michael's was 100x bigger.

Yup.

I'll ask a general question ... how many mega famous actors, singers, athletes can you name today ...

That are under 28?

Being able to name people who are part of the pre-social media network of fame is one thing, but how many "superstars" are there today that aren't like 30+ (sorry but even Taylor Swift is like 34).

Because in the 80s/90s/2000s you could easily name lots of people that weren't in their 30s.

No one in the 80s didn't know a 20 something Michael Jackson or Madonna or Tom Cruise or Eddie Murphy, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan quickly became mega popular. Mike Tyson. Etc. etc. etc.

In the 90s how about Jim Carey breaking out into superstardom in a year, Leonardo DiCaprio, Julia Roberts, Tiger Woods, Will Smith, Jennifer Aniston, Cameron Diaz, Britney Spears, Shaq, the Williams sisters, Kobe Bryant, Jaleel White (lol), the 90210 cast, Shania Twain, Deion Sanders, Troy Aikman and the Cowboys dynasty, Nirvana, Tupac, Derek Jeter, Sosa/McGuire captivating the US, etc. etc.

Look at the media landscape now. Who's the most famous 20 something on the planet? Kendall Jenner? Maybe? Timothy Chamelet?

The entire media landscape has changed.

 

[Lt Dan]

Who is Dana White?

Google

 

[ZDH]

He has the personality of a wet napkin.

 

[Soundwave]

He has the personality of a wet napkin.

Did Gretzky really even have much of a personality? Dude is the sugar free version of plain yogurt, he's boring even now on TNT's hockey panel.



On the TNT panel he looks like he's miserable being there compare and contrast to Barkley and Shaq on the basketball show.

 

[The Gr8 Dane]

Who is Dana White?

A bigger celebrity than McDavid