NHL Playoffs draw high ratings in 2012

The Stanley Cup Finals are over. The Los Angeles Kings have defeated the New Jersey Devils on Monday to win their first ever Stanley Cup. Having grown up playing, refereeing, and as of late coaching hockey, I have naturally followed the sport since, well, as long as I can remember.

This year, however, was very different. This year, it was very interesting to follow it from a business perspective. Never in my two decades of watching the NHL have I witnessed what happened during this years' playoffs. I am talking about the widespread attention that the playoffs have received compared to what the NHL is used to. The NHL is considered the least popular of the four mainstream sports, with Football (not soccer), Basketball, and for some reason Baseball all hold a popularity advantage ahead of Hockey. Therefore, I am used to the fact that only the true fans, usually those who have played hockey growing up, to be knowledgable about what is going on with the NHL. This year I have had intelligent hockey conversations with people who have never really watched the NHL closely before, at bars, work, acquaintances, etc. It really blew my mind when I was playing basketball at the FiDi court along the Hudson and some of the other guys actually knew who Jonathan Quick and Claude Giroux were and knew what was happening with some of the series. Why has this happened this year? The answer is the NBC Sports Network.

For the first time in the history of the NHL every single playoff game was televised on the NBC Network. Primarily on NBC and the newly branded NBC Sports (formerly the Vs. Channel) and some of the spillover in the earlier rounds when there were too many games on, being televised on our favorite channel CNBC. This meant that anyone with a basic cable package anywhere in the United States was able to watch any game that they wanted.

Lets look at some statistics:

  • According to NBC sports the first round had an average of 929,000 viewers per game. The most watched first round in the history of the NHL.
  • The Rangers vs Senators game 7 in the first round was the highest rated game on MSG since game 7 of Stanley Cup Finals in 1994 when the Rangers won the cup.
  • Although the middle rounds were also very successful, the finals averaged a 2.2 rating down from a 3.1 rating from last years' Vancouver vs Boston series. This is mainly attributed from directly competing with the Boston vs Miami Basketball series.

Last year NBC has signed a 10 year contract with the NHL for the rights to the games, and with the development and rebranding of the NBC Sports Network the future looks very bright. NBC sports has a very diverse range of shows from the Sportcenter-esque NBC Sports Talk Live, my personal favorite SportsBiz with CNBC's Darren Rovell, shows that are specific to the NFL, etc. Lets compare this to the long reigning king of sports ESPN. I have grown up with ESPN and it was often the channel I would always have on through High School and College, however, recently I think ESPN has been going downhill, hard. Recently I turned on Sports Center and during the entire hour they spent about a minute and a half on the Stanley Cup Playoffs, about five minutes on the NBA Playoffs, and the rest of the time was spent on BASEBALL!

What makes any sports game exciting is that there is a lot riding on the outcome. Which is why the NFL is the most popular sport, because when there are only 16 games, each game matters a lot. This is why it is tough for me to understand how ESPN justifies spending 3 minutes of coverage on each baseball game when there are 160+ games during a season. Either way, I think NBC is making great strides towards delivering quality sports news to the consumer and if current trends persist, NBC Sports will take over the top spot for sports programming from ESPN.

Sources:
Yahoo Sports
SB Nation
Twitter @Darrenrovell

 

Give me SBs if you watch more than 10 baseball games a season (excluding playoffs). I doubt I'll be receiving any SBs...

Robert Clayton Dean: What is happening? Brill: I blew up the building. Robert Clayton Dean: Why? Brill: Because you made a phone call.
 
WallStreetOasis.com:
goodL1fe:
Give me SBs if you watch more than 10 baseball games a season (excluding playoffs). I doubt I'll be receiving any SBs...

I do...but that doesn't mean you shoudl get a SB...more like a MS for trying to extract SBs

Should of said give me MS if you watch more than 10 baseball games a season... I wasn't looking for SBs. I just wanted to prove a point that many people do not watch that many FULL baseball games. Hell, in any given season I go to more games than I watch.

Robert Clayton Dean: What is happening? Brill: I blew up the building. Robert Clayton Dean: Why? Brill: Because you made a phone call.
 

kind of depressing in boston right now...with the Bruins losing in Game 7 to the caps (I was there), followed by the Celtics losing a tough Game 7 to Miami this past week.

All I really have to distract me while I work on WSO at home is the Euro Cup (awesome game with Denmark - Portugal today...Ronaldo sucks) and my last place Red Sox who can't seem to get on any sort of roll.

Oh well...I love all Boston sports and can't complain.

 
Best Response
gordo:
I'm happy to see these numbers. I've been a hockey fan/player my entire life and can't believe it is the least popular of the 4 major sports.

I can understand Football is higher in popularity just because its 16 games, and there is so much meaning in each play. I personally love watching football (especially my Broncos). And during football season it is the only sport that is in season (until the end when NHL and NBA start up), but last weeks of NFL regular season and NFL playoffs obviously take precedence over the hockey and basketball season opening games.

Also can kind of understand basketball, since basically EVERY kid in every city plays it when they are young, as you know, hockey equipment and season fees are very expensive and the majority of youth can not afford hockey.

The fact that baseball is popular though is more confusing to me than why Newt Gingrich vowed to colonize the moon by the time his first term was over if he were to be elected.

 
Yuriy A:
gordo:
I'm happy to see these numbers. I've been a hockey fan/player my entire life and can't believe it is the least popular of the 4 major sports.

I can understand Football is higher in popularity just because its 16 games, and there is so much meaning in each play. I personally love watching football (especially my Broncos). And during football season it is the only sport that is in season (until the end when NHL and NBA start up), but last weeks of NFL regular season and NFL playoffs obviously take precedence over the hockey and basketball season opening games.

Also can kind of understand basketball, since basically EVERY kid in every city plays it when they are young, as you know, hockey equipment and season fees are very expensive and the majority of youth can not afford hockey.

The fact that baseball is popular though is more confusing to me than why Newt Gingrich vowed to colonize the moon by the time his first term was over if he were to be elected.

I completely agree. I personally enjoy watching football (chargers fan) more than hockey, even though I've played it my whole life. Basketball is entertaining as long as its 2 exciting teams, like last nights game. But watching baseball makes me want stab myself in the throat.

 
Yuriy A:
The fact that baseball is popular though is more confusing to me than why Newt Gingrich vowed to colonize the moon by the time his first term was over if he were to be elected.
Well stated. I like playing much more than watching hockey, but I literally fell asleep on the field during my first and only baseball season. I don't get it. Booooooring.

Congrats to the Kings. I wanted Jersey to win because I'm from Jersey, but they have several titles already, so I'm happy for L.A. getting it's first Stanley Cup. I still put California hockey in the same category as Alaskan surfing or Arctic subathing...almost a contradiction of terms...but hey, good for them.

I'm glad hockey is finally getting some more press, it's about time.

Get busy living
 

I think what hockey really needs at the moment are just a few American superstars to take it to the next level. I, for one, am an avid fan of football and basketball. Even though I don't follow baseball much I do sometimes follow the phenoms such as Harper or Strasburg as well as other superstar movements. Sure you have the likes of Sid the Kid, who was out for like half the season, as well as Ovechkin.

What hockey really needs is someone that can appeal to the general public, someone like what Jon Jones has done to boxing with the right background (American, for one) as well as a compelling story (brothers in the NFL that basically was his go-to story: family of beasts). Maybe Quick can become such personality but really who has been the face of the league the last few years?

Disclaimer: Asian and not stereotyping. How do I root for players whose names I cannot pronounce?

 
huethan:
I think what hockey really needs at the moment are just a few American superstars to take it to the next level. I, for one, am an avid fan of football and basketball. Even though I don't follow baseball much I do sometimes follow the phenoms such as Harper or Strasburg as well as other superstar movements. Sure you have the likes of Sid the Kid, who was out for like half the season, as well as Ovechkin.

What hockey really needs is someone that can appeal to the general public, someone like what Jon Jones has done to boxing with the right background (American, for one) as well as a compelling story (brothers in the NFL that basically was his go-to story: family of beasts). Maybe Quick can become such personality but really who has been the face of the league the last few years?

it was actually interesting to note that the captains of three of the final four teams were all American. Dustin Brown (Kings), Ryan Calahan (Rangers), and Zach Parise (Rangers).

I think Brown will emerge as a popular figure now that he won the cup in LA which has a decent hockey following that is bound to grow now that they are the hot commodity in the city, until the Lakers or USC decide to make a title run. I just read that they have Brown on Leno tonight already, so hopefully he has a personality people can feed off of.

Agree though that there are a lot of Euro players whose names are rather tough to pronounce which makes things hard from a fan perspective, but the number of American players is and will continue to grow.

I spent a decade as a USA hockey referee, and I remember that when I started in the mid ninetys the majority of the good hockey teams were from traditional hockey states in the midwest (MN, WI, MI, etc.) but over the last couple years I saw that teams from Texas and California, Oregon, even New Mexico were also going very far in the national tournament and even won a few championships. Players from those states have also been popping up more frequently on division 1 college teams.

 
Yuriy A:
huethan:
I think what hockey really needs at the moment are just a few American superstars to take it to the next level. I, for one, am an avid fan of football and basketball. Even though I don't follow baseball much I do sometimes follow the phenoms such as Harper or Strasburg as well as other superstar movements. Sure you have the likes of Sid the Kid, who was out for like half the season, as well as Ovechkin.

What hockey really needs is someone that can appeal to the general public, someone like what Jon Jones has done to boxing with the right background (American, for one) as well as a compelling story (brothers in the NFL that basically was his go-to story: family of beasts). Maybe Quick can become such personality but really who has been the face of the league the last few years?

it was actually interesting to note that the captains of three of the final four teams were all American. Dustin Brown (Kings), Ryan Calahan (Rangers), and Zach Parise (Rangers).

I think Brown will emerge as a popular figure now that he won the cup in LA which has a decent hockey following that is bound to grow now that they are the hot commodity in the city, until the Lakers or USC decide to make a title run. I just read that they have Brown on Leno tonight already, so hopefully he has a personality people can feed off of.

Agree though that there are a lot of Euro players whose names are rather tough to pronounce which makes things hard from a fan perspective, but the number of American players is and will continue to grow.

I spent a decade as a USA hockey referee, and I remember that when I started in the mid ninetys the majority of the good hockey teams were from traditional hockey states in the midwest (MN, WI, MI, etc.) but over the last couple years I saw that teams from Texas and California, Oregon, even New Mexico were also going very far in the national tournament and even won a few championships. Players from those states have also been popping up more frequently on division 1 college teams.

I played youth and high school hockey in Minnesota, and then moved to IL where I played club in college. Now I slowly feel my skills deteriorate as I play one beer league game per week...

Growing up, hockey WAS the big sport, and that was even after the North Stars moved away. Every kid that played hockey grew up watching the Minnesota Gophers, Duluth Bulldogs, St. Cloud St. Huskies, etc. I probably even followed college hockey closer than any professional sport. Undoubtedly, part of this was because it was easy. The nightly news' sports segments would include college hockey and games were always on TV. We would play games and go to camps at D1 rinks where the active players would be helping out on the ice. During the high school tournament games are shown at prime time on TV and kids are frequently excused from school to attend. Simply put, hockey is huge in MN.

I live in Chicago now, and even though the Blackhawks are extremely popular and Chicago is a pretty "northern" city, the same type of hockey culture doesn't exist. There are only a handful of rinks in the entire city for 2.5 million people (my hometown of ~2500 people had one indoor and two outdoor). That simple fact alone makes it hard for people to get on the ice - ice time is crazy expensive. Thus, hockey is played, as you said, in the rich northern suburbs. Another huge difference is the fact that the top high school aged players in IL (and anywhere but MN?) all play for traveling club teams, rather than their local high schools. This again makes it harder for less well-off families to play. I'd obviously love for youth/amateur hockey to really pick up in Chicago and elsewhere, but it's got a ways to go. I'd say building more rinks would be a good first step.

Also, here's a cool little graphic that breaks down where D1 players come from:

http://beanpotforum.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/ncaa_players_home2.gif

MN: 179 MI:132 MA: 105 IL: ~58

 
huethan:
Maybe Quick can become such personality but really who has been the face of the league the last few years?

anyone who knows hockey knows that goalies aren't real people.. they're usually the most awkward/shy of the bunch.

 

I'm Canadian living in LA, and to be honest, even with the Kings winning the Stanley Cup, it's not pandemonium here at all. Most people I know are aware of it, but the culture of the LA Kings fanbase has always been a dedicated base of hardcore followers - but very few "casual" fans. Honestly before this year's playoffs, no one outside a hardcore group knew anything about the Kings (but again those who do are dedicated - virtually all their home games sold out this year pretty easily). The Lakers, Dodgers and Trojan football have their hardcore base, but also have a LOT of casual fans.

The NHL is in a similar boat as the NBA was in the 1970s (but actually in a better position than the NBA in the 70s). Back then, the NBA was on the fringes - the playoffs and finals were tape delay! No live broadcasts.

What brought the NBA to the fore was drama. I've heard some commentators argue that the Celtics-Lakers rivalry between two legends (Bird vs Magic) really brought national attention because the rivalry itself was compelling drama: both teams absolutely hated one another, Hall of Famers on both sides, and larger than life personalities in the Showtime Lakers vs. the Tough-as-Nails Celtics. You had stars before them obviously like Doctor J, Wilt, Bill Russell, etc. but there wasn't the compelling rivalry that you had with the Celtics-Lakers in the 1980s. Then, the Isiah Thomas Pistons emerged whom most everyone hated. And finally, a guy named Jordan who transcended the sport (as an aside: I was working in Hong Kong during the '98 finals, and the entire trading desk had tuned in live to Game 6. Out of curiosity, after the game I looked up the trading volume of the HK Stock Exchange on our Bloomberg terminals, and the trading volume dipped to a trickle for about 20 minutes - which happened to be around the end of the game when MJ hit that game winning shot - so it seemed like the entire HK finance community was doing the same thing we were - glued to the TV; so much for efficient markets).

The NHL have had some legendary players, but in the modern era, there hasn't been any rivalries that have really blown up to the point where everyone had a stake in it (or the kind of rivalry where you had to choose a side - i.e. no one would cheer for the Lakers AND the Celtics). Similar to the NBA, it has to be more than just individual stars - but having stars on teams that create persistent rivalries over the years. For a while in the 90s you had the Wings vs Avs which had that potential, but there's not a whole lot now.

The other thing is the "Canadian" culture of the sport: guys who say cliche stuff, deflecting any attention away from themselves, and false modesty. One of my favorite players growing up was Jeremy Roenick - because he was not only a great player, but fun to watch.

In a way, the NHL needs superstar villains. A hero you idolize is only as great as the villain they are up against. The NBA had it in the Lakers-Celtics (the villain just depended on whose side you cheered against). I guess Sidney Crosby comes close to being that villain, but he probably has to step up the douchiness a notch for it to be compelling drama for casual fans to cheer AGAINST him, sort of like LeBron James is to the NBA now (and even though I love watching hockey, I was more tuned into the Celtics-Heat series simply because the games were more compelling). The problem with Crosby in a way is that he's savvy enough with the media that he won't give them anything to run with.

There's a lot of great players in the NHL, but no Celtics-Lakers rivalries that transcends the actual game itself in the modern era. Crosby makes a potential good villain as do the Vancouver Canucks (and this coming from a Canucks fan). The Leafs would make a great villain if they were actually a good team.

Alex Chu www.mbaapply.com
 

what about the ovi/crosby rivalry? or the growing crosby/giroux rivalry? i personally love crosby and can't stand the fact that he so widely hated throughout the league. he's without a doubt (when healthy) the greatest player in the world.

 
gordo:
what about the ovi/crosby rivalry? or the growing crosby/giroux rivalry? i personally love crosby and can't stand the fact that he so widely hated throughout the league. he's without a doubt (when healthy) the greatest player in the world.

There's certainly rivalries within the sport, but none really as of yet that have transcended the game like the Celtics-Lakers, Yankees-Red Sox, and so forth - at least in the post-lockout era. Yes, you had traditional rivalries like the Habs-Bruins up until the 80s or Flames-Oilers in the 80s, or even the Wings-Avs in the 90s - but again these rivalries never drew in casual fans beyond the local region or dedicated hockey fan.

The NHL tried to hype the Ovi/Crosby rivalry as the NHL's version of Bird-Magic, and it certainly had potential, but again Crosby has this very "Canadian" way of not feeding the media anything to work with (he basically stays on script with the cliches) and both Ovechkin and Crosby never seemed to fully embrace that rivalry like the league hoped it would (i.e they don't hate each other that much, and both teams never really hated each other). You start with hate, which can lead to sound bites that the media can shape into a narrative/story that can bring in casual fans. Also, for there to be real drama, both teams need to be equally good, and the Caps were a step below the Pens -- until now, but now Ovi seems to be a shadow of his former self, partly because of the system they play and who knows what else.

Pens-Flyers is certainly fun to watch as they are two evenly matched teams that genuinely don't like each other with two fan bases that don't like one another - and other than the Cup finals, that series probably got the most ink of any because it was such a compelling matchup (even though the games got out of hand). If that continues to build for the next few years and both teams continue to be contenders, that can certainly help the sport and TV ratings while bringing in more casual fans.

Alex Chu www.mbaapply.com
 

MBAapply took what I was trying to say but expanded upon it and made it 100x better :)

I am just a sports fan that live in LA but do not follow hockey at all until the playoffs started. I think I am the targeted audience for the expansion of sports, who at the moment knows the general rules about the sport, will watch some highlights here and there. The next stage for someone like me would be to boost him up to somewhere between casual and hardcore that'll watch minimum one game a week even during regular season and try to go to an actual game once in a while, buy merchandise if I fall in love with a player [when I was little I had a Paul Kariya poster up in room next to Ichiro lololol]).

Also I hate to say this but my personal opinion thinks a somewhat big factor of how sports popularity has grown in our generation has been through fantasy sports. I think everyone on here, especially in the finance world, has had some experience with fantasy sports one way or another, if not competitively and/or gambling. I tried to play fantasy hockey and soccer (EPL) and they just weren't that fun and competitive for me.

 
huethan:
Also I hate to say this but my personal opinion thinks a somewhat big factor of how sports popularity has grown in our generation has been through fantasy sports. I think everyone on here, especially in the finance world, has had some experience with fantasy sports one way or another, if not competitively and/or gambling. I tried to play fantasy hockey and soccer (EPL) and they just weren't that fun and competitive for me.

Part of the big reason why the NFL has dwarfed all other major US sports is because of gambling as well as fantasy sports (but of course, the NFL does not condone or acknowledge that its fans gamble on the game, at all, because the game is full of saints and no one knows anything about gambling). NFL games are described in terms of "the spread" -- you don't hear that with baseball, basketball or hockey. I mean, if all that matters is whether your team won or lost (like any sport other than football), why does it matter to quantify how much they are expected to win/lose by? There's also all kinds of wagers within the game itself. There's this whole peripheral activity going on around the game that you don't see anywhere to the same degree in other sports.

Gambling also has a part to play in the popularity of college football as well.

Guys (and gals) aren't just watching the NFL to root for their favorite player or team. They're watching because they have money on the outcome.

Alex Chu www.mbaapply.com
 
MBAApply:
huethan:
Also I hate to say this but my personal opinion thinks a somewhat big factor of how sports popularity has grown in our generation has been through fantasy sports. I think everyone on here, especially in the finance world, has had some experience with fantasy sports one way or another, if not competitively and/or gambling. I tried to play fantasy hockey and soccer (EPL) and they just weren't that fun and competitive for me.

Part of the big reason why the NFL has dwarfed all other major US sports is because of gambling as well as fantasy sports (but of course, the NFL does not condone or acknowledge that its fans gamble on the game, at all, because the game is full of saints and no one knows anything about gambling). NFL games are described in terms of "the spread" -- you don't hear that with baseball, basketball or hockey. I mean, if all that matters is whether your team won or lost (like any sport other than football), why does it matter to quantify how much they are expected to win/lose by? There's also all kinds of wagers within the game itself. There's this whole peripheral activity going on around the game that you don't see anywhere to the same degree in other sports.

Gambling also has a part to play in the popularity of college football as well.

Guys (and gals) aren't just watching the NFL to root for their favorite player or team. They're watching because they have money on the outcome.

interetsting you mention gambling. There are ways to gamble on hockey, its interesting however because the spreads are setup by 1 goal usually. So what it comes down to is to see if a close game can have an empty netter. If you bet on a team to ONLY lose by one, they usually pull their goalie at the end when down by one and you are in the money, then a high chance empty net goal gets scored and you can lose your money. This makes it hard to bet as your outcome matters on something that is not really part of how the game actually was played.

 

The biggest thing holding back Ice Hockeys in the U.S is the weather. It is not surprising that the most ardent NHL fans in the U.S are those of Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, Minnesota Wild, Buffalo Sabers etc. In other words, the parts of the U.S in the Midwest and Northeast that are actually cold and icy in the winter months. It is hard to get excited over ice hockey in LA, Phoenix or Tampa when its sunny 70s degrees outside in February and no snow, and it is even harder to find outdoor natural ice skating rinks in those parts of the country.

And it is not just in North America either. It is understandable that the European countries that are most hockey crazy also happen to be the countries in the Northern and Eastern Europe. You don't find too many ardent hockey fans in Ireland, the U.K Italy or Spain.

The NHL leadership made the mistake of over-reaching to the Southern and Western U.S. where the residents simply find it difficult to relate to a sport that is synonymous with snowy winter, unless they happen to be transplants from the colder parts of North America. But then they tend to root for their original home teams.

Too late for second-guessing Too late to go back to sleep.
 

Bettman fucked over hockey. I'm in my early 20s, and I remember watching hockey games weeknights on ESPN consistently (and I'm not from hockey country either). Hockey was mainstream until the lockout and was very visible. Without the ESPN contracts and subsequent move to Versus, hockey was nothing. The NBC Sports deal is on the rise, and at least more of the playoff games were on the actual NBC channel this year. If NBC Sports can succeed and work its way into the basic cable packages along with ESPN family and Fox Sports, then we'll have something.

 

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