[Tournament] You are the commissioner of NHL Hockey: How do you save the sport?

The NHL gave NBC the lowest ratings in basically the entire history of broadcast television and people think fighting would have fixed that?

Most Americans who would watch hockey but don't are turned off by a perception that all they do is fight, even in the playoffs. Hockey needs a Michael Jordan, another Wayne Gretzky, right now, but it needs much more than that. The feeling is that it is filled with thugs and the games are boring. I mean, I don't know if the NHL can ever get out of MLS status in the US, not now. There would need to be a major overhaul of basically everything and I doubt the league/Canadians would allow it.

Originally Posted by Borg1982

3. Put as many games on national TV as possible.

How? No one wants to put the NHL on the air because it gets zero ratings.

Originally Posted by Fiddlegoof

Hockey's a canadian sport, so why the fuck let the Americans take all the glory.

Because someone has to pay all these player salaries. When the players struck, they were asking for salaries that you get when you are extremely popular in America, not extremely popular in Canada.

Which means if you don't get the Americans to watch, then the next time a CBA is up, either the players are going to have to accept even less money or things even more drastic (another strike, franchises folding, etc.).

Jam it back in, in the dark.

There are two problems with that statement:

1) To be Michael, there can't be another Michael. Why do you think the NBA is pushing LeBron so hard right now? Duncan is probably the best player in the game these NBA playoffs, but LeBron gets the press.

2) Who, where are they? (Yes, I know Crosby is the one that gets the biggest push.) Americans liked Gretzky even before he went to the Kings. I never see any advertisements for hockey players, which amounts to paying for sorely-needed publicity. I never hear any players names on anything ever.

Case-in-point: I didn't watch either the NHL finals or the Super Bowl this year. But I can name several players and coaches who were in the Super Bowl. I can't think of the name, right now, of a single player in the NHL finals. And it's not like I hate hockey. I love sports and I used to watch the NHL playoffs every single year.

No one is watching hockey except hockey fans. Non-football fans watch the Super Bowl, non-basketball fans watch the NBA finals. There's got to be reasons for that and one is certainly the lack of star power. Players who may be good, may be great, sure, but no stars.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Again:

If you move to the north, then the NHL is basically giving up on the possibilities that American television contracts can provide. If the players never struck, they'd still enjoy the money that ESPN brings, they'd still have ratings above the 2 pm Sunday horror flick. Considering that the money was available yeas ago, why would the NHL want to give up on that?

And I never said that I didn't think the NHL wasn't putting out a good product. The perception is that it is a boring piece of crap that we Americans would almost rather watch soccer than. It carries the stigma that boxing carries, unfairly or not, which has been dying a similar death for years.

Arena ticket sales or not, the money is in television. When have you ever seen a baseball stadium even half-full outside of the playoffs or a Yankees/Red Sox series? Baseball players make their money off television and off the Internet.

Originally Posted by Capo

Of course, living in the fucking desert, you wouldn't hear to much about that, would you?

I watch ESPN, which is a national channel. I watch national news programs and listen to NPR all the time. These aren't things that are centered in Arizona. I rarely watch news or the sports stuff produced locally. I visit SI.com several times a day and ESPN.com several times a week. What the hell, do you think this is 1981 or something?

The fact is that I have to go out of my way to hear about hockey. So does basically every American in a state that doesn't border Canada. Hell, I live a half-day's drive from the current NHL champions living in this here desert and I still never hear anything at all. Oh, and my own state has a hockey team.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Oh hay thanks for that rundown of hockey, champ.

Also, NBA games typically run around 2:15. NFL games are 3ish, but there's only one a week, so it's worth it to football fans.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I suppose, but I think my situation is more closely related to Joe Fan. The ratings tell me so, at least.

No, I never see Sydney Crosby on anything. I get Sports Illustrated and can't recall any ads with him or any hockey player in it. I watch Sportscenter a couple times a week and I watched most of the first and second rounds of the NBA playoffs. Granted, ABC/ESPN didn't have anything to do with the NHL this year, but I don't recall seeing anything about hockey at all outside of Versus/NBC. I don't even remember seeing an advertisement on NBC for a game that they were broadcasting.

I just went and got last week's SI, which had a story about Anaheim about to win the series, and the only ad related to hockey, even next to the three page story, was one for Verizon which had no players on it and was just advertising you could get the NHL on VCast.

I was speaking idiomatically.

What can I say? I wish I was Aussie.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?