NHL Viewership Down 22% This Season; Averaging 373k Viewers on ESPN/TNT

[Phil]

 

[Morphinity 2.0]

The hockey Twitter war on digital board ads is so stupid. They're fine. Sometimes they fuck up, but it's fine 99% of the time.

 

I can't argue the other aspects though. This league is stagnant as fuck and just straight up isn't interesting if you're not already a fan. 

[Pete]

Does this count illegal streams?

 

It's not a product anyone is going to pay extra for.

[SaveByRichter35]

Sure would help if MSG network would make a fire stick app for MSGGO.

[SaveByRichter35]

Although I watch 90% of my games on the computer at work anyway so I guess not much would change.

[Dunny]

I find the product unwatchable. If it wasn't for the Rangers Fandom, I wouldn't watch a single game. 

 

Yeah, the players are unfathomably good. So what? 

 

The people driving the changes that brought NHL hockey to this point, got exactly the type of game they envisioned... and nobody cares. They never understood, or embraced, what made made the game special, they turned their back on it, and they've ruined it. 

 

I'd rather watch the Devils trap a team in to oblivion, knowing there was a chance a player bench may be thrown on the ice by a coach, then watch whatever this sanitized sporting equivalent of an all white IKEA kitchen has become. Where's my circus? 

 

Still love the game. At the rink a minimum 10 hours/week. Love going to OHL games and PJHL games, but whatever this league has become? Yawn.

[BrooksBurner]

I doubt it has anything to do with the product on ice. People have abandoned cable tv in droves and don't have access to national TV games except through illegal stream.

 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/251268/number-of-pay-tv-households-in-the-us/#:~:text=Forecast data from February 2022,the end of the year.

 

The league just needs to adapt better to how people choose to consume content. I'm not buying cable tv just to get access to 8-10 of my team's games.

[Blue Heaven]

Another issue is attention span, and other avenues to get entertainment content.  

We are watching for the most part no matter what, but the "fans" the NHL is trying to gain have short attention spans, watch a few minutes of hockey, head to social media for a few minutes, turn on youtube to find some content to watch for a few minutes, onto Twitch to watch some random people play video games.....time to go back to the hockey game to see the score, etc.......

 

Half the time that I'm watching the Rangers games, i'm not even paying attention to the game b/c I am on this board which distracts me from the game.

 

 

[Pete]

1 hour ago, BrooksBurner said:

I doubt it has anything to do with the product on ice. People have abandoned cable tv in droves and don't have access to national TV games except through illegal stream.

 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/251268/number-of-pay-tv-households-in-the-us/#:~:text=Forecast data from February 2022,the end of the year.

 

The league just needs to adapt better to how people choose to consume content. I'm not buying cable tv just to get access to 8-10 of my team's games.

While it's true about chord cutters, that's not accounting for a 22% dip. And if the product was better, it would be a harder choice to leave cable.

 

For comparison, NFL viewership dropped decimal places in '22. MLB viewership is dropping but at a 3%ish clip past few seasons.

 

22% is alarming. 

Edited February 2, 2023 by Pete

[Phil]

42 minutes ago, Pete said:

While it's true about chord cutters, that's not accounting for a 22% dip. And if the product was better, it would be a harder choice to leave cable.

 

For comparison, NFL viewership dropped decimal places in '22. MLB viewership is dropping but at a 3%ish clip past few seasons.

 

22% is alarming. 

 

Agreed. Far from a flesh wound here. Whatever it is, this has to have the NHL offices seriously concerned.

[Phil]

17 hours ago, Morphinity 2.0 said:

The hockey Twitter war on digital board ads is so stupid. They're fine. Sometimes they fuck up, but it's fine 99% of the time.

 

I can't argue the other aspects though. This league is stagnant as fuck and just straight up isn't interesting if you're not already a fan. 

 

My gut tells me it's this, not the boards.

 

Because it's stagnant as fuck even if you're a fan.

 

It feels like 70% of the league are inches from the cap ceiling, and the most "interesting" trades that happen most years are cap dumps to graveyard teams like Arizona to circumvent this issue, only for the team who finally gets the relief to turn around and reuse all that space again keeping the next young player.

 

I understand why the cap exists, and why it exists in the form it does, but it's a suffocating aspect of consuming the sport on the whole when it only increases by, in effect, a cost of living raise every year.

 

Remember Briere, Drury, Gomez? Parise/Suter? Remember what an actual free agency blockbuster was? That shit was exciting and it didn't even happen during the season. It drove interest and got people really fucking excited for the next year.

 

Remember huge trades? Pepperidge Farms remembers. Cause we don't.

[Phil]

Quote

So in 2021, ESPN reserved that spot for stuff like NBA G-League games (Ignite vs. Grand Rapids Gold on Dec. 19) and the MLB Gold Glove ceremonies, opting instead to go light on NHL coverage during football season. In 2022, the approach changed, along with the decision to go from eight televised games — which undoubtedly got a bump from the return-to-ESPN curiosity factor — to 17, many of which aired against the planet’s most reliable TV juggernaut. Gotta show them somewhere.

 

And, of course, if you removed those recent Sunday night games from the equation and graded on the same rubric as last season, ratings would rise to an average of 491,000. That’s better than ESPN’s average during the 2021-22 season.

 

Quote

TNT, according to SBJ, has averaged 359,000 viewers over 36 games, which is down 16 percent compared to the 20 games it aired in the same period last season. At least seven games have been affected by regional blackouts. That’s a new wrinkle, and an important one; Bruins broadcasts on TNT, for example, are blacked out in New England because of NESN’s regional rights — and last season, NESN drew an average of 661,000 viewers for those games. It’s a similar story with the Penguins, who typically have the highest local share of ratings in the league. The Rangers were blacked out on TNT, too. New York? Pretty big TV market. Would be nice to have it reflected in the numbers, yeah?

 

And maybe most crucially, even without that context — if there weren’t blackouts or scheduling decisions to consider — we’re talking about a few months’ worth of games. The NHL’s problems aren’t that new. They aren’t new at all, actually.  This season’s salary cap crunch is killing the trade deadline, for sure. But TV ratings from one year to the next in November and December, when deals rarely happen? That’s a tougher sell.

 

https://theathletic.com/4146799/2023/02/01/nhl-tv-ratings/?source=emp_shared_article

[Ozzy]

I look at what happened with players like Buchnevich.  I mean, he was a pretty good player, but we all pretty much knew he was going to be a victim of the salary cap.

 

My question is, how do I grasp on to a guy like that, and root for him, when I know he's pretty much done at the trade deadline, or over the summer?  ...because it's a business decision, not a hockey decision?  That still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

 

Look, we know it's a business, but so is baseball.  I think MLB might have a decent solution with the "Luxury tax", but I don't really think the "NHL Salary Cap" is doing much to make the game better.

 

Hell, you can't even go out and buy a jersey for a player anymore, because he's probably gone in 3-5 years anyway, when he "prices out".

[Morphinity 2.0]

1 hour ago, Phil said:

 

My gut tells me it's this, not the boards.

 

Because it's stagnant as fuck even if you're a fan.

 

It feels like 70% of the league are inches from the cap ceiling, and the most "interesting" trades that happen most years are cap dumps to graveyard teams like Arizona to circumvent this issue, only for the team who finally gets the relief to turn around and reuse all that space again keeping the next young player.

 

I understand why the cap exists, and why it exists in the form it does, but it's a suffocating aspect of consuming the sport on the whole when it only increases by, in effect, a cost of living raise every year.

 

Remember Briere, Drury, Gomez? Parise/Suter? Remember what an actual free agency blockbuster was? That shit was exciting and it didn't even happen during the season. It drove interest and got people really fucking excited for the next year.

 

Remember huge trades? Pepperidge Farms remembers. Cause we don't.

That, and where did the premier free agent from last year go? To the irrelevant Columbus Blue Jackets because his wife liked the hospitals in the area. Cute!

 

The players are simple-minded, the management is simple-minded, and the league is simple-minded. Best sport, worst league.

[Valriera]

This is obvious fake news, as every single digital medium is down viewership the year after COVID ended. Every single one. 

 

All the things about the game being boring etc may be true, but this is artificial fluctuation due to COVID, and not much of anything else. We'll see what everything looks like again next year. 

[Cash or Czech]

Playoff matchups suck, and division games are few and far between. We play some of our division rivals three or four times a season, and often times not for months. How is that a rivalry?

[Phil]

33 minutes ago, Valriera said:

This is obvious fake news, as every single digital medium is down viewership the year after COVID ended. Every single one. 

 

All the things about the game being boring etc may be true, but this is artificial fluctuation due to COVID, and not much of anything else. We'll see what everything looks like again next year. 

 

This may be true, but the way you're presenting it doesn't honestly reflect the degree to which it's down for the NHL relative to the other leagues. @Pete mentioned above, NFL viewership dropped by decimal points in 2022 and MLB viewership has been decreasing around 3% the last few years. The NHL fell 22% in a single year. That's staggering.

 

In other words, all are losing, but the NHL is losing at an exceptional rate.

[Phil]

37 minutes ago, Morphinity 2.0 said:

That, and where did the premier free agent from last year go? To the irrelevant Columbus Blue Jackets because his wife liked the hospitals in the area. Cute!

 

The players are simple-minded, the management is simple-minded, and the league is simple-minded. Best sport, worst league.

 

We've talked about this in the past, about how it feels like the NHL has a loyalty clause that most other leagues — especially not the NBA — don't. Players rarely want to "ruffle feathers" or "be a distraction," so much so that many of them willingly just forego free agency entirely, often re-signing with pretty shitty teams. It makes for a miserable free agent "frenzy," and coupled with the fact that the max contract length in this league is eight years, it directly fuels stagnation. No one moves because no one wants to move.

[Morphinity 2.0]

49 minutes ago, Phil said:

 

We've talked about this in the past, about how it feels like the NHL has a loyalty clause that most other leagues — especially not the NBA — don't. Players rarely want to "ruffle feathers" or "be a distraction," so much so that many of them willingly just forego free agency entirely, often re-signing with pretty shitty teams. It makes for a miserable free agent "frenzy," and coupled with the fact that the max contract length in this league is eight years, it directly fuels stagnation. No one moves because no one wants to move.

I don't think that's inherently bad honestly. I mean, it's annoying, but it's not my biggest gripe.

 

Look at the MLB. Aaron Judge signed the biggest free agent contract in history to stay with the Yankees probably for his whole career. But that's just it, he stayed with the YANKESS. He didn't go to the fucking Colorado Rockies because his wife really wanted to be a ski patrol at Vail or go to the Texas Rangers because he could save 10% on his taxes. 

 

In other sports, big FA's go to big teams. NHL players actively avoid the biggest markets. 

[Phil]

Some, not all. We'd need to do a stronger analysis before I could accept the idea that it's prominent, but I do agree with what I think your general point is, which is that forced parity in the NHL has definitely lead to more star players opting for small markets. That doesn't hurt in the micro. One Gaudreau choosing Columbus over Philly isn't a huge problem, but there's lots of guys who never even make it to free agency and just stick with bad teams. Hertl re-signed with San Jose, for example.

[Bugg]

Whiles doesn't account for a  precipitous 22% drop, the ESPN+ thing is a disaster. At a loss why they did not insist on being on a regular ESPN channel regularly. ESPN has how many channels, anyway. The Ocho isn't even a joke. Streaming has been exposed; it's more expensive, and the tech sucks. Can't toggle between channels as on cable, takes forever to load and NOBODY wants to pay. Bettman once again shown to be the biggest of assholes when it comes to marketing  the NHL. 

[Morphinity 2.0]

Agreed. ESPN+ is a travesty - and the stupid blackout rules are even worse.

[Ozzy]

7 minutes ago, Bugg said:

Whiles doesn't account for a  precipitous 22% drop, the ESPN+ thing is a disaster. At a loss why they did not insist on being on a regular ESPN channel regularly. ESPN has how many channels, anyway. The Ocho isn't even a joke. Streaming has been exposed; it's more expensive, and the tech sucks. Can't toggle between channels as on cable, takes forever to load and NOBODY wants to pay. Bettman once again shown to be the biggest of assholes when it comes to marketing  the NHL. 

 

I hate that too, Bugg!!  What a pain in the ass!!

 

[Parsley]

The league is too watered down. Too much expansion and not enough high-end talent to go around. The result is alot of bland night to night match ups and I watch plenty through ESPN+.  Probably way too long of a season for the average joe too. 

Edited February 2, 2023 by Parsley

[Costa]

Pasteurized, homogenized & sanitized "for your protection"...AND GUESS WHAT?? NO ONE is buying outside of the core audience and now those people are taking their bidness elsewhere.