the NHL is more popular but it has a much lower ceiling than soccer. I don't think the NHL can get much more popular than it is now. Soccer has the potential to get as high as #2. The NFL will always be #1
This lockout is hurting hockey's popularity and if a whole NHL season is lost, that will put a dent in the revenues it produces. Networks might think twice about the amount of money offered next go around.
I don't follow this stuff closely, so if I'm way behind the news or just dead wrong I won't be surprised, but IIRC the NHL had a deal a few years ago which was pretty ridiculous--ESPN paid WAY too much and it really hurt the league when it came time to renegotiate. And then for awhile, again going from memory (and I'm no diehard fan), the NHL was stuck on Versus or something... OK, I'm really just vaguely remembering all this. Point being--I'm thinking the NHL was already damaged goods going into this lockout, and this can't help. The networks are going to remember that ESPN lost a lot of money showing NHL games, and now the networks are all surviving without any NHL games to show. Put those two together, and the league will have precious little leverage next time they need to negotiate a deal.
No, no, and... no. Coming out of the last lockout in 2005, ESPN wanted to basically give the NHL peanuts to put them on ESPN2 a couple of times a week. They had already done away with their dedicated hockey show (NHL2Night) and made hockey a footnote on SportsCenter and in the ESPN family in general as they were preparing to perform what essentially amounted to brand fellatio on the NBA. Gary Bettman decided instead to latch on with the Outdoor Life Network (later Versus) and NBC on a short-term deal. It worked. Big markets and well-known teams like Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, and Pittsburgh got to the Stanley Cup Finals and were competitive for much of that TV deal, and that led to a increase in annual US TV revenue north of 200%, up to $200M a year for 10 years. Revenues boomed, attendance boomed, and the NHL pushed revenues from $2.2 billion in 2003-04 to $3.3 billion in 2011-12. The reason for the lockout is that the owners wanted to cut the players' 57% share of revenue. The two sides have more or less agreed to a 50-50 split with money outside the salary cap that would allow the players' contracts to be honored fully (if you hear talk about "make whole" provisions, that's what they're talking about), but neither side seemed to want to negotiate in good faith until this week, when Bettman and Donald Fehr were out of the room, then Fehr showed up, told the players to hold out instead of finalizing a deal, and we're precariously close to losing a season again. I don't know that hockey is necessarily more popular in the United States from a participation standpoint, but it is a religion in Canada to this day. The sport is a lot like soccer in that it has tremendous room for growth and is working to fulfill that potential, which is why the league has put two more teams in California and Florida, plus teams in Texas, Tennessee, Arizona, and North Carolina in the last two decades, and endured the growing pains that come with putting a new sport in a place where it cannot be readily played the same way it can in, say, Minnesota or Massachusetts. If labor relations weren't so toxic after the 04-05 lockout, we would be playing and likely talking about how hockey is nipping at the heels of the NBA.
The term 'popularity' was never intended to imply something strictly economic, it's a purely headcount measure, and it's one of something more abstract, like a 'fondness', than it is how much you spend. Hockey fans have more money than soccer fans do (hockey's audience skews wealthier even than college sports, which is kinda crazy when you think about college itself being linked with the upper income strata), but that doesn't make them more numerous. Hockey fans all tend to be fans of the same (relatively) few clubs, and the fans of each club tend to be concentrated right where that club plays, something that can't be said in general for soccer fans in this country. In other words, there's a lot that stands in between popularity and monetization, and therefore you can't really judge either one by the other.
Because that's totally what happened last time... wait, what? Revenues grew immensely and the league hit new highs in terms of TV ratings? The issue here is, as usual, a bunch of biased people with little knowledge or interest in the facts on the ground spouting off on what they want to see happen. Did you know that on NHL business forums, people like to pretend the NHL is on the verge of passing the NBA? Hockey and soccer are not mortal enemies. They're both sports that exist and people like, often the same people. They face a lot of the same entrenched opposition in the US. Hockey is more popular and is likely to remain more popular on a general level for at least another generation, possibly two. The idea of any individual soccer league eclipsing the NHL within any of our liftimes is borderline farcical.
Nope. But it's not good for business to have these work stoppages every so often, especially when '11-'12 was supposedly a record year for revenues.
Meh, its not bad for business either. Like you said, last season was a record year for revenues - just a few years after a complete season was wiped-out due to a lockout. People will keep coming back no matter how much they are screwed over.
good for the NHL. They'll have a 48-50 game schedule. Shouldn't have had to wipe out the Winter Classic and 50% of the original season to get the job done, though. the 10 year CBA has a mutual opt out clause after eight years, which would be at the same time that the NBC/NBCSN TV contract ends. We're not gonna see this happen again in 2021, right?
I think you won't see this happen again. The main people who are the problem(Bettman and to my hatred the owner of my team Jeremy Jacobs Boston Bruins owner) will not be in the power positions in 8-10 years.
Honestly as long as the NHL has the playoffs I am not sure how much they are hurt in terms of popularity. Most fans would actually prefer a shorter season but a big part of revenues for NHL clubs is gameday revenue so they want as long a season as they can get.
So the question was popularity and the way I read it was popularity of soccer as whole (MLS, Prem, Champions League, Mexican League, International etc.) versus Hockey as a whole (NHL, Olympics, International Leagues) as spectator sports. The answer is depends where you are. In traditional Hockey areas like Boston, New York, Chicago, Philly it isn't even close. But outside of these areas, it seems to be getting close to even. Because soccer has so many more platforms. The World Cup is bigger than the Olympic Hockey Tournament (with the exception of US-Canada gold Medal match) the Champions League final gets as much if not more attention than the Stanley Cup finals. As a whole Hockey is still ahead but it is close. And considering the built in handicaps that soccer has in the US (the best matches are played in Europe not North America) than it is remarkable how close they are. And I do agree there is no need for soccer and hockey fans to argue it reeks of provincial small minded pissing contest. Both sports are incredible, and offer a lot of the same kind of makes sense if you like one you would probably like the other.
I like hockey. Those guys go hard. Not easy to skate when you have nine other guys skating with you trying to get a little rubber puck, and checking you with their bodies or sticks as well.
What are you basing this on? The 2012 English TV rating for the UCL final was a 1.1 (2011 had a 1.4). The combined English/Spanish rating for 2011 was a 2.1 (I couldn't find Spanish-language numbers for 2012). The final game of the Stanley Cup finals had a 4.0 in 2012 (5.7 in 2011).
Soccer is more popular than hockey in the USA. The NHL is more popular than the MLS. I think it also depends on the region. In the pacific northwest MLS is more popular. Makes sense, there's no NHL teams there. In LA, NY, Philly, Chicago the NHL is far more popular than MLS. The LA Kings won the Stanley Cup last year and there was a huge parade through Downtown LA with double decker buses, confetti, people on the streets etc. The LA Galaxy won the MLS Cup and nobody noticed. They held a pep rally inside the Home Depot Center and it seriously looked like there was maybe a thousand people there if that.
Yes, basically the same would happen in Chicago if we compare the celebrations of the Hawks winning 2 years ago to what would happen if the FIRE were to win. Now if Man U/Barcelona/Real Madrid were to come to chicago to celebrate a title, that may get some people. Or ChivasMex/Club America down 26th street that may get a lot of people to come out.