Is ESPN Killing the National Hockey League

[LOTCB]

Long article...ill post most of the good stuff here...good read.

E$PN

Negative Press: Is ESPN Killing the National Hockey League by Influencing Public Attitudes?

Posted by Jason Chung on July 2nd, 2007

It is without hyperbole that one can argue that ESPN is killing the National Hockey League. By creating and reinforcing an expectation of failure regarding the NHL, ESPN is shaping public perception and contributing to the

Edited July 11, 2007 by LOTCB

[Derek21]

Looks like an exaggeration to me. I stopped reading after that one bolded part which was untrue about it just airing brawls or negative stuff. No. That wasn't true.

But it's nice to see them being blamed when they committed so much money to the league and even re-upped for a big price. I am not going to look up what they paid. But they overpaid severely as it turned out because the NHL bombed.

How would you feel if you invested so much money and got such a little return?

I'm done.

And as someone who worked there as a researcher, I will never buy it. There was a lot of effort put in by many people. They cared. I know that much.

Edited July 11, 2007 by Derek21

[Devs4LIFE]

ESPN isn't killing the NHL. Gary Bettman's lack of knowledge on how to run a league and give fans what they want is killing the NHL. I guarantee if we had someone smarter then Bettman in charge we would still be getting coverage by ESPN.

Lou 4 commissioner!

[ice dog]

thats a really good article.

i for one, never watch espn.

in the past the only reason i would ever tune in to espn was to catch a hockey game.

it's a shame so many of the broadcasters and editors at espn are anti-hockey morons.

[njdevil26]

I didn't know Chris Berman was such a hockey fan. During the home run derby he was talking about Canada and Patrick Roy and Hockey so much Joe Morgan had to tell him to be quiet haha.

[NJD Jester]

Wait, ESPN pisses all over properties it doesn't have a financial stake in?

Hmmm...that might finally explain the difference in coverage between the XFL and the Arena League...

<JESTER>

[MantaRay]

Wait, ESPN pisses all over properties it doesn't have a financial stake in?

Hmmm...that might finally explain the difference in coverage between the XFL and the Arena League...

<JESTER>

Dead on Jester. Although I never watch EPSN I know it does influence alot of Fringe hockey fans.

This is a vindictive effort to lower the value of the NHL to get them back to a very, very cheap contract on espn2

[Satans Hockey]

The only time I ever watch ESPN now is when they are airing MLS games and Arena Football games.

[Don]

ESPN isn't killing the NHL. Gary Bettman's lack of knowledge on how to run a league and give fans what they want is killing the NHL.

And what exactly do the fans want?

[squishyx]

ESPN runs a business. They had hockey, they didn't like the profits and / or future benefits of continuing to promote it. They dropped it. If hockey made them money they would have kept it. Its pretty black and white as to why that all fell apart IMO. And to say that they are killing it by not promoting it is just silly, thats why they got out to begin with.

Face it, hockey is becoming a sport of just die hard fans and you know what? thats perfectly ok with me. I would hate the day when our sports annual championship game is watched by so many people more for the advertisements then product on ice/field.

[CRASHER]

ESPN is finding a way to make MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL an unwatchable disaster....

the easiest, most simple broadcast possible

and they've SCREWED IT UP HORRIBLY

so them doing harm to anything else is no shock either!

[emptynet]

It has nothing to do with ESPN. It has EVERYTHING to do with betting, and hockey is not a bettor friendly sport. If hockey somehow became a sport that could be easily bet on...it's take on America would be huge.

Just look at the emergence of Texas Hold Em in America. When did the game really start to take off...when ESPN started televising the World Series of Poker. Why, because people love to gamble.

The Superbowl is not the most viewed sporting event ever year because people care who wins or losses, it's really because everyone and their grandmother is in some sort of box pool, or has money bet somewhere on the game.

Does anyone really care who wins the Final Four in college basketball...not likely, but millions of Americans will be glued to the television set to see if they are winning in their bracket pool.

Just look at soccer, the biggest sport in the WORLD, outside or nothern America it's THE sport...why is it so big everywhere else but in northern America, because in other countries as I said it is the only sport, you're practically given a soccer ball at birth, but in America it's coverage isnt too significant because it's not bettor friendly.

Hockey fans and soccer fans kinda share the same kind of love. We're a different breed. We're extremely passionate about our sport because for the most part it's all we know. Most of us start playing when we're very little and dont stop until we're very old. I cant tell you how many guys that I run into who are well into their 50's who still play the game. Some of them are on teams with their sons or daughters. And it's not like if you play on a softball team with your dad...hockey families who are fortunate enough to play together when the kids get old enough share a different kind of bond. It's actually really great to see.

As for ESPN killing hockey...they should get over themselves. ESPN will NEVER understand hockey and it's fans, the fans who TRULY love the game.

[RowdyFan42]

This article is dead-on. The average American sports fan is an idiot and will blindly accept whatever ESPN tells them. If ESPN implies or comes right out and says that hockey isn't worth your time, the average American sports fan will gladly ignore or even denigrate hockey. Luckily, most hockey fans are either better than average sports fans or don't really give a crap about other sports, so they're impervious to ESPN's mind control.

Derek, it doesn't matter if some of the rank and file at ESPN care about hockey if it doesn't bubble up to what makes it out over the air.

[nmigliore]

I hate ESPN when it comes to hockey, they ignore it so much its not even funny.. and when they do talk about it (usually only on stupid shows like PTI) they bash it..

fvck espn

[RowdyFan42]

It has nothing to do with ESPN. It has EVERYTHING to do with betting, and hockey is not a bettor friendly sport. If hockey somehow became a sport that could be easily bet on...it's take on America would be huge.

I didn't realize there were such grand betting cultures surrounding baseball, NASCAR, and golf.

[Triumph]

I agree with this article - it's a complete joke the coverage hockey gets on ESPN. Just watch their stupid sports ticker - it'll make sure to tell you every time that Torii Hunter is lifetime 0-whatever against Roger Clemens, but major signings in the NHL are run across one or two times and deleted from the ticker.

And now they've turned arena football from a sad Midwestern joke into a 'legitimate' sport - and give it air time and everything. It just shows that ESPN has undue influence on which sports become popular and which do not - and why Bettman has to do everything in his power to get hockey back on the channel, but that it's probably too late.

[SC Devs Fan]

I watch ESPN all the time, we have virtually noting on the local sports so its the only way I get to see highlights. As fas as killing hockey, its true that they could promote it more, but I PROMISE if their demographics/numbers told them to air more hockey they would. They are a business like any other and thier programming is set to what people at large want. If poker wasn't drawing do you think they'd still air it?

I wish people would realize hockey is a niche sport (although a very large niche) and sport wanting to to be the NBA or MLB - it isn't. Just enjoy is like its a secret few people know about!

[bostondevil11]

ESPN is a joke. I watched it a bit this weekend because they were showing a ROck Paper Scissors tortament. Rock Paper Scissors. I couldn't believe I was watching that. Oh and Cup Staking. They have more important things to show than hockey. I didn't care for ESPNs coverage of the sport when they had it.

[MadDog2020]

ESPN is a joke. I watched it a bit this weekend because they were showing a ROck Paper Scissors tortament. Rock Paper Scissors. I couldn't believe I was watching that. Oh and Cup Staking. They have more important things to show than hockey. I didn't care for ESPNs coverage of the sport when they had it.

They were also heavy on the hot-dog eating contest on the 4th. It was one of the top stories on SportsCenter that night.

[Triumph]

They were also heavy on the hot-dog eating contest on the 4th. It was one of the top stories on SportsCenter that night.

1 - people care about that, somehow - in Vegas, it was the talk of the day.

2 - Early July (and mid-February) is the sports graveyard. No football news and it's the middle of the baseball season.

SC - my problem isn't them not promoting it. It's them holding it up as a sad joke because they don't own the rights to it, while promoting gimmicky garbage like the AFL because they own a stake in it. It's absurd. A news outlet should report the news, not create it - and now ESPN makes its own news, and reports it.

Oddly enough there was a thread yesterday on another message board that complained TSN has too much hockey coverage. Imagine that.

Edited July 11, 2007 by Triumph

[LOTCB]

Looks like an exaggeration to me. I stopped reading after that one bolded part which was untrue about it just airing brawls or negative stuff. No. That wasn't true.

I think more of the point there is Derek the NHL only really gets good airtime on that network if there is a negative event (Bertuzzi, Buffalo/Ottawa brawl to cite 2 recent examples)..sure E$PN will show some NHL stuff...towards the end of the show and for a quick blurb. Then, back to analyzing the Rock, Paper and Scissors and Hot Dog eating contests.

But it's nice to see them being blamed when they committed so much money to the league and even re-upped for a big price. I am not going to look up what they paid. But they overpaid severely as it turned out because the NHL bombed.

How would you feel if you invested so much money and got such a little return?

You baffle me. You take shot after shot at ESPN like I do but now suddenly you sound like an ESPN corporate schill. Granted, E$PN did give it a shot for awhile with the NHL, but why the need now to trash the sport at every turn now? It is like WAL-MART selling a small portion of its giant empire from a small company, giving up that product, and then making sure they trash the product at every turn and almost every chance it gets. Sounds like a childish act to me by ESPN.

And as someone who worked there as a researcher, I will never buy it. There was a lot of effort put in by many people. They cared. I know that much.

Hey I do not doubt that....unfortunately though, I wish the passion that the researchers at ESPN there had when you were there had the ability to lead the sheep that listen to E$PN radio all the time to like hockey and not bafoons like Colin Cownerd.

[MDPucks]

I didn't know Chris Berman was such a hockey fan. During the home run derby he was talking about Canada and Patrick Roy and Hockey so much Joe Morgan had to tell him to be quiet haha.

Berman is a huge hockey fan. He called hockey games as a student at Brown and for years was a season ticket holder for the Whalers.

ESPN's lack of coverage is only the result of the perfect storm of the last decade that's killed hockey. Namely the gaping wounds which once were Original 6 franchises in incredibly important markets in Chicago, Boston, and on 7th Ave. National press such as Jay Mariotti in Chicago and Bob Ryan in Boston take shots daily at their respective NHL franchises because ownership in both cities has completely crapped on the fans and that rubs off when they appear nationally. Add that to over expansion, over-emphasis on defense/no rules changes (because of over expansion and owners not wanting to pay $20 million for Bryan Smolinski's 20 goals), Lindros being a fraud, Gretzky & Lemieux retiring and no superstar to replace him in LA.

[SC Devs Fan]

You cannot blame a fan of the original six for losing interest in the sport. As the sport expands those franchises just seem to be getting worse. Not saying that management couldn't be doing better, but I see why fans in those areas are giving up on those teams.

[MDPucks]

You cannot blame a fan of the original six for losing interest in the sport. As the sport expands those franchises just seem to be getting worse. Not saying that management couldn't be doing better, but I see why fans in those areas are giving up on those teams.

I'm blaming the ineptitude of and tight-wad penny-pinching of ownership in those cities. Chicago, Boston, New York, and Los Angeles are the most important cities if you want to grow your sport because of the power of the media there and the numbers of transplants moving south. Its no secret that the NBA's hayday occured with Jordan in Chicago, Bird in Boston, Magic in LA, and Ewing in NY. Its also no secret that the NBA (with the built-in advantage they already have in the US) is suffering now because Chicago and LA are mediocre and NY and Boston are complete jokes and have been for years. Would the NHL have grown during the 1990's without Gretzky making hockey "cool" in LA? Messier in NY? The sport certainly wasn't growing with them both in Edmonton. Even with Lemieux in Pittsburgh that city had a "hip" reputation thanks to the Steelers.

Instead Bill Wirtz forces fans in Chicago to pay PPV to watch all Blackhawks home games to watch a brutal team further alienating both the press and the fan base. Jeremy Jacobs raises ticket prices and concessions while trading away Joe Thornton for a can of Spigetti-O's.

[yort44]

I'm blaming the ineptitude of and tight-wad penny-pinching of ownership in those cities. Chicago, Boston, New York, and Los Angeles are the most important cities if you want to grow your sport because of the power of the media there and the numbers of transplants moving south. Its no secret that the NBA's hayday occured with Jordan in Chicago, Bird in Boston, Magic in LA, and Ewing in NY. Its also no secret that the NBA (with the built-in advantage they already have in the US) is suffering now because Chicago and LA are mediocre and NY and Boston are complete jokes and have been for years. Would the NHL have grown during the 1990's without Gretzky making hockey "cool" in LA? Messier in NY? The sport certainly wasn't growing with them both in Edmonton. Even with Lemieux in Pittsburgh that city had a "hip" reputation thanks to the Steelers.

Instead Bill Wirtz forces fans in Chicago to pay PPV to watch all Blackhawks home games to watch a brutal team further alienating both the press and the fan base. Jeremy Jacobs raises ticket prices and concessions while trading away Joe Thornton for a can of Spigetti-O's.

Nice post.