What the NHL Just Doesn't Seem To Get
October 11, 2006
By
James Meyerriecks
As, for the most part, I've seen a lot of positive movements with the league since the lockout ended, I will be writing a counterpiece to this argument in the coming days. However, since I'm a glass half-empty kind of guy, we're going to start out with the negatives.
After making sure that all three of the guys in each of my fantasy leagues that were playing tonight were on my active roster Tuesday, I got bored and scanned the net to find something to write about tonight. Since there were just three games, a gameday piece was going to be virtually useless, so I had to find something meaningful for all of you to read about.
Upon heading to what became one of my favorite hockey sites while I endured the lockout, I found this brilliant piece, which aptly told a sportswriter from a major American website to get a clue. However, while I certainly side with Eklund's musings about O'Connor's ignorance, there are certain clear and evident areas where the NHL needs to improve to reach a wider audience.
In just over a year since the lockout ended, the NHL has clearly put a more marketable product on the ice, but it is more difficult to find a game to watch than it was as recently as three years ago. Losing the deal with ESPN (largely due to ESPN signing a more lucrative deal with the unwatchable [in my eyes] brand of basketball that is the NBA) will clearly hurt the league in the long-run, but that's a small hurdle in comparison to the obstacles they're placing in their own path. Versus (formerly known as OLN) continues to make strides to improve itself as a cable network, and as opposed to what ESPN was doing (using hockey to fill a time slot where they couldn't find anything more important to air), they're trying to build their network around the NHL.
Hockey is known primarily as a niche sport in the U.S., and a significant part of the reason for this is that seeing a game live really is that much better than watching it on television. Those of us who have been watching hockey for years can still find the beauty of the game (and follow it) on television, but it's much more difficult for the casual fan to get involved.
I've had many friends who stare blankly at me when I tell them that hockey (not baseball, as many of my readers would instantly assume) is the sport that I enjoy most. Most of them tell me that they've never been able to get into hockey, citing the following reasons:
1) The puck is too small for me to be able to follow the game closely
2) I don't understand the rules
3) The game moves too fast, making it incredibly difficult to watch on television
Upon asking most of them if they've ever seen a game live, the response I usually get is a resounding no! However, those of them who have taken my advice and ponied up the cash to go see their local NHL team (in this case, the [gulp] Blues) play have all been hooked after just one game.
While the NHL put plenty of butts in the seats (92% of capacity, by the league's calculation last season) after hockey returned from the lockout, the majority of those butts belonged to people who were diehard fans before the lockout and/or businesses that bought season tickets for their employees and usually actually attended the games. Why? Going to an NHL game when you're not a diehard simply doesn't fit into the budget. The average Fan Cost Index* actually dropped a touch from $253.65 to $247.32 last season, but it certainly won't be dropping again this year.
After eighteen teams, including the St. Louis Blues (my hometown team, which finished with the worst record in the league last season!) hiked their ticket prices this offseason, the FCI is expected to reach $258 this season, nearly $100 more than the FCI for an MLB game and just $5 short of the FCI for the NBA. While it's doubtful that the NHL could ever compete in a cost index with baseball (which plays in stadiums that typically have a capacity for more than twice what most NHL arenas do and plays nearly twice the home games that an NHL team would, meaning they can focus more on volume), you'd like to think that they'd put forth a better effort at providing a more cost-efficient product than their major competitor.
Throughout most of the NHL season, its main competition is the NBA. Yes... the NHL begins its season during the MLB playoffs. Yes... football season is just hitting stride when the NHL begins its season, but that's generally just one day of competition out of every seven. Throughout the winter, the only sports that generally have at least one game every night of the week are basketball and hockey.
Why, then, since basketball is (currently) a much more prominent sport in the U.S., does the NHL force ticket prices upon the public that are so competitive with the NBA? You would like to think that Gary Bettman, who is still, at heart, an NBA guy, would realize that the easiest way for the NHL to draw some of those fans caught on the border between the two would be to have significantly lower ticket prices than the NBA games do. As of last year, the average ticket price to an NBA game was $45.28. The average ticket price to an NHL game was $41.19.
By lowering ticket prices, you draw new fans... presumably those who haven't seen an (or at least, many) NHL game(s) live. Fans seeing live hockey is the best way for the league to build its fan base, and they're making it more and more difficult for Joe and Jane Fan to actually see a game live. While HDTV is certainly presenting a better product on television than ever before, it's simply not the same.
This, of course, brings me to my other rant about the NHL season. For years, many have claimed that the NHL season is simply too long, and/or that they need to contract some teams to shorten the season. If this year's schedule is any indication, contraction certainly wouldn't be necessary to cut into the length of the year. They just need to actually schedule games.
What do I mean, you ask? This October, in what would appear to be a crucial time for the league to try and make itself heard, American teams expected to make major impacts such as the Nashville Predators, New Jersey Devils, and Buffalo Sabres each have two instances where they'll go four days without playing a game.
The irony here lies in the fact that the Sabres, one of the clear favorites in the East, are currently mired in a stretch where they won't play from this past Saturday until this upcoming Friday, a massive span of five off-days between games. Even worse, they'll play again the next night. More and more games are being booted to the weekend in the early-going this season, which makes absolutely no sense. Since the NBA season has yet to start, doesn't that mean that the weekday games will have less competition for a viewing (and attending) audience?
Any business model will tell you that you don't try and build your business by going head on with a dominant, somewhat similar product (aka, the NFL and College Football) when you don't have the resources that your competitors have. Instead, you build the demand for your product where there's less competition (i.e, Monday through Friday). Forcing most of the games to the weekend when both College Football and the NFL are flooding the market is simply a losing battle. Take advantage of the weeknights by scheduling eight to ten games Monday through Friday, and then have the more limited scheduling nights on the weekends.
Regardless, I've gone a bit off topic with that rant. The simple fact of the matter is that by the end of October, most of the teams in the NHL will have played eleven games in twenty-six days, or one game every 2.36 days. Since most of these teams will routinely be playing on back to back nights at least twice during the seasons' first month, wouldn't it make sense that this number be slightly under 2.00? Shortening the season doesn't have to take place by lowering the amount of teams that are in the league, or by cutting the length of the regular season from 82 to 70 games. It could take place by simply scheduling games closer together. Playing every night isn't necessary, but three games every five or six days is certainly feasible.
Cutting the length of the season (either in days, games, or both) is certainly something that's becoming increasingly necessary, though. Simply put, having the playoffs extend into June (as they have for nearly a decade now) doesn't make sense for a seasonal sport that's played on ice. Simply cutting down on the time between games (this year, the season will last from October 5 until April 8.... a span of 185 days. Even cutting that figure to 164 days (an average of one game every two days for each NHL team) would shorten the season (and ensuing playoff season) by three weeks, having it end in early-to-mid May, rather than the second week of June.
The NHL has come a long way in the past two years, but there are still significant flaws in the business plan, and that is how they need to look at it... as a business plan. By getting more (new) fans out to hockey games and setting the schedule so that they can capitalize on the potential to draw new fans via live attendance and a television audience, the league could certainly make itself more prominent in the U.S. We certainly already know that it will continue to do well in Canada, and those of us that are already fans in the U.S. aren't going anywhere. It's all a matter of expanding the market, and they have to do a better job of achieving that.
* The Fan Cost Index (FCI) measures the following: Four average-priced tickets, Four small soft drinks, Two beers, Four Hot Dogs, Two programs, parking, and two adult-sized caps.
For the time being, this is a temporary preview of something we may be running on the front page at FIC three or four days a week throughout the NHL season. If you want your daily hockey fix now, I'll also be running this as an off-site blog for the time being. The following is just a taste of what you can find at Neutral Zone Trap! If you would like to see NZT on the front-page at FIC all year, please vote here!
James Meyerriecks has been actively involved at FIC since its inception in 2001, and has been writing The Hook throughout the MLB season since 2002. This season, he'll be tackling a weekly hockey column, The Blue Line, as well as a semi-weekly blog called Neutral Zone Trap. He's also represented FIC in a handful of Experts Leagues over the past three seasons and is a member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association.
Feature Articles 
As far as making the league better. IMO, the absolute stupidest thing in the NHL right now is the fact that they are not in every market in America. Every team should have a TV contract in every city in America. I know most of the country is covered, but there are still some regions where you cannot get an NHL game. Mainly, San Diego, Portland, Seattle, some Mid Westerns Cities, and Southeastern Cities. There are teams near these markets, but the games are not. Get them in there! Stupid.
My other gripe is the player interaction. Hockey players by nature are the most down to earth players in all of sports. They need to figure out a way to get them into the public eye more without the players felling as if they are being attention whores. They are on the right track this year sort of, but they fell short. This year they want all teams to allow one broadcaster to have on ice access. Basically this is there version of sideline reporting. Well, it is great for the die hards, but unfortunately it doesnt help the novice. Not to mention, a hockey interview is the most boring thing in sports. In any given hockey interview you are sure to hear one of the following phrases.
I was fortunate enough to put the puck in the back of the net.
We need to continue our forechecking.
We just need to cycle the puck and see what happens.
It was a fortunate save.
Basically, you get nothing out of the players.
It is a tough task to make hockey more popular and I think it starts at the youth. The NHL should really have a ton of programs starting up youth hockey all over this country.