Besides soccer, it's definitely the least-popular sport in America. Everybody watches baseball and football, and some people watch basketball, but I barely know any NHL fans besides my dad and myself. How come hockey is not popular and is the NHL doing anything to fix this?|||Well see you're being a little harsh. Hockey IS popular, just not as popular as the big 3. But hockey can still sell out 20,000 seat arenas every night. And hockey has been creeping up on basketball. If this continues hockey will be the 3rd most popular sport.And like I alluded to hockey is 4th. You act as if there's only 5 sports. I can name like 30 sports behind hockey.
The best thing for the NHL to do is not change. They already have an amazing product. Keep putting it out there. It either catches on or it doesn't. But either way, don't risk weakening the product, by changing it to appeal to more fans. Hockey is already the best sport in the World without the fans that football has and it should remain so with or without those fans.|||I think it would be because Hockey is played a lot in colder areas like Canada %26amp; Russia in the winter but a lot of places in the States are not very cold. For example Hockey is popular in Minnesota and North Dakota but definitely not in Florida or California. And yes Gary Bettmann the Commissioner is trying to "Americanize" hockey but to many Americans just don't want to watch it. I am Canadian and I don't think Hockey will ever become as popular in the USA as it is in Canada.|||Think about the places hockey is most popular, it is cold weather climates. Hockey is more popular in those areas of the US (ie: Northeast, Minnesota) where the winter weather is colder. People watch the sports they identify with and play. Inner city people can grab a football or basketball and go outside and play. Hockey requires pads, skates, access to a rink etc. There's less incentive to move inside when the weather is good (warm) and fork out the $$$ to play hockey. That's basically what it is, climatology. Put the US into a deep freeze and I guarantee hockey becomes more popular.|||It is because when a kid wants to play a sport their parents would rather buy them a basketball or a football or a baseball and a bat than buy them skates and a stick and rent them ice.
My dad also used to say hockey was most kids favorite sports to play when they were younger but the pond he played on froze over for about a week during the whole year so kids just got into football rather than hockey.|||Climate definitely has something to do with it. Its hard for people living in places like Florida and LA to be passionate about a sport in which the playing surface never naturally exists for any significant time in the outdoors. That being said there are places in the US where hockey is pretty big, like Michigan and Minnesota for example. Not surprisingly, their winter climate allows for outdoor ice rink construction. If you look at hockey powerhouses like Canada, Russia, and Sweden, they are all have frigid winters that make playing hockey a popular sport during the winter. Its from a general public interest in hockey that there develops a drive to excel at the sport from a recreational level all the way up to the pros.
Unfortunately the US is whole-heartedly passionate about hockey and so their drive to excel at it is a bit lacking compared to the hockey elite countries. Mind you the US is still a very good hockey nation. If the entire US had the climate like Canada or Russia does, I really believe that it easily becomes the world's top hockey playing nation.|||I think you give way too much credit to baseball. In the South no one really cares about it and in the Midwest it is just a thing to watch while waiting for football. If Basketball started around the same time baseball did, it would kill baseball in ratings... Baseball is an East Coast niche sport (Oh and ESPN is an East Coast Network, Yankees/Red Sox 100% of the time.)
Now why does hockey suffer so much in the US? Bad marketing and poor schedule placement in the year. If hockey went head to head with baseball, then hockey would beat baseball, no doubt in my mind.|||Id say its probably one of the most popular sports with the least amount of exposure since the lockout. Pre lockout ESPN/ABC carried games and had NHL2Night on ESPN2 plus I believe they had some of the lower league all-star games/festivities back in the day. Im in Toledo,OH which is 45 minutes from Detroit and though hockey isnt as huge as in Michigan,it still has a strong influence. Here we may only have a ECHL hockey team but they just brought back a team under new ownership last year and I believe we had the 2nd or 3rd highest attendance in the league for the year. Plus high school hockey gets a good amount of exposure on a local cable channel and recently I became aware of a street hockey league formed back in 08 (the Toledo Street Hockey League). I think alot depends on location as others mentioned, obviously Michigan,Minnesota,New England area,Wisconsin,etc...has alot to do with the exposure it gets. Plus on ESPNU the last few years theyve had the NCAA hockey selection show,and the NCAA mens Frozen Four.|||Football will always be on top due to the fact that 85% of the games are all on one day and the teams only play once a week.
Baseball will die down as it's fans pass away. People can make excuses all they want but the majority of the baseball fan base is from the 50s and 70s where the MLB was the ONLY well established league in the country.
As for basketball, give it 3-5 years and the NHL will have blown by the NBA. They've already considerably closed the gap in the last three years and the looming NBA lockout will only further catapult the NHL above the NBA. What do you think ESPN is gonna broadcast when there's no NBA and football is only around on the weekends?|||well for the fact that America is more of a southern country and the only places popular for hockey are northern USA, majority of the country being south doesnt enjoy hockey as much and prefers others supports since they can go outside and play them, but dont have ice rinks or ponds due to the hot weather (outisde) and if there are any ice rinks their indoor, which many dotn prefer when they can be outside in the great weather. Canada is reallt popular for hockey because Canadians have such long winters that they needed to do something to get outside, making hockey really popular.|||America as a whole is not a cold weather climate country. Since the majority of U.S. kids cannot go out in winter and just play a little shinny on the frozen pond, they do not grow up with a love of the sport like kids in Canada and kids from Nordic European countries. And it's not really about the cost of playing organized hockey, although that is somewhat of a factor. I say this because it does not take much money at all to come up with a pair of skates, a stick and an improvised puck.|||1. Too small ice-surface which neutralizes talented, skilled players and favours the less talented checkers.
2. The NHL not only tolerates but tacitly encourages fighting and other forms of thuggery by self-labelled 'goons'. Again, this de-emphasizes the more exciting skills - skating, speed, puck-handling, passing, etc..
As a result of the above, today's NHL games are tedious, low-scoring and boring.|||Well, around the area i grew up in, hockey is an expensive sport to play. So mainly white, upper middle class teenagers/kids play this sport. Because you need money to buy all those gears and stuff. With basketball and football you only need a ball...way less expensive and easier to play. So people watch sports that they identify with.|||Because it is so expensive for parents. I remeber not being able to play because we couldn't afford buy the equipment. Then you grow out of it and need a new set of gear. They don't provide you with that stuff in the states unlike football.
Also I just feel its not really apart of the culture, so not as many kids are introduced at a young age.|||Hockey is a lot more famous in colder areas such as Russia and Canada. In the US, we're a country of basketball, baseball, and football. Even NASCAR racing is famous here. Unfortunately, hockey just isn't too appealing to many Americans. I love it, though.
HOCKEY ROCKS!|||football has it's own night. not hockey
right now I can see 4 baseball games on tv for free. not hockey
many many "spotescasters" are former NBA schmoes. maybe 2 in hockey.
the idiots in charge of hockey have no marketing skills at all.|||Alot of children in America didn't grow up playing hockey...hockey is a very expensive sport. And hockey is more popular in colder parts of the country and Canada. I think hockey is a growing sport in America.|||Depends where you live. I'll assume you don't live in Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, or New England. Its far more popular in colder climates.|||Because for some reason, most Americans would rather spend their time watching retards who can only be successful by using steroids hit balls and run around in circles. I don`t know, I don`t get it either.|||http://ca.answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AhVRv7V4p_uf3zUIXTyJvCPAFQx.;_ylv=3?qid=20100808192532AA4I0gx|||It is more popular in the northern states|||Maybe you just don't know the right people.|||You do know that the Stanley Cup Finals this year outsold the NBA Finals even when it was the Lakers and Celtics? That's pretty bad for the NBA when they had the top two teams competing.
You must not live in the northeast part of the USA, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, Illinois, California, Missouri, or Washington D.C., which are states that have the highest populations in the USA, with the exception of Texas and Florida. I live in Pennsylvania and hockey is huge here! We have the Penguins and Flyers, which are two of the best teams in the NHL. And we have the Hershey Bears which is the BEST team in the AHL.
And yes it is even becoming more and more popular in California with both the Kings and Sharks making the playoffs this year, and the Ducks winning the Stanley Cup a couple years back. Hockey is the fourth most popular sport in America and it might even be the third most popular sport soon by passing basketball.
Also a lot of Americans are getting pissed off at baseball too, because they don't have a salary cap, It's the same teams every year just like basketball. Football might turn out like that soon too since they no longer have a salary cap.
And do you know how many sports America is good at? It's not just football, baseball, and basketball. It's also swimming, volleyball, ice hockey, women's soccer, track %26amp; field, snowboarding, etc, etc.
Also in 2009 the Colorado Avalanche has the largest consecutive sellout streak in all of the NHL. I鈥檓 not sure if they do anymore.
And ESPN has a contract with certain teams and sports, that's why they cover them more.
EDIT: Oh and also Canada is 50% of the NHL and the USA is 22%. Russia is only about 2% and Sweden 3%. I think it's a lot more popular in the USA than you think.|||Popular for who. If ur talking about poor inner city kids or people in the deep south than yeah it isn't popular. Maybe the fact that it is really expensive and that ice is hard to find is a reason why they don't like it. But places like upstate NY, LI, New England, Minnesota, Michigan. New Jersey, Colorado, Illinois and now even California hockey is very popular. You say a lot of people watch Basketball that's why only 8 NBA teams had relative sellouts (98.5% or higher) while 16 NHL teams had relative sellouts while 10 of them are American teams. The NHL just got its highest ratings for the Stanley Cup finals this year. The NBA finals are high because it's two biggest draws are the Lakers and Celtics who are in the finals every year and only like 8 organizations have money so there the only ones that win which increases ratings more. U also didn't see the Olympics either because the gold medal game had 30 million people watch it and was one of the highest rated games watched this year besides the Super bowl and BCS championship game. Next time u want to write a stupid comment about how BBall is popular in America and Hockey isn't try some research first.
ESPN doesn't talk about hockey because they don't cover it. They don't cover the NHL because the NHL was given a low ball offer to be covered by ESPN, they said no and signed with versus for twice the money. If the NBA and NHL flipped channels than ESPN would always talk hockey and not Basketball
And Sammy maybe u think hockey is a blood sport because ur head is shoved so far up ur a** that u can't an actual hockey game. There's maybe one fight a game in hockey and some of the big hits, great moves, goals, saves are much better than the fights|||A sport with several hundred fights every season will always be a niche sport. It will appeal to the same creeps who watch dog fighting or cage fighting. Blood sports will never be family entertainment.|||There's never too many Eagles fans around here. As you can see, I'm a fan of soccer too.
I feel that hockey has a long road to travel in order to emerge from it's regional appeal. It can work in warmer climates, but they are facing a long, hard sell. I'd like to use the only town I know as an example of why hockey is a niche sport.
I used to like the Flyers but they aren't compelling even if I look at them as mere entertainment. Outside of 1,000 people who actually care about hockey and winning the Stanley Cup, the other 17,000 who will fill the WFC for each home game this season are there for three reasons:
1) Someone else paid for their ticket.
2) They paid their way and are there to be entertained.
3) They paid their way and want to see someone lose a limb.
The Flyers do well only out of sentiment for the ways of a team that bruised their way to the top and thus into their hearts. Before they won the Cup in 1973, the Spectrum was hardly filled. Now, the figureheads sell the Broad Street Bully mantra to fill the seats under the premise of being entertained for the dollar.
I think Philly has steadily become less than a hockey town over the decades as the fans who lived through the Cup years have gotten older, wiser and tired of the Flyers affinity for coming up short for their fans.
Outside of the traditional hockey markets, a team can sustain itself in one of two ways:
1) Entertaining (distracting) the fans with attention-getting baubles like division/conference title banners, colorful enforcers and otherwise wacky personalities.
2) Winning a Stanley Cup at least once a decade.
On the front doorstep of a new decade, the Flyers have whiffed on the last three.
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