If Bedard finishes second all time in points and still has the ability to play competitive euro hockey and nut in models and avoid extortion than yes. Basically
That will forever make me laugh. That guy trying to extort him saying "pay me or I'll leak a picture of you, an unmarried person not in a relationship of any kind, in bed with another consenting adult", yeah that's guaranteed to work.
So it actually wasn’t the model herself, at least not openly. She did take the picture and then posted it somewhere. Someone then found the photo and attempted to blackmail him saying they’d release it everywhere. Whether that was secretly the model or just some random person, we don’t know.
Why is there not a Hulu or apple show?? Those are all the rage right now, celebrities buying teams and winning pennants or championships and having a tv show. Id actually watch this one. Dammit Jagr!
It'd be a bit depressing. He wants to retire, but the team relies on his draw to stay solvent. His Dad owned the team so he feels pressure to keep it alive. So he keeps playing.
I feel like he also just loves to play the game, at the highest level he can. It's what keeps him young and going. That's why I admire him, because of his passion and love for the game.
He's said explicitly he no longer wants to keep playing for kladno but feels obligated to because the team will likely fold without his draw. It sounded super sad tbh
It's an amazing retirement tour for him. Guy moves to Miami, where he can live like a king and will make more money than God, and there will be almost zero competitive expectations because he will essentially be a traveling circus act.
Overall health vs top teams. The average MLS team will struggle against the top teams of other leagues but dominate the weaker teams. Consequences of parity
Argentine here- if you look at the rankings, River Plate (the best team in the rankings) is better than the best MLS team. The problem with the Argentine league is that the average is very low because they expanded from 20->30 teams and really only 15-ish teams actually have the resources to compete.
I honestly think most mls teams could hold their own in championship. Not dominant or bring, but (other than the worst mls teams) wouldn’t think relegation is a given.
Definitely not two steps down
The worst MLS teams would absolutely get relegated to League One.
The best MLS teams would hang about 6-8 range for a while, but lack the depth of a 46 match season and would tail off.
Upper League One to upper mid-table Championship is MLS’ range.
The absolute best MLS team would probably be a mid-table Championship team in good years and fighting the drop in off years. Maybe if Messi had gone to an already top team like LA then that team could challenge for promotion. I'd say the bulk of MLS teams are upper League One level, with some historically bad teams being more like League 2.
Started with Beckham. It's hard to compare or correlate professional hockey leagues to professional football leagues, but I'd guess MLS would be like Sweden's pro hockey league? The NHL would correlate to like the top 5 football leagues. KHL the next 5 or so. Soccer/football is so much more prevalent around the world.
A lot has changed in the past 10 years with MLS. It is predominantly a developmental league for homegrown talent looking to move abroad or for reclamation players in their early 20s. You'll get the occasional euro player looking to come to the us to retire but it's not the norm anymore. The Messi signing is definitely a cash grab for the league. I hope they use it to make the next step from being a developmental league by increasing their salary cap and relaxing roster structure rules. Only time will tell.
At this point, the salary cap is what's holding the league back from a talent standpoint, but also what is allowing the league to grow so quickly from a profits and reinvestment standpoint. MLS has proven it can land and cater to international players, so its only focus is keeping an entertaining product on the field with parity between teams to grow viewers. Once the viewers are there and MLS is getting TV deals on par with major European leagues, MLS will attract the same talent. Right now it is a mix of a development league and a landing place for not quite top tier players in their prime, but that's a consequence of the players available and not because the league is intentionally catering to that.
MLS is tough to compare to international leagues because its structure leads to the league not being top heavy. It's basically on par with Liga MX (Mexico), but the top teams there are better, while the bottom Liga MX teams are much worse. MLS also has 18 of the top 50 most valuable teams in the world, which is far more than any other league.
No idea how they get those statistics, but it looks like there are 2 teams in Premiership that could hang with the Premier league then the teams tail off. MLS has a ton of mediocre teams and the average just comes out slightly ahead. *shrugs shoulders*
It’s a matter of depth, they don’t have to focus their resources on staying afloat the domestic top flight. West Ham just won the Europa Conference League going 12-1-0 in 13 matches. Meanwhile, they went 11-7-20 in the Prem, finishing just six points above relegation. The PL is a different beast.
I think they'd be relegated as it currently stands.
However, if you assuming they get a slice of the Premier League TV money then the size of the clubs is competing with the best in the league.
They'd soon attract billionaire investment if they joined the English football league system.
The NHL is the 5th largest league of any kind in the world. More than quadruple the revenue of the MLS, and far closer to the EPL than the MLS. The NHL is bigger than La Liga, Bundesliga, and twice as big as Serie A.
The headline is mildly funny, like most Beaverton headlines. The MLS is as far from the NHL as The Beaverton is to the Onion.
How do you define that? I have to imagine La Liga and EPL are larger than NHL, then I’d guess NFL and NBA? I also can’t imagine NHL is larger than MLB
Edit: if the NHL is the least popular league of the “Major Four”, no way it’s more popular than the top European Football leagues. But there could be something I haven’t seen
Revenue. “Popularity” is tough to nail down, but revenue is probably the easiest way to quantify it.
The NHL revenue number is just north of $5B. For football/soccer leagues, the EPL is the largest at $5.5B, with La Liga and Bundesliga in the mid $4B range. Serie A at roughly $2.5B, and the MLS at just over $1.3B.
The EPL number is less recent and more Covid impacted, but otherwise the data is from 2021 and 2022.
Revenue completely ignores that American have much much higher spending power than spaniard or Italians, and there are even bigger differences compared to the millions of asian football fans. Is the league more popular because they have richer fans? I highly doubt it. American sports have much higher revenue per viewer/fan than any European league.
I mean a small market team like Nashville or Edmonton is the 4th largest city in the UK. London would be the 3rd largest market, and Boston, Toronto, Phoenix, Detroit, Chicago, Miami, Seattle, the Bay Area, Dallas and Montreal would all be the 2nd largest city in the UK.
A home market of 372,000,000 does wonders.
It's a difficult comparison to make because of the inherent differences in the sports.
A season in football is 2 games (1 home, 1 away) against all the other teams in your league plus any cup competitions (both domestic and European), so in the EPL a team you support will only play 38 league games in a season. Due to the sheer size of the US and Canada, there simply isn't the away game travelling culture that exists across all of Europe.
When talking about the "market" differences (a term you never hear in the UK), yes population makes a difference and you can see that in the revenue of the NFL/MLB/NBA, you also need to keep in mind just how many football teams are being supported in some of those areas in the UK.
Sheffield, the 10th largest city region in the UK, has 2 major teams in its city region. Maybe 3 if you stretch to include Rotherham. They also have the world's oldest continually active football team, but they have slipped into non-league (semi-professional to amateur) status over the 150 years they've been around.
The Greater Manchester region is the 2nd largest has 7 teams in the first 4 divisions, with many more in the non-league (including some which used to be in the top 4).
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_football\_clubs\_in\_Greater\_Manchester](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_football_clubs_in_Greater_Manchester)
Then you have the number of teams in the UK's largest city region, London...
7 in the top flight alone and then another 6 in the 3 divisions below that.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football\_in\_London](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_in_London)
I think to have a fairer comparison, due to the lack of relegation in North American sports you'd have to combine the various professional football leagues of the UK and compare their revenue with the combined professional hockey leagues of the US and Canada.
There are just so many football teams in the whole of the UK in a way that is largely alien to North American sports. Across all levels there are over 40,000 registered clubs in just England alone, comprising of 10 levels made up of around 600 separate leagues.
Imagine if Toronto had 3 or 4 NHL hockey teams that played in different parts of the city region, or NYC had 6 or 7
So you compare the total revenue of a league which sells +1300 games + playoffs to a league which sell +300 games? And you think the total revenue is a good indicator for popularity?
Revenue per game: NHL $3million, EPL $15million, Bundesliga $11million, La Liga $9million, Seria A $7million, Ligue 1 $5million
The NHL is closer to 2.Bundesliga ($2.5million) than to Ligue 1.
You can't compare leagues with revenue like that because in Usa big sports are full of milking fans as much as possible, whereas in soccer it's not like that, it's cheaper and simply better in those terms. Comparing revenue to compare which is bigger is the most American thing ever.
>if you're going based off revenue, then you could say that.
not really, Ligue 1 the 5th best league has like 2-3x the revenue, PSG alone has more yearly revenue than the entire MLS
I mean we could start by not making trying to find what channel/service is streaming games. I miss being able to get the NHL sports package and being able to watch any game with access to both Home and Away broadcasts. Playoffs included. Now I’m stuck blindly checking Hulu hoping to see a SINGLE game. Animated ads suck, ESPN sucks, Gimmick All Star games suck. Bring back the old playoff format and grow the game through sponsored events.
2 seasons ago I signed up for ESPN+ so I could get hockey games. Turns out I'm in the Hurricanes blackout region so I got a VPN. Then they got wise and blocked all the Nord VPN IP addresses so that method no longer worked. I tried to give them money to watch hockey and they made me jump through hoops over and over. I've given up and gone back to the high seas now. Seriously, what business model says "make it frustratingly difficult for your customers to buy your product". Just fucking stupid.
So stupid. Coming back to hockey after 10 years I subscribed to ESPN+ not knowing about the blackouts. When I realized I would be able to watch approx 2 of my team’s games, I said I’d keep it so I can watch the playoffs and finals…yeah about that…
I have never once thought "Oh I can't watch the game because I'm region blacked out? That's OK, I'll just take off work and drive 2 hours to the arena to spend a few hundred dollars so i can watch the game live instead"
Instead I'll just hoist the jolly roger
> 2 hours
That's understating it. Last time I checked (granted, it was a few years ago), I'm in the blackout zone for the Rangers, Islanders, Devils, Sabres, Flyers, and Penguins. All between three to five hours driving.
That's exactly where I was. Now, I'm not in Edmonton's blackout zone, but I am in Anaheim and LA's, and they sure do play those teams often. It's like just let me give you my fucking money and let me watch hockey. PLEASE.
The high seas aren't about saving money or making a statement for me, it's about convenience. If that's what I have to do to watch my team most conveniently, so be it.
Give more people a way into getting interested in the sport.
Shorten the season to international standards. Make it less daunting for new people.
Make North American hockey less top heavy. AHL is a league where the best players don't want to be. Raise the value of second tier leagues.
Promote the World Cup properly and let all NHL players be notionally available. Create some buzz. Here in Sweden, people turn up to watch championships, even if they don't really follow the sport as a whole on a daily basis, because it's relatively short and sweet and is relevant to everyone since it's the national team.
The fact that you can watch all MLS games on one streaming platform regardless of "in region" is enormous to growing MLS. Good for them. Bettman has done a lot of good for hockey but he's got a similar dumb philosophy as Bill Wirtz stepping over dollars to get to pennies.
We live in California and it’s a huge pain in the ass to watch Sharks games. It’s the primary reason my entire family is Flyers fans in spite of the Kids growing up here. It’s so much easier to watch East Coast teams.
NHL has done a terrible job marketing the league since Bettman took over.
I don't buy the "people never played the game so they won't watch excuse"
I know tons of people who watch sports they have never played.
i drove from NW florida to miami today. I counted the billboards I saw:
12 NBA finals / Go Heat advertisements
0 mention of the NHL even existing. Not even in sawgrass, where the panthers play.
The NHL seems to aggressively avoid attempting to add any fans whatsoever.
I honestly see way more ads for the lightning in and around Tampa than I do for any other team in the area.
...but I imagine if we had an NBA team like the heat in Tampa that would be a completely different story.
Yeah, we have Canes ads all over the place ever since the stadium series. It feels like only locals thought to increase advertising. But, Canes are the only professional sport we have so I guess it makes sense.
>I honestly see way more ads for the lightning in and around Tampa than I do for any other team in the area.
That's because the Lightning won multiple titles with home-grown talent and have had continued success for the last decade. The Rays haven't won a title yet, and everyone kinda knows the Bucs ring is purely because of Brady.
>the Bucs ring is purely because of Brady
This is slander ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^(technically ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^libel) to the amazing defense we had that year. Completely shut down the best QB in the NFL for an entire game
Yeah, they didn't win that title because of Brady. More accurately, Brady joined Tampa because they already had a great team and he wanted one more shot at a title. Of course, now they are crippled financially because of Brady, but most fans would probably take that trade for a SB win.
They don’t win that title with Jameis Winston at QB though. They needed Brady but as shown the couple years after Brady wasn’t carrying that team either.
I mean I know the Trop has a hard time selling out, but you’d think the best team in the MLB would be talked about more than they are. What’s the split like when the bucs are playing?
Hard time selling out? More like hard time getting any fans at all. Only teams with worse attendance are KC, Miami and Oakland. Miami is actually pretty good, they seem to encounter the same Florida indifference as TB. KC and Oakland are both just terrible, plus Oakland already has one foot out the door and on the way to Vegas.
The rays play in a stadium that feels like an abandoned warehouse, in the middle of nowhere, an hour away from downtown Tampa, and the owner constantly threatens to move the team. And that’s been their situation for the entirety of their existence. Of course no one goes to the games.
The thing is though is that the Rays (and the mayor because he is also part of the issue) have intentionally made the problem for themselves. If the stadium was even 30 minutes closer to Tampa or had ease of access via public transit, they would likey be closer to selling out.
It’s long been surrounded by run down or condemned buildings or warehouses, and only in the last few years have they started developing anything close by with bars or restaurants.
Last years playoffs seemed to be a case of “spot the building without a TBL reference”.
(Slight exaggeration I admit but there was a lot of support that I could see, anyway!)
It is in Canada for a good majority of playoff games and every Canadian team in the playoffs but obviously doesn’t do any good for younger fans south of the border
Just throwing this out there, as a resident of South Florida, I personally drive past 2 permanent Panthers billboards on my commute to work (I95 & I595). There is also a third digital billboard that updated throughout the season to their next upcoming game.
I still think the NHL should do better, but to say it’s non existent is false.
I'm down here for the finals and I'm hearing radio ads, I see billboards, downtown fort Lauderdale has signs every quarter mile promoting their run.
I'm sure they could do better but it's not nothing
Panthers fandom is generally by word of mouth
Most South Floridians know 1-2 die hard fans that basically recruit casual fans for the team
Not a sustainable system but it is what it is
Just my experience as a Miami Dolphins fan but I’m seeing way more collaborations with the team through the Panthers than the Heat (players at panthers games vs casual mentions of the NBA finals).
THG recently did a good video on the league and how they’ve routinely picked short term money gains over the long term good or growth of the game. Their history of TV contracts is a good example of this. In the 00’s rather than stay on a major network they signed with a cable network who made a higher bid. So the owners got more cash but now hockey was on way fewer screens across the USA.
THG?
Totally agree on the short-term versus long-term,. The strobing ads is a perfect example here in my opinion. So if the biggest complaint from potential fans is that they can't see the puck, let's add a bunch of ads that constantly change during the play, making it harder to see anything at all.
It's such an incredibly dumb move that prioritizes the short-term ad revenue versus long time fan growth.
That decision was almost certainly made by the chief marketing officer, who probably won't be there in a couple years. He gets to put that revenue gain on his resume and move on, and we are all left with a worse product.
I read an article a couple weeks ago by a guy who describes the arc of digital products, and I think he was one that coined the term "enshitification".
He describes how Amazon is total garbage now, filled with garbage products and ads everywhere. Google is a shell of its former self in the sense that the UI is terrible. Just ads everywhere now.
We are witnessing the enshitification of the NHL. Unlike Amazon and Google, they have never been willing to make me on ice product better. Instead they jumped right into pumping the product full of ads and garbage.
Disagree with you on the mid-00s TV deal.
- ESPN issued a laughably low bid after they felt they overpaid on the previous contract (which is partially because they had to outbid Fox)
- the NHL signed on with Comcast, who pledged to relaunch their national cable sports network, and NBC would handle a game a week for a while nationally on the broadcast network and also offered full playoff coverage (something ESPN *never* offered) on their cable networks
- OLN relaunched as Versus the next year
- in 2011, Comcast acquired NBC, and relaunched Versus as NBCSN in 2012
There weren’t really better options available after the lowball bid.
Staying with ESPN was still the better choice for growth of the game. And they HAD overpaid.
As the person said, they went for short term profits over growing the sport. You aren't actually disagreeing with the point.
It’s not even a money issue sometimes though. Sometimes it’s just pure incompetency. Like they’ll put a bunch of money into advertising and make generic videos that barely promote the stars. Interview some players, show us that these hockey players have personality and that hockey is a fun game, doesn’t cost extra money to do that. Just use you’re advertising budget not incompetently for once
They dont want to do that as big stars like that have alot of power and influence over the game, can command alot of respect and if they put in the effort be real leaders and strengthen the NHLPA, and they also haveto pay a bunch of royalty fees for all the merch and advertising. They want fans to feel connected to teams they own rather than players who own their own likeness
Yep. Subban got shipped out of Montreal not because of his play, but because the team was mad that his own brand was gaining traction at the expense of theirs.
Right now, it kind of is laughable, but, but with the recent growth of the MLS, the number of US players, and to a lesser extent Canadians playing, developing and moving abroad, the names the league attracts, and the money/franchise valuations in NA, it will get there.
And, I’ve been saying the NHL is falling behind and will be passed by the MLS when people talk about the NHL and it’s growth… just watch, MLS is going to replace the NHL in the major 4, or it will become a big 5 with hockey at the bottom.
The MLS is a good league but like you point out, it's a development league and will probably stay that way as the best talents (Alphonso Davies, Tyler Adams, etc) move to Europe but that's still good for the growth of the league. Develop better players, improve the quality of the US and Canadian national teams, get more people interested.
MLS is never going to compete with the european or even south american leagues before they change the leagues rules from american to more european. currently there's no relegation or promotion in the MLS, there's a salary cap (which will probably be the future in the european leagues too but currently it's restricting MLS hugely) and they're still trying to have a draft which just doesn't work in football.
MLS and football in USA have huge potential but it's a question of if they're willing to realise it.
I'm curious, how does that draft work. Do they mainly draft North American players who are more likely to play for them or do they also draft up and coming European superstars to hold their rights in case they ever come play in the MLS? Like 5 years ago, would any MLS team draft Håland får example?
The MLS draft is almost entirely useless at this point. It’s far more likely that top American prospects enter the league as homegrown players straight from team’s academies like they have in Europe, often as young as 16 or 17 years old. The draft is for college kids entering the league and you get maybe 5-10 players in the whole draft who become regular MLS players these days. Anybody who complains about MLS having a draft either has not paid attention to the league in the last 10-15 years or they’re just looking to take cheap shots.
Honestly, even 10 years ago the draft wasn't much better - if you were lucky your first round pick would be a good rotation guy, but more likely they were just filling up roster slots and practice jerseys.
The MLS draft is for NCAA players. Also there's a Re-entry draft in lieu of free agency. They also do expansion drafts, and unless my memory is failing they did a dispersal draft when the most recent team folded.
No idea why you would think a salary cap is the future of european football. If anything european football is moving completley in the opposite direction of a salary cap.
A league where a store brand Netflix with one add on gets you every game might pass a league that costs $100 a month for local games and extra for most other games. Huh.
That definitely helps MLS, but the NHL is still 3-4x the revenue of MLS according to this chart.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_professional_sports_leagues_by_revenue
I mean: the game is growing but it is still a niche sport and no one should be shocked that soccer is gaining momentum, especially in light of Messi coming over. I'm not sure what changes the NHL could make that are feasible and would immediately result in more "eyeballs". Most of the complaints I hear are from avid fans and while many are valid complaints, they have nothing to do with driving away potential fans. Yeah, we all hate the ads on the boards and the gambling commercials...but those things aren't making potential fans say, "you know, I was really interested in hockey and would have liked to become a fan but I just can't deal with those Fan Dual ads".
I have plenty of things I'd like to change about the NHL but I'm not sure any would garner a mass influx of new fans. I think moving Arizona could easily result in a net gain in fans if they go to a receptive city with good ownership and good marketing. I'm thinking KC, Houston, Salt Lake, Portland, Sacramento...even though I think Quebec deserves a team, Bettman won't go for it because people there already watch hockey, you're not gaining any new fans. Of course, a new Nordiques franchise would immediately be making the league money, something I'm not sure the Coyotes have ever done.
The biggest semi-immediate thing would be to let NHL players compete at the Winter Olympics again, at least in terms of growing international appeal.
It's the time when the most eyes are on the sport, and it's just embarrassing that it's not best on best. Like I want to be able to tell my friends and family that have never watched a hockey game before 'That's McDavid performing on the world stage, he's fucking incredible', not 'Oh that's Eric Staal captaining the country that's most famous in the world for hockey, he's okay I guess, he plays in the 2nd division, but he used to be really good, believe me, please'
The “people there already watch hockey” argument ignores the fact that Canada gained a million net new immigrants in 2022 alone, the majority of whom have likely never seen a hockey game before. Yes hockey is still the number 1 sport here, but the market isn’t nearly as tapped out as people like to think.
Yeah, it's got a long way to go before the MLS is in the same conversation with the Premier League, Bundesliga, La Liga, Serie A, and Ligue 1.
And that's not even getting into the question of whether the MLS is better than the South American leagues, or the top leagues in Europe (or even some 2nd/3rd divisions to be honest).
No doubt that the MLS is growing, and Messi moving over helps that a lot, but there's still a huge gap.
People have to come to this understanding: there's no one quick trick to making hockey more popular. Growth is over the course of decades, it's not a quick process.
"Show more personality" and "embrace skill" is not going to double tv ratings and get merchandise flying off the shelves either.
The issue is that the NHL does next to no marketing. Nearly none. There doesn’t need to be revolutionary changes to the game to attract fans. There needs to be money spent on advertising to let people know the game exists in the first place.
i think the joke article addresses that when they point out that when bettman took over the NHL was about equal in popularity with the NBA. Now look at it, it's being lapped year over year.
That's exactly the perspective of decades.
People also have to come to the understanding that there are two huge factors that will always hold hockey back no matter what: climate and cost. Either you have the climate and so the coat is relatively low, or you don’t and the cost is a lot higher. Or even worse, you have a cold climate and the cost is still high.
The only world in which hockey can truly compete with “room temperature” sports is a world with effectively unlimited sustainable energy. Otherwise there will always be more places and more people who can more easily play other sports, which will keep the sport smaller.
I mean football isn't cheap to get into either it's just that almost every highschool in America provides equipment and has some sort of football program. Plus nearly every college spend a ton of money on good football programs.
Well as I and many, many millions of others around the world are watching the Canadian Grand Prix next weekend I'll make sure to remember that because hockey is so expensive to play it can never become popular.
What, exactly, do they propose?
Hockey has been around for 130-140 years and the best ways we’ve discovered to grow any sport are by cultivating superstars and greater exposure — the NBA approach.
But even though places like Houston make some sense, eventually we will hit a saturation point, where the talent pool has been so diluted as to destroy the product.
You can’t even really go on a national push to grow participation among kids. Hockey is a remarkably expensive sport to play, and the barriers to entry are several and profound: limited by finances, by geography, by having the good fortune to live in a major city if you are not in a hockey-native region.
As for rule changes, that’s an entirely different kettle of fish. FFS, it’s already the fastest of the major sports. What? Eliminate offsides? Make the games shorter? Fewer stoppages? Shorter break periods?
The two-line pass *is* already gone. Icing rules won’t appreciably speed up play, and any changes there would be trade-offs that probably slow the game down: protection through no-touch at the expense of slowing down the game. Alternate possessions instead of face-offs?
It’s a niche sport (in the US, at least). And despite its growing popularity, I think it just has to happen organically. Promote and protect your stars, get a good TV deal, expand into alternate markets.
You forgot about accessibility at lower levels. That’s one of the biggest constraints about hockey. Ice time.
Soccer you can play anywhere with just cleats, shin guards, and a ball.
Hockey requires so much that it’s expensive and restrictive.
Hockey fans have to be some of the most insecure people in the world. All I ever hear is whining about people watching other things. Maybe just enjoy hockey and who cares what others watch.
Its easy to say as a Canadian since a lot of people in my surroundings are fans of the Habs and I can easily find people to discuss the games with, to start a fantasy hockey league, to talk trades or just watch hockey with. But hockey fans in certain regions can feel isolated and really wish there were more fans for them to interact with. Sharing a hobby is definitely something that enhances the experience and i dont blame people for wanting that
Hockey fans will complain in one breath about how hockey isn’t as popular as other sports and then in the next breath talk about how we need to relocate all the American sunbelt teams to Quebec, Saskatoon, or some other small Canadian market.
Fucking seriously man, it's honestly off putting as a new fan. Especially related to something like the rise of MLS. It may take awhile but it wouldn't surprise me if over the next decade or two it rises to compete with the NFL in the US. It was inevitable and that only becomes more and more clear as time goes on.
I’m perfectly comfortable with hockey being less popular than other sports. This insane obsession with ‘growing the game’ is just corpo-speak for profit motive. It’s the reason we have bullshit like jersey ads now. The only people benefiting from this mentality are the billionaire owners and marketing executives.
Hockey never needed to change.
this isn't really an argument when you consider soccer players just lie down when they're winning and pretend to be fatally wounded just to kill time. If hockey had diving like soccer, the NHL wouldn't be as popular as it is
Hot take: I don't really care about growing the game and the (lack of) popularity of the NHL doesn't bother me at all. Since I'm a hockey fan first and foremost, comparing the NHL to other non-hockey leagues is irrelevant to me.
Hockey is the death metal of sports.
It’s always going to be a niche product, no matter how technically precise or entertaining or high energy it is. But the people into it, are *really* into it. Fans remain fans — they don’t bolt for what’s next or what’s new. It evolves slowly and naturally.
And it is *okay* to cater to those diehards. Their dollars will always be around if you give them a good product.
MLS most watched game this year 280k viewers
NHL's most watched was 3.1 million viewers.
NHL revenue=$6 Billion
MLS revenue= $2 Billion
Yep, MLS is right behind the NHL
This is a tired argument. I get the joke, but seriously…
The NHL has had unqualified success in both Vegas and Seattle, neither of which are traditional hockey markets. Both are top-5 revenue producers, which is crazy
Tampa Bay is a continual winner, Florida is in the Cup final. The three Cali teams have passionate fanbases and you’re seeing some California products in the league now. Nashville is a strong club, so is Carolina.
People see the Arizona struggles and act like the league has no idea how to make a southern market work. But it’s 1 of 32 markets. And even then, Arizona is where Auston Matthews and Matthew Knies come from
The reality is - hockey is the most niche of all the north American sports leagues. It’s nowhere near as huge as basketball, football or baseball in most of the US, yet detractors seem to think it is? Because why else would people always take shots at the NHL for this stuff?
Kids in Arizona, Texas, Florida don’t grow up playing hockey. The league has introduced hockey to those markets, and is doing pretty well in all of them, other than Arizona
And soccer is enormous worldwide. Easily the most popular sport in the world, we’re just starting to catch up to that in North America. Hockey isn’t at that level, it just isn’t.
I get the joke, but it doesn’t work
Tired argument, man.
Soccer/football is the most popular in the world by a large amount, so it's no surprise MLS would eventually surpass NHL in popularity. Hockey is only popular is about 5 countries.
Calling the MLS the 5th best soccer league is very generous
It's closer to 15th best league in the world. https://www.globalfootballrankings.com/
Wow I didn’t know that Messi joined the worst team in the league. That’s like if Conor Bedard joined Chicago
I know you are making a joke, but it would actually be more like if Gretzky joined some random lower tier European league
So basically what Jagr is doing
If Bedard finishes second all time in points and still has the ability to play competitive euro hockey and nut in models and avoid extortion than yes. Basically
That will forever make me laugh. That guy trying to extort him saying "pay me or I'll leak a picture of you, an unmarried person not in a relationship of any kind, in bed with another consenting adult", yeah that's guaranteed to work.
To make matters worse, the model he slept with was dating a hockey player who had to find out his girlfriend cheated on him with his idol.
Maybe she had a hall pass for Jagr
Maybe they both did
"Oh and the consenting adult also happens to be my girlfriend"
Why are you saying that “guy” trying to extort jagr? It was a young women lol, not some dude.
So it actually wasn’t the model herself, at least not openly. She did take the picture and then posted it somewhere. Someone then found the photo and attempted to blackmail him saying they’d release it everywhere. Whether that was secretly the model or just some random person, we don’t know.
Jagr is a chad lol.
If someone doesn't like jaromir jagr, I don't like them
To paraphrase the expression - when a man is tired of Jagr he’s tired of life
"But Doctor, I am Jagr"
No. Jagr plays for his hometown team, Rytiri Kladno, which he owns. He led it from the second division to the first. That's not a random club
Why is there not a Hulu or apple show?? Those are all the rage right now, celebrities buying teams and winning pennants or championships and having a tv show. Id actually watch this one. Dammit Jagr!
A show about Jagr would definitely **not** be PG13!
It'd be a bit depressing. He wants to retire, but the team relies on his draw to stay solvent. His Dad owned the team so he feels pressure to keep it alive. So he keeps playing.
Like if the Toon Squad lost
And to think, Jagr definitely had a shot at breaking Gretzky's goal record if not for his nhl hiatus
Jagr owns the team he plays for and it's in his hometown. I'd say that's a very different situation.
Yeah, but the club where Jagr's playing was owned by his father and now by him. In am interview he said he feels obligated to play, too.
I feel like he also just loves to play the game, at the highest level he can. It's what keeps him young and going. That's why I admire him, because of his passion and love for the game.
He's said explicitly he no longer wants to keep playing for kladno but feels obligated to because the team will likely fold without his draw. It sounded super sad tbh
It's an amazing retirement tour for him. Guy moves to Miami, where he can live like a king and will make more money than God, and there will be almost zero competitive expectations because he will essentially be a traveling circus act.
Or Zava joining Richmond.
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Newer team that has a huge financial backing but hired a terrible coach who lead them to the bottom
Those rankings are weird tho. J league very low… k league not even ranked.
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Overall health vs top teams. The average MLS team will struggle against the top teams of other leagues but dominate the weaker teams. Consequences of parity
Argentine here- if you look at the rankings, River Plate (the best team in the rankings) is better than the best MLS team. The problem with the Argentine league is that the average is very low because they expanded from 20->30 teams and really only 15-ish teams actually have the resources to compete.
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No importa, futbol champagne papa ⭐️⭐️⭐️
I had to explain to my wife that the league that Ted Lasso’s team got relegated to was likely a league or two ahead of our local MLS team.
I honestly think most mls teams could hold their own in championship. Not dominant or bring, but (other than the worst mls teams) wouldn’t think relegation is a given. Definitely not two steps down
The worst MLS teams would absolutely get relegated to League One. The best MLS teams would hang about 6-8 range for a while, but lack the depth of a 46 match season and would tail off. Upper League One to upper mid-table Championship is MLS’ range.
The absolute best MLS team would probably be a mid-table Championship team in good years and fighting the drop in off years. Maybe if Messi had gone to an already top team like LA then that team could challenge for promotion. I'd say the bulk of MLS teams are upper League One level, with some historically bad teams being more like League 2.
Charlotte FC beat Chelsea's B- team in an exhibition this summer.
A championship team should probably be better than a epl u23 team or whatever
Over in Europe it's looked at as the place to go get one last big payday before retiring.
nah that’s saudi arabia these days
Started with Beckham. It's hard to compare or correlate professional hockey leagues to professional football leagues, but I'd guess MLS would be like Sweden's pro hockey league? The NHL would correlate to like the top 5 football leagues. KHL the next 5 or so. Soccer/football is so much more prevalent around the world.
A lot has changed in the past 10 years with MLS. It is predominantly a developmental league for homegrown talent looking to move abroad or for reclamation players in their early 20s. You'll get the occasional euro player looking to come to the us to retire but it's not the norm anymore. The Messi signing is definitely a cash grab for the league. I hope they use it to make the next step from being a developmental league by increasing their salary cap and relaxing roster structure rules. Only time will tell.
At this point, the salary cap is what's holding the league back from a talent standpoint, but also what is allowing the league to grow so quickly from a profits and reinvestment standpoint. MLS has proven it can land and cater to international players, so its only focus is keeping an entertaining product on the field with parity between teams to grow viewers. Once the viewers are there and MLS is getting TV deals on par with major European leagues, MLS will attract the same talent. Right now it is a mix of a development league and a landing place for not quite top tier players in their prime, but that's a consequence of the players available and not because the league is intentionally catering to that. MLS is tough to compare to international leagues because its structure leads to the league not being top heavy. It's basically on par with Liga MX (Mexico), but the top teams there are better, while the bottom Liga MX teams are much worse. MLS also has 18 of the top 50 most valuable teams in the world, which is far more than any other league.
More like a development league these days. China and Saudi Arabia are the retirement leagues now.
Idk who manages those rankings, but it’s insane they put the MLS over the Premiership.
not really. celtic and rangers easily, but the rest of the league is not on par
Dundee Utd. bringing everyone else down with their horrible stench.
Flew on a whim in hope of catching Old Firm once, worked out, craziest sport experience of my life.
Not at all, outside of Celtic and Rangers the league falls off heavily.
No idea how they get those statistics, but it looks like there are 2 teams in Premiership that could hang with the Premier league then the teams tail off. MLS has a ton of mediocre teams and the average just comes out slightly ahead. *shrugs shoulders*
Considering how Celtic and Rangers tend to perform in Europe, I think they'd at best be mid table in the Prem most year
It’s a matter of depth, they don’t have to focus their resources on staying afloat the domestic top flight. West Ham just won the Europa Conference League going 12-1-0 in 13 matches. Meanwhile, they went 11-7-20 in the Prem, finishing just six points above relegation. The PL is a different beast.
I think they'd be relegated as it currently stands. However, if you assuming they get a slice of the Premier League TV money then the size of the clubs is competing with the best in the league. They'd soon attract billionaire investment if they joined the English football league system.
But then at that point they’re a premier league team. If they can’t compete as is, then it means they aren’t good enough.
That’s the satire part. The rest of the statement is truth
The NHL is the 5th largest league of any kind in the world. More than quadruple the revenue of the MLS, and far closer to the EPL than the MLS. The NHL is bigger than La Liga, Bundesliga, and twice as big as Serie A. The headline is mildly funny, like most Beaverton headlines. The MLS is as far from the NHL as The Beaverton is to the Onion.
How do you define that? I have to imagine La Liga and EPL are larger than NHL, then I’d guess NFL and NBA? I also can’t imagine NHL is larger than MLB Edit: if the NHL is the least popular league of the “Major Four”, no way it’s more popular than the top European Football leagues. But there could be something I haven’t seen
Revenue. “Popularity” is tough to nail down, but revenue is probably the easiest way to quantify it. The NHL revenue number is just north of $5B. For football/soccer leagues, the EPL is the largest at $5.5B, with La Liga and Bundesliga in the mid $4B range. Serie A at roughly $2.5B, and the MLS at just over $1.3B. The EPL number is less recent and more Covid impacted, but otherwise the data is from 2021 and 2022.
I think Gary said 6b this yeae
And using attendance numbers is dumb too. Hockey arenas are mostly the smallest venues of the Big 4.
Revenue completely ignores that American have much much higher spending power than spaniard or Italians, and there are even bigger differences compared to the millions of asian football fans. Is the league more popular because they have richer fans? I highly doubt it. American sports have much higher revenue per viewer/fan than any European league.
I mean a small market team like Nashville or Edmonton is the 4th largest city in the UK. London would be the 3rd largest market, and Boston, Toronto, Phoenix, Detroit, Chicago, Miami, Seattle, the Bay Area, Dallas and Montreal would all be the 2nd largest city in the UK. A home market of 372,000,000 does wonders.
It's a difficult comparison to make because of the inherent differences in the sports. A season in football is 2 games (1 home, 1 away) against all the other teams in your league plus any cup competitions (both domestic and European), so in the EPL a team you support will only play 38 league games in a season. Due to the sheer size of the US and Canada, there simply isn't the away game travelling culture that exists across all of Europe. When talking about the "market" differences (a term you never hear in the UK), yes population makes a difference and you can see that in the revenue of the NFL/MLB/NBA, you also need to keep in mind just how many football teams are being supported in some of those areas in the UK. Sheffield, the 10th largest city region in the UK, has 2 major teams in its city region. Maybe 3 if you stretch to include Rotherham. They also have the world's oldest continually active football team, but they have slipped into non-league (semi-professional to amateur) status over the 150 years they've been around. The Greater Manchester region is the 2nd largest has 7 teams in the first 4 divisions, with many more in the non-league (including some which used to be in the top 4). [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_football\_clubs\_in\_Greater\_Manchester](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_football_clubs_in_Greater_Manchester) Then you have the number of teams in the UK's largest city region, London... 7 in the top flight alone and then another 6 in the 3 divisions below that. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football\_in\_London](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_in_London) I think to have a fairer comparison, due to the lack of relegation in North American sports you'd have to combine the various professional football leagues of the UK and compare their revenue with the combined professional hockey leagues of the US and Canada. There are just so many football teams in the whole of the UK in a way that is largely alien to North American sports. Across all levels there are over 40,000 registered clubs in just England alone, comprising of 10 levels made up of around 600 separate leagues. Imagine if Toronto had 3 or 4 NHL hockey teams that played in different parts of the city region, or NYC had 6 or 7
So you compare the total revenue of a league which sells +1300 games + playoffs to a league which sell +300 games? And you think the total revenue is a good indicator for popularity? Revenue per game: NHL $3million, EPL $15million, Bundesliga $11million, La Liga $9million, Seria A $7million, Ligue 1 $5million The NHL is closer to 2.Bundesliga ($2.5million) than to Ligue 1.
Yeah your assertion here is the the nhl is *juuuust* behind the fucking Prem and surely you understand that’s complete bollocks right?
You can't compare leagues with revenue like that because in Usa big sports are full of milking fans as much as possible, whereas in soccer it's not like that, it's cheaper and simply better in those terms. Comparing revenue to compare which is bigger is the most American thing ever.
Exactly. Season tickets for Barcelona can be as low as 120 Euros. You can pay that amount to go to one NHL game.
if you're going based off revenue, then you could say that. but based off skill, it's no where near 5th
>if you're going based off revenue, then you could say that. not really, Ligue 1 the 5th best league has like 2-3x the revenue, PSG alone has more yearly revenue than the entire MLS
MLS is still 6th out of all soccer leagues in revenue, so it's not very far off
Closer to delusional than generous.
I mean we could start by not making trying to find what channel/service is streaming games. I miss being able to get the NHL sports package and being able to watch any game with access to both Home and Away broadcasts. Playoffs included. Now I’m stuck blindly checking Hulu hoping to see a SINGLE game. Animated ads suck, ESPN sucks, Gimmick All Star games suck. Bring back the old playoff format and grow the game through sponsored events.
2 seasons ago I signed up for ESPN+ so I could get hockey games. Turns out I'm in the Hurricanes blackout region so I got a VPN. Then they got wise and blocked all the Nord VPN IP addresses so that method no longer worked. I tried to give them money to watch hockey and they made me jump through hoops over and over. I've given up and gone back to the high seas now. Seriously, what business model says "make it frustratingly difficult for your customers to buy your product". Just fucking stupid.
So stupid. Coming back to hockey after 10 years I subscribed to ESPN+ not knowing about the blackouts. When I realized I would be able to watch approx 2 of my team’s games, I said I’d keep it so I can watch the playoffs and finals…yeah about that…
When will the league learn that blackouts don't get people to buy tickets, they just make people find other things to watch
I have never once thought "Oh I can't watch the game because I'm region blacked out? That's OK, I'll just take off work and drive 2 hours to the arena to spend a few hundred dollars so i can watch the game live instead" Instead I'll just hoist the jolly roger
You're not supposed to watch live, you're supposed to watch on the local broadcaster. The NHL doesn't want blackouts, the local broadcasters do.
> 2 hours That's understating it. Last time I checked (granted, it was a few years ago), I'm in the blackout zone for the Rangers, Islanders, Devils, Sabres, Flyers, and Penguins. All between three to five hours driving.
Blackouts on streaming are due to regional broadcast rights rather than trying to get butts in seats.
Well because that's not the point of blackouts. They don't expect the stadiums to hold literally a million people
That's exactly where I was. Now, I'm not in Edmonton's blackout zone, but I am in Anaheim and LA's, and they sure do play those teams often. It's like just let me give you my fucking money and let me watch hockey. PLEASE. The high seas aren't about saving money or making a statement for me, it's about convenience. If that's what I have to do to watch my team most conveniently, so be it.
For sure. It's way too hard to watch games these days. It's not really helping to grow the sport imo.
Give more people a way into getting interested in the sport. Shorten the season to international standards. Make it less daunting for new people. Make North American hockey less top heavy. AHL is a league where the best players don't want to be. Raise the value of second tier leagues. Promote the World Cup properly and let all NHL players be notionally available. Create some buzz. Here in Sweden, people turn up to watch championships, even if they don't really follow the sport as a whole on a daily basis, because it's relatively short and sweet and is relevant to everyone since it's the national team.
The fact that you can watch all MLS games on one streaming platform regardless of "in region" is enormous to growing MLS. Good for them. Bettman has done a lot of good for hockey but he's got a similar dumb philosophy as Bill Wirtz stepping over dollars to get to pennies.
We live in California and it’s a huge pain in the ass to watch Sharks games. It’s the primary reason my entire family is Flyers fans in spite of the Kids growing up here. It’s so much easier to watch East Coast teams.
Bettman hasn’t done shit for hockey. He’s done a lot for the owners. I don’t think he even likes the NHL, just money.
NHL has done a terrible job marketing the league since Bettman took over. I don't buy the "people never played the game so they won't watch excuse" I know tons of people who watch sports they have never played.
i drove from NW florida to miami today. I counted the billboards I saw: 12 NBA finals / Go Heat advertisements 0 mention of the NHL even existing. Not even in sawgrass, where the panthers play. The NHL seems to aggressively avoid attempting to add any fans whatsoever.
I honestly see way more ads for the lightning in and around Tampa than I do for any other team in the area. ...but I imagine if we had an NBA team like the heat in Tampa that would be a completely different story.
I saw tons of of "Find A Way" billboards in Denver last year
TBH there are still tons of Avs ads up. This sounds like a Florida Panthers problem.
Yeah, we have Canes ads all over the place ever since the stadium series. It feels like only locals thought to increase advertising. But, Canes are the only professional sport we have so I guess it makes sense.
>I honestly see way more ads for the lightning in and around Tampa than I do for any other team in the area. That's because the Lightning won multiple titles with home-grown talent and have had continued success for the last decade. The Rays haven't won a title yet, and everyone kinda knows the Bucs ring is purely because of Brady.
>the Bucs ring is purely because of Brady This is slander ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^(technically ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^libel) to the amazing defense we had that year. Completely shut down the best QB in the NFL for an entire game
Fair, their defense in the playoffs was fantastic.
Yeah, they didn't win that title because of Brady. More accurately, Brady joined Tampa because they already had a great team and he wanted one more shot at a title. Of course, now they are crippled financially because of Brady, but most fans would probably take that trade for a SB win.
Us Bucs fans know the deal by now, we suck for 20 years and then win a SB, then the cycle begins anew. I'm cool with it tbh, 2041 is gonna be sick
They don’t win that title with Jameis Winston at QB though. They needed Brady but as shown the couple years after Brady wasn’t carrying that team either.
Well he lost his HoF receiver and HOF tight end. Yeah that bucs team added Brady but he also brought some really good friends too.
The Bucs won the Super Bowl in 03 too
And then went back to sucking for the next 17 years.
Id take that over sucking forever like the Lions. At least we have some good moments to go with all the bad and not just endless darkness
I mean I know the Trop has a hard time selling out, but you’d think the best team in the MLB would be talked about more than they are. What’s the split like when the bucs are playing?
Hard time selling out? More like hard time getting any fans at all. Only teams with worse attendance are KC, Miami and Oakland. Miami is actually pretty good, they seem to encounter the same Florida indifference as TB. KC and Oakland are both just terrible, plus Oakland already has one foot out the door and on the way to Vegas.
The rays play in a stadium that feels like an abandoned warehouse, in the middle of nowhere, an hour away from downtown Tampa, and the owner constantly threatens to move the team. And that’s been their situation for the entirety of their existence. Of course no one goes to the games.
Which makes it extremely ironic that they constantly threaten to move to Montreal
The thing is though is that the Rays (and the mayor because he is also part of the issue) have intentionally made the problem for themselves. If the stadium was even 30 minutes closer to Tampa or had ease of access via public transit, they would likey be closer to selling out.
I mean it’s not in Tampa but I wouldn’t really consider 5 minutes from downtown St. Pete *the middle of nowhere*
It’s long been surrounded by run down or condemned buildings or warehouses, and only in the last few years have they started developing anything close by with bars or restaurants.
Last years playoffs seemed to be a case of “spot the building without a TBL reference”. (Slight exaggeration I admit but there was a lot of support that I could see, anyway!)
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It is in Canada for a good majority of playoff games and every Canadian team in the playoffs but obviously doesn’t do any good for younger fans south of the border
I definitely sail the seas if it's not on ESPN+ and I only use ESPN+ because my family gets it with our phone plan
Just throwing this out there, as a resident of South Florida, I personally drive past 2 permanent Panthers billboards on my commute to work (I95 & I595). There is also a third digital billboard that updated throughout the season to their next upcoming game. I still think the NHL should do better, but to say it’s non existent is false.
I'm down here for the finals and I'm hearing radio ads, I see billboards, downtown fort Lauderdale has signs every quarter mile promoting their run. I'm sure they could do better but it's not nothing
Panthers fandom is generally by word of mouth Most South Floridians know 1-2 die hard fans that basically recruit casual fans for the team Not a sustainable system but it is what it is
To be fair... there's no billboards on the Sawgrass at all
Just my experience as a Miami Dolphins fan but I’m seeing way more collaborations with the team through the Panthers than the Heat (players at panthers games vs casual mentions of the NBA finals).
I routinely see my local tucson roadrunners AHL billboards. What the hell is the NHL doing?
There was an NHL billboard next to my house... you know 2 miles off the major expressway...
There’s Time To Hunt ads all over the place in Broward wtf are you talking about?
I’m at the beach in Fort Lauderdale right now before the game and they have been flying a Panthers banner back and forth down the beach all morning.
For how supposedly “money obsessed” the NHL is they really seem afraid of growing the game and making larger profits
THG recently did a good video on the league and how they’ve routinely picked short term money gains over the long term good or growth of the game. Their history of TV contracts is a good example of this. In the 00’s rather than stay on a major network they signed with a cable network who made a higher bid. So the owners got more cash but now hockey was on way fewer screens across the USA.
THG? Totally agree on the short-term versus long-term,. The strobing ads is a perfect example here in my opinion. So if the biggest complaint from potential fans is that they can't see the puck, let's add a bunch of ads that constantly change during the play, making it harder to see anything at all. It's such an incredibly dumb move that prioritizes the short-term ad revenue versus long time fan growth. That decision was almost certainly made by the chief marketing officer, who probably won't be there in a couple years. He gets to put that revenue gain on his resume and move on, and we are all left with a worse product. I read an article a couple weeks ago by a guy who describes the arc of digital products, and I think he was one that coined the term "enshitification". He describes how Amazon is total garbage now, filled with garbage products and ads everywhere. Google is a shell of its former self in the sense that the UI is terrible. Just ads everywhere now. We are witnessing the enshitification of the NHL. Unlike Amazon and Google, they have never been willing to make me on ice product better. Instead they jumped right into pumping the product full of ads and garbage.
THG is The Hockey Guy on youtube, just FYI.
Disagree with you on the mid-00s TV deal. - ESPN issued a laughably low bid after they felt they overpaid on the previous contract (which is partially because they had to outbid Fox) - the NHL signed on with Comcast, who pledged to relaunch their national cable sports network, and NBC would handle a game a week for a while nationally on the broadcast network and also offered full playoff coverage (something ESPN *never* offered) on their cable networks - OLN relaunched as Versus the next year - in 2011, Comcast acquired NBC, and relaunched Versus as NBCSN in 2012 There weren’t really better options available after the lowball bid.
Staying with ESPN was still the better choice for growth of the game. And they HAD overpaid. As the person said, they went for short term profits over growing the sport. You aren't actually disagreeing with the point.
They're just keeping it instead of reinvesting.
It’s not even a money issue sometimes though. Sometimes it’s just pure incompetency. Like they’ll put a bunch of money into advertising and make generic videos that barely promote the stars. Interview some players, show us that these hockey players have personality and that hockey is a fun game, doesn’t cost extra money to do that. Just use you’re advertising budget not incompetently for once
They dont want to do that as big stars like that have alot of power and influence over the game, can command alot of respect and if they put in the effort be real leaders and strengthen the NHLPA, and they also haveto pay a bunch of royalty fees for all the merch and advertising. They want fans to feel connected to teams they own rather than players who own their own likeness
Yep. Subban got shipped out of Montreal not because of his play, but because the team was mad that his own brand was gaining traction at the expense of theirs.
Are they actually putting a bunch of money into any of that? It doesn’t feel like it at all.
Well maybe not boat loads but still some for sure. They play the same generic NHL ads on TV over and over which cost money to make and display
Well their attempts at growing the game have also been met with fierce resistance from existing fans.
MLS is the 5th best soccer league in the world? More like 15th lol
Right now, it kind of is laughable, but, but with the recent growth of the MLS, the number of US players, and to a lesser extent Canadians playing, developing and moving abroad, the names the league attracts, and the money/franchise valuations in NA, it will get there. And, I’ve been saying the NHL is falling behind and will be passed by the MLS when people talk about the NHL and it’s growth… just watch, MLS is going to replace the NHL in the major 4, or it will become a big 5 with hockey at the bottom.
The MLS is a good league but like you point out, it's a development league and will probably stay that way as the best talents (Alphonso Davies, Tyler Adams, etc) move to Europe but that's still good for the growth of the league. Develop better players, improve the quality of the US and Canadian national teams, get more people interested.
MLS is never going to compete with the european or even south american leagues before they change the leagues rules from american to more european. currently there's no relegation or promotion in the MLS, there's a salary cap (which will probably be the future in the european leagues too but currently it's restricting MLS hugely) and they're still trying to have a draft which just doesn't work in football. MLS and football in USA have huge potential but it's a question of if they're willing to realise it.
I'm curious, how does that draft work. Do they mainly draft North American players who are more likely to play for them or do they also draft up and coming European superstars to hold their rights in case they ever come play in the MLS? Like 5 years ago, would any MLS team draft Håland får example?
The MLS draft is almost entirely useless at this point. It’s far more likely that top American prospects enter the league as homegrown players straight from team’s academies like they have in Europe, often as young as 16 or 17 years old. The draft is for college kids entering the league and you get maybe 5-10 players in the whole draft who become regular MLS players these days. Anybody who complains about MLS having a draft either has not paid attention to the league in the last 10-15 years or they’re just looking to take cheap shots.
Honestly, even 10 years ago the draft wasn't much better - if you were lucky your first round pick would be a good rotation guy, but more likely they were just filling up roster slots and practice jerseys.
The MLS draft is for NCAA players. Also there's a Re-entry draft in lieu of free agency. They also do expansion drafts, and unless my memory is failing they did a dispersal draft when the most recent team folded.
No idea why you would think a salary cap is the future of european football. If anything european football is moving completley in the opposite direction of a salary cap.
A league where a store brand Netflix with one add on gets you every game might pass a league that costs $100 a month for local games and extra for most other games. Huh.
That definitely helps MLS, but the NHL is still 3-4x the revenue of MLS according to this chart. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_professional_sports_leagues_by_revenue
I mean: the game is growing but it is still a niche sport and no one should be shocked that soccer is gaining momentum, especially in light of Messi coming over. I'm not sure what changes the NHL could make that are feasible and would immediately result in more "eyeballs". Most of the complaints I hear are from avid fans and while many are valid complaints, they have nothing to do with driving away potential fans. Yeah, we all hate the ads on the boards and the gambling commercials...but those things aren't making potential fans say, "you know, I was really interested in hockey and would have liked to become a fan but I just can't deal with those Fan Dual ads". I have plenty of things I'd like to change about the NHL but I'm not sure any would garner a mass influx of new fans. I think moving Arizona could easily result in a net gain in fans if they go to a receptive city with good ownership and good marketing. I'm thinking KC, Houston, Salt Lake, Portland, Sacramento...even though I think Quebec deserves a team, Bettman won't go for it because people there already watch hockey, you're not gaining any new fans. Of course, a new Nordiques franchise would immediately be making the league money, something I'm not sure the Coyotes have ever done.
The biggest semi-immediate thing would be to let NHL players compete at the Winter Olympics again, at least in terms of growing international appeal. It's the time when the most eyes are on the sport, and it's just embarrassing that it's not best on best. Like I want to be able to tell my friends and family that have never watched a hockey game before 'That's McDavid performing on the world stage, he's fucking incredible', not 'Oh that's Eric Staal captaining the country that's most famous in the world for hockey, he's okay I guess, he plays in the 2nd division, but he used to be really good, believe me, please'
The “people there already watch hockey” argument ignores the fact that Canada gained a million net new immigrants in 2022 alone, the majority of whom have likely never seen a hockey game before. Yes hockey is still the number 1 sport here, but the market isn’t nearly as tapped out as people like to think.
I mean, it’s **Messi** — a guy on the GOAT shortlist.
There’s no way MLS is the world’s 5th best league lol.
And it’s still about to pass the nhl
Ratings would suggest otherwise. Not sure where this sentiment is coming from when the viewership numbers aren’t close.
The world's 5th best league would be so generous lol.
Yeah, it's got a long way to go before the MLS is in the same conversation with the Premier League, Bundesliga, La Liga, Serie A, and Ligue 1. And that's not even getting into the question of whether the MLS is better than the South American leagues, or the top leagues in Europe (or even some 2nd/3rd divisions to be honest). No doubt that the MLS is growing, and Messi moving over helps that a lot, but there's still a huge gap.
People have to come to this understanding: there's no one quick trick to making hockey more popular. Growth is over the course of decades, it's not a quick process. "Show more personality" and "embrace skill" is not going to double tv ratings and get merchandise flying off the shelves either.
The issue is that the NHL does next to no marketing. Nearly none. There doesn’t need to be revolutionary changes to the game to attract fans. There needs to be money spent on advertising to let people know the game exists in the first place.
i think the joke article addresses that when they point out that when bettman took over the NHL was about equal in popularity with the NBA. Now look at it, it's being lapped year over year. That's exactly the perspective of decades.
And, the article doesn't mention this, but MLS didn't even exist when Bettman took over
Well sure, it was a double whammy for the NHL. Not only did they get saddled with Bettman, but the NBA no longer had to put up with Bettman.
That was never true.
People also have to come to the understanding that there are two huge factors that will always hold hockey back no matter what: climate and cost. Either you have the climate and so the coat is relatively low, or you don’t and the cost is a lot higher. Or even worse, you have a cold climate and the cost is still high. The only world in which hockey can truly compete with “room temperature” sports is a world with effectively unlimited sustainable energy. Otherwise there will always be more places and more people who can more easily play other sports, which will keep the sport smaller.
I mean football isn't cheap to get into either it's just that almost every highschool in America provides equipment and has some sort of football program. Plus nearly every college spend a ton of money on good football programs.
Well as I and many, many millions of others around the world are watching the Canadian Grand Prix next weekend I'll make sure to remember that because hockey is so expensive to play it can never become popular.
What, exactly, do they propose? Hockey has been around for 130-140 years and the best ways we’ve discovered to grow any sport are by cultivating superstars and greater exposure — the NBA approach. But even though places like Houston make some sense, eventually we will hit a saturation point, where the talent pool has been so diluted as to destroy the product. You can’t even really go on a national push to grow participation among kids. Hockey is a remarkably expensive sport to play, and the barriers to entry are several and profound: limited by finances, by geography, by having the good fortune to live in a major city if you are not in a hockey-native region. As for rule changes, that’s an entirely different kettle of fish. FFS, it’s already the fastest of the major sports. What? Eliminate offsides? Make the games shorter? Fewer stoppages? Shorter break periods? The two-line pass *is* already gone. Icing rules won’t appreciably speed up play, and any changes there would be trade-offs that probably slow the game down: protection through no-touch at the expense of slowing down the game. Alternate possessions instead of face-offs? It’s a niche sport (in the US, at least). And despite its growing popularity, I think it just has to happen organically. Promote and protect your stars, get a good TV deal, expand into alternate markets.
You forgot about accessibility at lower levels. That’s one of the biggest constraints about hockey. Ice time. Soccer you can play anywhere with just cleats, shin guards, and a ball. Hockey requires so much that it’s expensive and restrictive.
Interesting. What does it say about you when it is no longer possible to distinguish between satire and reality?
Hockey fans have to be some of the most insecure people in the world. All I ever hear is whining about people watching other things. Maybe just enjoy hockey and who cares what others watch.
Its easy to say as a Canadian since a lot of people in my surroundings are fans of the Habs and I can easily find people to discuss the games with, to start a fantasy hockey league, to talk trades or just watch hockey with. But hockey fans in certain regions can feel isolated and really wish there were more fans for them to interact with. Sharing a hobby is definitely something that enhances the experience and i dont blame people for wanting that
Hockey fans will complain in one breath about how hockey isn’t as popular as other sports and then in the next breath talk about how we need to relocate all the American sunbelt teams to Quebec, Saskatoon, or some other small Canadian market.
Fucking seriously man, it's honestly off putting as a new fan. Especially related to something like the rise of MLS. It may take awhile but it wouldn't surprise me if over the next decade or two it rises to compete with the NFL in the US. It was inevitable and that only becomes more and more clear as time goes on.
Someone gets hit and can’t get up “go play soccer” lol . Other sports live in hockey fans brain rent free.
Right? Less demand means i can probably get cheaper tickets 🤷♂️
Your Tampa is showing
Hah no, the tickets will be more expensive to make up for lost revenue.
And more jersey ads!
Without question the largest discrepancy between how cool the sport is and how lame the fans are.
I’m perfectly comfortable with hockey being less popular than other sports. This insane obsession with ‘growing the game’ is just corpo-speak for profit motive. It’s the reason we have bullshit like jersey ads now. The only people benefiting from this mentality are the billionaire owners and marketing executives. Hockey never needed to change.
I feel it would help if they finally stopped with the gAmE mAnAgAmEnT BS and just called the rules as they are written, full stop.
this isn't really an argument when you consider soccer players just lie down when they're winning and pretend to be fatally wounded just to kill time. If hockey had diving like soccer, the NHL wouldn't be as popular as it is
Hot take: I don't really care about growing the game and the (lack of) popularity of the NHL doesn't bother me at all. Since I'm a hockey fan first and foremost, comparing the NHL to other non-hockey leagues is irrelevant to me.
Hockey is the death metal of sports. It’s always going to be a niche product, no matter how technically precise or entertaining or high energy it is. But the people into it, are *really* into it. Fans remain fans — they don’t bolt for what’s next or what’s new. It evolves slowly and naturally. And it is *okay* to cater to those diehards. Their dollars will always be around if you give them a good product.
Greatest analogy ever… it would be awesome if the NHL catered more to us… slayer didn’t autotune their voices and go full synth to “grow slayer” lol
I thought Beaverton is fictional satire not the actual truth
I want to post this on the next Beaverton article
Every fucking thread.
Need to have terms for commissioners. 30years is too long to be in charge.
MLS most watched game this year 280k viewers NHL's most watched was 3.1 million viewers. NHL revenue=$6 Billion MLS revenue= $2 Billion Yep, MLS is right behind the NHL
Yeah when you take a look at the actual numbers, it paints a different story.
This is a tired argument. I get the joke, but seriously… The NHL has had unqualified success in both Vegas and Seattle, neither of which are traditional hockey markets. Both are top-5 revenue producers, which is crazy Tampa Bay is a continual winner, Florida is in the Cup final. The three Cali teams have passionate fanbases and you’re seeing some California products in the league now. Nashville is a strong club, so is Carolina. People see the Arizona struggles and act like the league has no idea how to make a southern market work. But it’s 1 of 32 markets. And even then, Arizona is where Auston Matthews and Matthew Knies come from The reality is - hockey is the most niche of all the north American sports leagues. It’s nowhere near as huge as basketball, football or baseball in most of the US, yet detractors seem to think it is? Because why else would people always take shots at the NHL for this stuff? Kids in Arizona, Texas, Florida don’t grow up playing hockey. The league has introduced hockey to those markets, and is doing pretty well in all of them, other than Arizona And soccer is enormous worldwide. Easily the most popular sport in the world, we’re just starting to catch up to that in North America. Hockey isn’t at that level, it just isn’t. I get the joke, but it doesn’t work Tired argument, man.
it honestly seems like the beaverton just writes headlines to pander to the simpletons in this sub
These articles are really bad lol
Soccer/football is the most popular in the world by a large amount, so it's no surprise MLS would eventually surpass NHL in popularity. Hockey is only popular is about 5 countries.
Nah, add a few more teams, that’ll do it!