People in Canada love the NHL. People in the United States are indifferent to the league.
With that being said, if you are the National Hockey League, who are you going to cater to? The nation that cares about the sport the most? Or the nation where so few people watch games that ratings for taped poker events can draw larger numbers?
Gary Bettman has apparently chosen the latter. In his tenure as NHL commissioner, teams have migrated from hockey hotbeds in Canada to hockey indifferent cities such as Phoenix and Tampa. The NHL, in the past several years, has done everything in its power to attract the U.S. fan, virtually ignoring and taking for granted the Canadian fans that make up the league’s backbone.
Yet another example of this is the league’s playoff scheduling. The CBC desperately wanted to feature the Ottawa Senators in its traditional Saturday night prime-time slot. Normally, NBC would not want anything to do with a Canadian team, and there would be no problem. However, this year, Sidney Crosby — arguably the most hyped player in the entire league — and the Pittsburgh Penguins are playing the Senators in the first round, meaning NBC wants every chance it can get to feature hockey’s LeBron James.
So with NBC and the CBC both wanting to showcase Penguins/Senators, guess who Gary Bettman sided with? NBC, the network that airs nine NHL games during the regular season and a maximum of ten during the playoffs. The CBC, the network that airs the venerable Hockey Night in Canada franchise, a network that is dedicated to NHL hockey, instead gets to air the Tampa Bay Lightning versus the New Jersey Devils on Saturday night — a game that “likely will be the lowest-rated Saturday night game this season.“
As a comparison, imagine that the NBA — popular in the U.S. and generally ignored in Canada (despite the success of the Toronto Raptors) — began catering to its Canadian broadcast partners when creating its playoff schedule. Imagine that Rogers Sportsnet or TSN somehow had more clout than TNT, ESPN or ABC. Imagine that Lakers/Suns Game 1 aired at 9:00 PM or 10:00 PM on a Sunday to accommodate Raptors NBA TV, while ABC was left with Magic/Pistons.
That would be ridiculous. That would be a slap in the face to the U.S. fans that are the NBA’s backbone. David Stern would have to be an idiot to take such an action; he would have to be completely dissociated from the wants and needs of the people who actually enjoy his sport. David Stern would have to be like his prot?g?, Gary Bettman.
Yes, NBC will get higher ratings thanks to Crosby. But a large audience for an NHL telecast in the U.S. is proportionally smaller than the audience that could have tuned in on CBC in prime-time in Canada. Last Saturday’s Maple Leafs/Canadiens game drew 2.8 million viewers in Canada, comparable to regular season NBA games on ABC and baseball games on FOX, and higher than any non Stanley Cup Final hockey broadcast on NBC.
Perhaps most insulting to the CBC is the fact that NBC has the New York Rangers in reserve; the network will air Rangers/Thrashers regionally with Penguins/Senators. In other words, the NHL is leaving Hockey Night in Canada out in the cold so NBC can air the game regionally.
The NHL is Teflon in Canada, which is what allows the league to continue chasing after the elusive U.S. fan at the expense of the people that support it. Eventually this will backfire on the league — and Gary Bettman could find himself with poor numbers in two nations.
