Sports Media Watch presents the 5 biggest NHL stories of the past 10 years.
#5: Bad ratings
During the 2000s, the NHL?s already low ratings plunged into the abyss.
The NHL?s ratings have never been impressive, but during the first half of the decade they remained fairly respectable. ABC?s 3-game coverage of the Stanley Cup Finals averaged 5.8 million viewers in ?02 ? not great compared to other sports, but generally solid. Even though the 2003 Mighty Ducks/Devils series was not a particularly big draw, Game 7 drew a 4.6 rating and 7.2 million viewers ? making it the most-viewed NHL telecast to that point since 1974.
The numbers really began to decline following the 2004-05 lockout. The lockout, combined with the league?s move to OLN/Versus, resulted in two years of astoundingly bad ratings.
In 2006, household viewership for regular season games on OLN slipped below the WNBA on ESPN2 (ESPN.com, 5/23/06), and total viewership for the Stanley Cup Finals on NBC and OLN dropped below 3 million viewers.
The ratings got worse in 2007, as the Ducks/Senators Stanley Cup Finals averaged fewer than 2 million viewers. Game 3 of the series drew just a 1.1 rating and 1.6 million viewers on NBC, marking ?the lowest-rated night in the network?s history? (SBD, 6/6/07). Game 3 was outdrawn head-to-head by Meltdown: Days Destruct on Sci-Fi Channel (1.2, 2 mil). That came after Games 1 and 2 on Versus finished behind such primetime fare as Build a Better Burger on Food Network, Sunset Tan on E! and even reruns of Mama?s Family on ION.
Thankfully for the NHL, the numbers improved by the end of the decade. Regular season viewership has increased each season on OLN/Versus, and back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals between the Red Wings and Penguins have resulted in the two most-viewed series since ?02. Penguins/Red Wings Game 7 in ?09 drew 8 million viewers on NBC, the most for an NHL telecast since ?73.
#4: The Bertuzzi incident
The NHL gained some rare ? and unwanted ? national attention in 2004, after Todd Bertuzzi?s sucker punch of Steve Moore.
Bertuzzi?s in-game attack on Moore, which resulted in Moore suffering a broken neck, became a major topic in the media ? and not just on SportsCenter. The attack was discussed on cable news shows including CNN?s American Morning and Anderson Cooper 360, FOX News? The Big Story with John Gibson, and MSNBC?s Countdown with Keith Olbermann, just to name a few. Olbermann listed the incident as one of the reasons people were ?beginning to hate sports? (msnbc.com, 3/11/04). Overall, ?[f]rom ABC to CNN, from Fox to Katie Couric and Matt Lauer tsk- tsking on NBC’s ‘Today’ show, hockey took its lumps? (Los Angeles Times, 3/16/04).
The incident reinforced negative opinions about violence in hockey. ?CNN and Good Morning America devoted major airtime to frank discussions about the thuggery they think defines the sport,? USA Today?s Ted Montgomery wrote, ?I’ve never once seen either of these two news outlets cover hockey in any way, until now. Experts were on hand to lend their uninformed takes on why hockey is bad for the American psyche, and how it leads to the pack mentality that underscores the violence that is so prevalent on the streets of America? (USA Today, 3/15/04).
In an interview with Sports Illustrated, then-ESPN/ABC analyst John Davidson added, ?When you have something like the Bertuzzi thing it’s a frenzy out there in this country and everybody piles on. … I call most of the people who do that vultures because I don’t think they know the game, they don’t understand that they play 1,200 games a year and [these incidents] are very seldom seen? (si.com, 3/18/04).
#3: The Winter Classic
Arguably the biggest success story for the NHL in the 2000s was the Winter Classic.
After a successful 2003 outdoor game between the Oilers and Canadiens, several NHL teams ?expressed interest? in staging future outdoor games. ?The speculation is that the league will add an annual outdoor game to its calendar. The NHL would award an outdoor game to a city a few years in advance much like the league does with the all-star game and the entry draft? (SBD, 11/25/03).
After sliding off the radar for a couple of years, talk of an outdoor NHL game resurfaced in ?06, with proposed outdoor games involving the Rangers and Islanders at Yankee Stadium and the Maple Leafs against an unnamed opponent at BMO Field. In 2007, the NHL announced that the Penguins and Sabres would play an outdoor game at Ralph Wilson Stadium. The game would be played on New Year?s Day ?08 on NBC.
That first Winter Classic ? won by the Penguins in a shootout ? attracted over 70,000 fans, and was deemed a ?huge ? and entertaining success? (SBD, 1/3/08). The game drew a 2.2 rating on NBC, the best for a regular season NHL game since ?99.
That was followed up with another successful game in 2009, this time between the Red Wings and Blackhawks at Wrigley Field. That game drew a 2.5 rating and 4.4 million viewers, making the game the most-viewed regular season NHL telecast since 1975.
With the success of the first two games, the Winter Classic has begun to stake it’s claim as an unlikely staple of New Year?s Day, drawing ratings on par with or better than some Stanley Cup Finals games.
#2: Television deal with OLN/Versus
Ratings-wise, the NHL was not exactly in a position of strength when it came time to work on new television agreements in 2004. An impending lockout only made things worse.
The NHL signed television deals with ESPN and NBC in May ?04. The ESPN deal ? worth $60 million per season, compared to $120 million in the previous deal ? was for the 2004-05 season, with options for the next two seasons. After the 2004-05 season was canceled, ESPN chose not to pick up its option for future seasons. However, the network was still open to negotiating with the NHL ? just for far less than the original $60 million. But the NHL, according to a league spokesman, had ?no interest in further devaluing the product? (New York Times, 6/1/05).
Filling the void left by ESPN was Comcast?s Outdoor Life Network (OLN), which struck a two-year deal with the NHL ?worth over $100M? (SBD, 8/9/05). ESPN retained the right to match the offer, but declined.
Trading ESPN for OLN meant losing millions of potential viewers. At the time of the deal, OLN was in just 64 million households, compared to ESPN?s 90 million. Additionally, it meant trading a network virtually synonymous with big-time sports to one known for more obscure events like hunting and fishing. As L.A. Daily News writer Tom Hoffarth noted, the NHL had ?gone from mainstream to Field and Stream? (SBD, 8/19/05).
The move became a major source of criticism from the media, fans and even NHL officials. In 2009, then-NHLPA director Paul Kelly said of Versus, ?It doesn’t have a sports highlight show. It doesn’t have a lot of properties people want to tune in to, unless you are a hunter or a fisherman or you like turtle wrestling? (Sports Business Journal, 5/25/09).
Low ratings during the first couple of seasons seemed to bolster the thought that moving to OLN (renamed Versus in ?06) had been a bad idea. Gradually, however, the numbers began to improve. In 2009, the net?s coverage of the Stanley Cup Finals averaged 3.2 million viewers, and the 3.4 million for Game 4 was the most for any Stanley Cup Final telecast on cable since 2002.
And, while Versus still lacks the presence and legitimacy of ESPN, Comcast?s yet-to-be-approved deal to take over NBC Universal figures to give the network the extra credibility of being associated with the NBC Sports brand.
#1: The lockout
The 2004-05 NHL lockout did not catch anyone by surprise. Talk of a lengthy work stoppage began as far back as summer 2002. ?The only question is how long [a work stoppage] will last,? the Detroit Free Press? Michael Rosenberg wrote in June ?02, ?It’s possible that the league will skip an entire season? (SBD, 6/7/02). In July ?02, Maple Leafs coach Pat Quinn was fined for ?publicly promising? a lockout (SBD, 7/16/02). In early ?03, one former NHL owner said that the current owners would be ?prepared to put the fans through a lockout or strike even longer than one season? (SBD, 1/20/03). Then-Red Wing Steve Yzerman added later that year that the ?general consensus or feeling, at least on our team, is that there is going to be a lock-out and it’s going to be a long one” (SBD, 12/11/03).
Amid those dire predictions, there were brief glimmers of optimism. In January ?03, an unnamed NHL official said that ?[f]rom what I’m hearing, [a lockout] may not happen. The agents are not going to follow [NHLPA Exec Dir] Bob Goodenow over the cliff this time? (SBD, 1/27/03). Over a year later, Bettman noted that there was still ?plenty of time for a successful negotiation, and I am hopeful that we can achieve one without disruption? (SBD, 2/9/04).
Any optimism eventually went by the wayside. In May ?04, Goodenow told agents that ?that the chance of a lockout which will last more than one year is in the high 90[%] range? (SBD, 5/14/04). Meetings between the NHL and the NHLPA took place with little progress made (SBD, 8/5/04; SBD, 8/27/04), and on September 16, 2004, the inevitable NHL lockout became reality.
As had been predicted, the NHL lockout lasted the entire 2004-05 season. The All-Star Game was canceled in November, the season and playoffs were canceled in February ? and perhaps worst of all, a January ?05 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll indicated that 50% of sports fans were ?not disappointed at all? (SBD, 1/11/05).
Finally, after over three years of talk and one full season without games, the NHL and the NHLPA reached an agreement in July ?05. The general consensus was that, while the owners got the better end of the deal, everybody involved lost. ?The players got hurt, the owners got hurt, the game got hurt,? then Flyers? GM Bob Clarke said, ?It?s pretty hard to sit here right now and say anything that happened is good over the last winter? (SBD, 7/14/05).
