The NHL is one of America’s least
popular sports mass media wise. ESPN does broadcast scores of NHL teams,
however not to the extent that it does for the NBA, NFL, or MLB. When it comes
to the NHL on ESPN, if you do not have a big name player who is well known or
you are not a team in the top five of the league, chances are you will be left
off that nights episode. They have been transitioning into a more NHL friendly
program by having NHL segments featuring a great former player and coach, Barry
Melrose. While this is headed in a good direction, it is still an under
broadcast sport.
In
the NHL, seven teams sell out and fill their seats all year long. That is five
more than any NBA team can do (Koivu). Also, in the NHL, there are only two
teams that are under 80% when it comes to filling their seats and those two
teams come in at 77.7% and 79.5% (Koivu). In the NBA there are seven teams that
fall below that 80% mark and all seven of them fall below 75.8%. Two even fall
below the 70% mark! Yet they are still receiving more media attention than the
NHL.
Until recent
years, ESPN and local news stations were the only place hockey fans could go,
but they still would not get as much coverage as they want. Not until different
channels were developed that challenged and are still challenging hockey fans
to switch their sports viewing to. The most famous pertaining to the NHL is the
NHL Network. They cover strictly NHL news witch is now a hockey fans heaven. This,
in turn, has influenced ESPN to start the coverage like I mentioned above.
Twitter is another
thing. NHL players accumulate for millions and millions of followers. Not to
mention the millions of people that follow the team pages and all of their
unofficial twitter handles. These people would all love to see more of the NHL
on the TV. Improvement is there, but is still in the working.
Work Cited
CapGeek.com.
"NHL Twitter Rankings." Cap Geek. N.p., 2014. Web. 12 Nov.
2014.
Koivu,
Kayla. "Mass Media." Prezi.com. Prezi, 15 Apr. 2013. Web. 12
Nov. 2014.
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