Decade in Review: 5 biggest NHL stories
TMC
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).