Quote:
Originally Posted by JiriHrdina
But do you not think that's the evaluation the NHL has made? That is - if indeed Olympics participation has shown to be an important driver of growth for the NHL, then they would happily make the trade off between what they risk/lose from pausing their season with participation. The fact they aren't going tells me they've made that evaluation and the decision reflects what they concluded.
And just because they don't go to this one, doesn't mean they don't go to another one. The geography just isn't compelling.
I know if I was an owner I wouldn't vote to go.
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I think they do make those decisions based on economics, but I think they consistently do so in a short sighted fashion. And here I don't think they care much about new fans in Asia because they can't easily monetize them in the short term. As a result they saw somebody else profiting and tried to get a piece, failed and torpedoed the enterprise.
They make more money moving their product from peasantvision to premium sports cable obviously and gamecenter type packages. In the long run is that good for the health of hockey? Definitely not as far as attracting new fans (I know they've pushed games onto CBC). How about getting every team into an ultra premium luxury box filled stadium? Makes a lot more money short term but what does it do to your fanbase in the long term when it costs hundreds of dollars to take your kids to a game? Chokes out the ability of lower income and immigrant families to attend. Coupled with equipment and icetime getting crazy expensive for kids to play at the same time it's not a good recipe long term.
I think they consistently choose the path that will make them the most money over a short horizon and are unconcerned with, or too narrow to see that in the long run, hockey is not picking up new fans in other areas of the world and in fact is also losing much of the younger demographic here as a result.