^ The NHL already sold the pre-season for good money. $5.6 billion from Rogers alone.
Quote:
Originally Posted by spuzzum
The numbers and statistics speak for themselves. 16.6 million Canadians waking up to watch the gold medal game in Sochi in the middle of the night. The World Cup of Hockey had 3.3 and 2.1 million viewers for the semi and final games in prime time.
I am still gutted the NHL is not going to Korea. It is the tournament the NHL beefed up every four years and was THE hockey tournament. When an entire country stops and spends three hours watching an ice hockey game, that tells you something.
Yes the World Cups of 30 years ago were magnificent and memorable, but the Olympics is what the NHL went with and the results and excitement are not even close. This last World Cup had very little meaning and the average hockey fan didn't even care.
|
You're attempting to use an emotional appeal as a counter to a hard business decision. The number of people that watched the final in Sochi is, frankly, irrelevant, because none of that went toward the NHL's business. Even in terms of residual effects, the league by now has an excellent idea on how much Olympic hype impacts ratings for its own games, and for how long. It knows what impact it has on merchandise sales and ticket sales and all the rest.
And the NHL thinks the deal, as structured, is a bad one. That gives us an indication of what the direct impacts for the NHL are.