I think it's possibly an aging demographics piece as well.
In my 20's I used to probably watch the full 60 minutes of every single Flames game. Now in my mid-30s with a young kid and a busier life I'm generally catching a period or two and not even for every game.
Most people in their early 20's to mid 20's that I know don't really care about hockey, and really I think that's the demographic that might be missing as the previous demographics start to age out a bit.
And honestly I think the product has taken a decline - even though I think the players are more skilled than ever:
-Poor production values and terrible intermission and analysts
-Poor officiating and game management where it's inconsistent period to period
-Lack of personality that is just drained out of NHLers
In general I think it's just a more competitive market for people's free time, and really the quality of other things to watch as increased with strong content on Disney+, Amazon Prime, Netflix, etc.
Tougher to justify spending 3 hours watching a game that is plagued with poor reffing and production values, when you have so much other content available to watch. Especially since you just end up being frustrated with what you just watched half the time with the NHL.
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