Quote:
Originally Posted by Calgary4LIfe
As a Canadian hockey fan, I love Gary Bettman. I really don't see a reason to dislike him at all.
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I feel he's leaned too far towards making money at the cost of growing the game. The huge broadcaster contracts are a big part of this. Since the broadcasters were very often the cable providers, a lot of the value they saw was using these rights to keep people from cable cutting. Since cable cutters were predominately younger this lead to sacrificing an opportunity to grow the game for a larger contract in the moment. These broadcast contracts relied on the exclusive rights to an existing audience to make money. If you wanted to watch hockey, there was only one place to go (unless you count the high seas). This lead the broadcasters to focus on cutting costs, raising consumer prices, and adding more and more ads to make a profit, none of which will help grow the game.
The NHL could have lead the north american sports industry in adapting internet streaming, innovating to grow a fan base in younger demographics. Instead they played it safe with big broadcast contracts. They could have allowed stars to have personalities and embraced social media to promote the players, instead they played it safe with dress codes and the tame media training. They could have innovated the rules to increase scoring opportunities and reduce defense oriented play, and there were big improvements post clutch-and-grab, but they played it safe to not upset tradition.
Garry Bettman has done a lot of good for the league. The salary cap has saved smaller market teams, including the Flames, and expanding to more American markets has grown the potential fan base. Arguably the game on the ice is as exciting as it's ever been, but the off ice product has done nothing but decline. I had a better viewing experience for less $$ in 2015 than I do now. Stream quality is still mediocre at best. There are ads everywhere, I counted 9 different ads in frame at the same time during play the other day. I haven't even touched on gambling yet. How does he expect to attract new fans in this environment?
In 2017 the average NHL fan was 49 years old, up 16 years from 33 in 2000. That's a stagnate league, one making money through milking an existing fan base instead of growing. Since then we've seen two new teams, and ESPN+ and TNT bringing in new fans. There has also been a weird surge of hockey popularity coming from young women and steamy hockey romance novels (if you want to see something very different to here check out the flames community on tumblr). So it's not all doom and gloom, but imagine if we'd actually had growth during the 2010s.
So yeah, I dislike Garry Bettman. As much as I hated him after the lockouts, what he did then was required for the league. Since then he has been far too focused on making money at the cost of growing the game. He has played it safe, happy to remain the 4th most popular NA sport, rather than trying to innovate and attract a younger audience.