Wayne Smith <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>(1) I agree with ESPN. It's too bad, but college hockey *IS* a regional
> sport with just local fan interest.
Yes, and will, in all likelihood, remain so.
> New NHL franchises are helping, but we've a long way to go.
Yes, but really closer to no, and yes.
New NHL franchises are helping to promote the sport of hockey. As more people
get interested, the NHL creates new franchises and takes the biggest slice of
the newly baked pie. Who benefits next? The AHL, IHL and ECHL. Twenty years
ago the AHL almost died, the IHL was a small regional league and the ECHL did
not exist. Now they are expanding like crazy (AHL adding two new teams next
year) and developing solid fan bases. In the classic Reagan
economic theory, there is some trickle down effect, but it's not really helping
college hockey. Basically, college hockey (and baseball also) suffer from two
fundamental flaws, one historical and one geographical.
The historical problem comes from the manner in which the four major sports
in this country were popularized. Let's start with football. First played
(subject to debate) in 1869, its rules were basically standardized in the
1890's and by the turn of the century had spread coast-to-coast, starting in
New Jersey. Heroes had been developed before the First World War and included
Knute Rockne, Jim Thorpe, Pop Warner and Amos Alonzo Stagg. Football
conferences date to 1895 (what is now the Big Ten). When did the NFL come
about? 1920. In other words, college football had a 50 YEAR MONOPOLY on the
sport. The NFL would not approach the college game in popularity until the
1958 NFL title game and would surpass it with the founding of the Super Bowl
in the late 1960's (the first of which did not sell out Memorial Coliseum in
LA. The Rose Bowl, which seats more, did sell out that year).
Now basketball. Invented in 1891, it was again the colleges that popularized
the sport, and it was extremely popular in New York City, giving the sport
the best press it could get. The NIT was founded in 1938, NCAA championship
in 1939, and for the next decade these tournaments would duel to see which
was better. Professional basketball would only start to hit the big time
in 1946 when the BAA was founded. It merged with the NBL in 1949 to form
the NBA and only thirty years later would it start to surpass college
basketball in popularity. Just check the amount of franchise shifting done
in the NBA over that thirty year period. They fought hard to keep the teams
financially sound while the college game thrived.
What's the point of these two stories? That while the colleges popularized the
two sports, the professionals ultimately came to be the dominant powers. In
hockey and baseball, it was the professionals who popularized the sport and
are already the dominant powers. Therefore, the opportunity to lead the
growth of hockey and baseball will not be there for the NCAA or its members.
The reason why has to do with geography. The pros can go where the people
are, and the colleges must stay where the college is located. This is a BIG
advantage professional sports have over the NCAA. In the growing stages of
basketball and football, if you wanted to see a game, you went to the nearest
college. Now people have a choice, professional or college, or TV. The
monopoly is gone. Therefore, to maximize the number of people who want to
see a game in person, you put your teams where there are the most people.
The five largest Metropolitan areas in the US are New York, Chicago, LA,
San Francisco and Philadelphia. They have 8 NHL teams, 1 IHL team (and adding
1 more) and 2 Division I hockey teams (Princeton and Illinois-Chicago).
That's not much of a presence in the best markets in the nation, and ESPN's
hockey ratings aren't that great with the 8 teams they have, so you can't
expect them to start covering much college hockey.
To put it another way, look at the ECAC. Surrounded by hockey hotbeds in
Quebec, Eastern New England, New York/Long Island and Toronto, one would think
the ECAC is in a prime location to develop hockey. It should be, but the 8
teams in that area (6 in NY plus Vermont and Dartmouth) are in horrible
spots. Can you guess which of those 8 teams is in the largest city?
Answer:
Union College in Schenectady (population 65,566). That's saying something,
which is that the ECAC will have a rough time getting good coverage, TV
or otherwise, until New York gets a mass influx of people upstate. I'm
not holding my breath.
The bottom line is this: College hockey will never be at the forefront of
the hockey world, a position football and basketball enjoyed, and therefore
will always be relegated behind the professionals and will not control the
growth of the game. It is not located in the prime media spots, and there-
fore will not get the coverage it needs to grow nationally. The only chance
for college hockey to increase its exposure is to concentrate on strong
regional coverage to increase its popularity in the immediate vicinity.
Unfortunately, that leads to a situation where the conferences are working
by themselves, not together, consequently not maximizing their efforts.
Bottom line, there is no quick fix.
> Is HOCKEY-L simply a collection of hockey nuts or does the game have an
> appeal that can transcend the local team if we somehow market it
> properly?
No, we're not nuts. We see a fantastic product and love it. The problem is
in getting others to see the product at all. Catch-22: Others would like it
if they saw it, but they won't see it unless they like it.
I leave it to others to figure out the answers.
*******************************************************************************
Kurt Stutt * "In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous."
[log in to unmask] * --Robert G. Ingersoll
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