Recently in NHL Category
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The National Hockey League has been worried about television ratings for a couple years now. They have not been receiving the type of attention they want, but the NHL's ratings are now improving. There are mainly five reasons as to why the ratings have improved. First, the Olympics helped the ratings. The Canadian and American showed how exciting hockey can be and introduced everyone to key players in the NHL. Secondly, there have been a lot more close games this year. A closer game brings a lot more excitement and more people wanting to watch. The third are two people who even non-hockey fans could know, Crosby and Ovechkin. They both have so much talent and make the game of hockey so exciting to watch. They bring a new type of energy to the game. The fourth are how many more goals are being scored. When there are only 1 or 2 goal games, the thrill of game is gone. Goals are what make hockey interesting to watch. When there are no goals, there are going to be fewer viewers. The last reason is the website. The NHL's website is one of the best around. It is very easy to navigate and has a lot of visitors. The ratings keep increasing and they do not seem to be stopping.
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This week during the general manager's meetings, they will try to decide what is
a legal and illegal hit
, and if it is illegal what the punishment should be. Althoughbig hits in the NHL is one big way in which the sport separates itself from the other
mainstream sports, it has recently been getting out of hand. For example on October
24th, 2009 Mike Richards of the Philadelphia Flyers went head hunting on David Booth of
the Florida Panthers. Booth was not able to get up on his own power and was taken off
of the ice on a stretcher. He suffered a concussion and had to be monitored by medical
staff for days after. While the speed of the game continues to increase, so do the number
of head injuries. Right now at this moment, there are three NHL players out with a concussion, with one of those three, Marc Savard maybe missing the rest of the season with a grade 2 concussion. While Marc lay momentarily unconscious on the ice, the Boston Bruins realized that they may have lost their top scorer for the rest of the season. At the end of these next few days, hopefully the NHL will have a more clear interpretation of legal and illegal hits, but only time will tell.
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biggest hit and many hockey players rushed out to the store to get one.
After a couple of months the S17 became white noise. Everyone thought that the S17 was as good as hockey technology was going to get. They were sorrily mistaken.
A couple of months ago Easton came out with a brand new stick titled the S19.
This stick once again opened the eyes of many hockey players. The Easton S19 improved characteristics like a more accurate flex of the stick,and the stick became
lighter while increasing its durability. This just goes to show that when you think techonology is at the best it can be, you are only deceiving yourself.
StratBridge Inc. has just developed ground breaking software that should undoubtedly help professional teams in every sport to make better managerial decisions. StratBridge Inc. is a company that has developed software for both ticket sales (StratTix), and player analysis (StratEdge). The company was founded in 1999 by Mr. Matthew Marolda and made a name for themselves in 2005 with their ticket selling software. StratTix can be used in a number of ways to help teams gain valuable information about their ticket sales, as well as the people buying them. This software can help the team view up-to-the-minute seating charts to see which seats are selling, and which ones are not. It will provide the teams with information about the people purchasing the tickets such as their geographical area, what source they used to purchase them (Ticket Master, Stubhub etc.), and helping to predict attendance. This will help lead to teams to finding the best time to market, when the best time is to promote, and will help their yield management strategies to become more effective. The company's newest software breakthrough, StratEdge, will ultimately give an "edge" to teams that are scouting and looking to draft, or sign specific players. It provides teams with detailed information about trades, contract extensions, and how they match up to other athletes at their position. This company is in a niche of its own, and one of the best at what they do. These new tools that are now readily available for any team will help them make smarter business decisions that everyone knows will ultimately affect their franchise for years to come. StratBridge Inc. already has more then 100 deals with professional teams in the NHL, MLB, NFL, MLS, AFL, and minor league baseball. They hope to continue to build bridges with and for various sport franchises around the world.
Is it time to give the NHL a second chance? Has the heartbreak of the "Lost Season" finally subsided in all of us? The league seems to think so. When the league reopened its operations in 2004 a major decision had to be made on how reaching back the spectators who were deprived of their sport. The league realized they had lost fans, but at the same time wanted this change a "New Face" for the rebuilding sport.
In 2006, the executive producer of NBC Sports, Dick Ebersol believed that hockey needed an opportunity to get back in the national coverage. With that, NBC agreed on rights to broadcasting regular season games, however were not required to purchase broadcasting fees. But, in return, NBC Sports would pay all production costs, including the Winter Classic held every New Years. With networks such as Versus, TSN and CBC (Canada) who are required to pay millions of dollars for coverage, one can only imagine how long until the league asks for a broadcasting fees from NBC. The contract between NBC and NHL ends this season , and talks with FOX (who televised games up until the late 90's) would attract an offer to the NHL for broadcasting rights.
Within the past few seasons, the NHL has put on a game on New Year's Day labeled the "Winter Classic" in which two teams would come to a home local city but in a larger venue. In 2009, Wrigley Field was host of the classic between Detroit and Chicago, for NBC it scored with over four million viewers watching on television. (An NHL viewership record broken after 34 years) After all the ticket sales, merchandise items and other items were counted for, clearly Gary Bettman, has a strong item here to sell on New Year's Day. However, the big picture is to translate the viewership throughout the entire hockey season. The viewership is there, but will broadcasting companies take the risk of investing money to the still re-growing process of the NHL?
And if they do, Bettman can continue to rub his magic genie lamp knowing he will continue to prosper the league as he has for the past six years. Only time can tell, but something tells me the NEW NHL is ready to grow its viewership further.
http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=sbd.preview&articleID=127241
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090112/SPORTS0103/901120431/1361
Viewership for the CBC's Hockey Night In Canada (HNIC) has "grown in all time slots" this season. The first game of the HNIC doubleheaders is averaging 1.348 million viewers, up 13% from the same point in the 2007-2008 season. The second game of the double header is averaging 763,000 viewers, up 19% from last season.In late September the NHL instituted a new rule in which owners,who usually keep their
business private and to themselves, will have to disclose it. In response to some unknown finacial arrangements between owners, now owners will have to disclose all business and financial relationships between one another. The league has said all 30 teams have complied with the new policy and that the rule also applies to all potential new owners. Which means all potential owners must disclose all their relationships with other NHL owners at the time of the potential
purpose.
From:http://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/article/60609
With the passing of this rule, I feel the league will be more financially better. With the league aware of all business relationships, maybe they can prevent another unneeded lockout and stay financially safe. This also prevent secrets and so the league will not have any surprises. This will help the league regain status and flourish for more years to come.
In This week's edition of the sports business journal there is an article on a new rule in the NHL. This rule though is for the owners and not the players. The new rule requires all NHL team owners to disclose any business deals that are made with other team players. The rule was written in September because of a loan that was taken from AEG (who owns the LA kings) by the former Predators owner that had to list the loan when he filed for bankruptcy. The league never knew about the loan.
I am not sure about this rule for the NHL; this will just help to make sure that something like this doesn't happen again. It really doesn't do anything other than that, some would say that this relates to collusion, but it doesn't. You have to remember that collusion is illegal so I am pretty sure that owners wouldn't make it a public document. It does however show which owners are having business relationships which could relate to something like that if a collusion case was ever brought up in the future.
It's no secret of the financial situation that has taken over the globe. It's also probably no secret that this very situation that has ruined many jobs is also affecting the sports world. One aspect of the sports business world that has truly started to suffer is the naming rights to various stadiums and future stadiums that have plans to be built. With the economy in a mess it's difficult for many big name companies to take over the naming rights of the stadiums. With some teams holding out on choosing a partner until after the economic crisis it's hard to say how this problem will be resolved.
In theory, waiting for the economic crisis to end truly isn't the best solution to this problem. With no real end to this recession in sight, people may need to start thinking of a real solution instead of just waiting. Stadiums are getting more and more expensive whenever they are built, so now it has come down to either finding a reliable partner for naming rights or taking on this burden yourself. Whatever teams decide to choose, hopefully it will be the right one, but for now all the fans can do is sit back and watch as their teams fight through the economic crisis.
