In case you missed it, the fire of indignation over the NHL declining to participate in the 2018 Winter Olympics got stoked again last week when Jacobs, the man who gets his cut from every food and beverage purchase you make at a game, and will stop at nothing if you disrupt his fancy-dancing horse lifestyle, said of the NHL's Olympic non-participation, “I think the four people that watch it don’t justify it.”
Obviously, this was an exaggeration by Jacobs. You can get four people to watch just about any hockey game at any level at any time, except maybe if the Carolina Hurricanes are playing at home. Regardless, the internet froth rose up anew among the many who are sore that they won't get to see elite professional international competition, and also see the backwards-ass NHL once again shooting itself in the foot rather than working to grow the sport and expand its fanbase.
The thing is, though, at least in this case, Jeremy Jacobs, the majority of NHL owners, and Gary Bettman and his front-office cronies, are right. Excuse me.
*dry-heaves into toilet for fifteen minutes*
I know a lot of people want the NHL in the Olympics. But wanting something and having it actually be a good idea are two different things; just ask me at 1:00am after a few drinks as I open up the eBay app on my phone. So let's go through this point-by-point, kinda.
This Olympics will not be live-TV friendly. Yes, I know, you're going to watch, because you're bonkers for hockey and the purity of the competition and the best in the world and pre-dawn day-drinking was a riot during Sochi and so on. Here's the problem, though: Russia, as you likely know, is quite large. And Sochi is basically along Russia's westernmost border, so there was a ten-hour time difference. PyeongChang, home of the 2018 Games, is five time zones east of Sochi. Which means:
Beijing, host of the 2022 Games, is only one hour closer to North America than PyeongChang, by the way.
No, seriously, not that many people are going to watch it. The last few Winter Olympics have been very accessible for North American hockey viewers. Sochi in 2014 was on the fringes with the early morning starts, but Torino in 2006 was a couple hours closer, and both 2002 and 2010 were on the continent. Now, the first NHL Olympics, Nagano in 1998, sported the same time zone difference as PyeongChang. The viewership of said games was, uh, not so good:
For many viewers, CBS's coverage was a major turn-off. How else to explain far lower than expected overall ratings? With final numbers due today, they'll finish about three points below what advertisers had been guaranteed, 40 percent off from the '94 Games in Lillehammer and 13 percent behind Albertville in '92.I want to note a couple of things here. First, 1998 was nineteen years ago, and oh God, I can feel death's cold breath encroaching on the back of my neck. Second, back then, even a tape-delayed Olympics could be nearly spoiler-free. The internet had to be dialed into on a desktop PC, and even then, sports coverage was still the domain of outlets that had already been established in print, radio, or television. These outlets needed to play by the rules to maintain their access, and if those rules included an embargo on results by the broadcast rights holder, they would abide. And still, CBS didn't bother showing the full games on delay, either because watching the home team getting its nuts kicked in doesn't make for the best showcasing of national sporting pride, or because even if the U.S. had put half the effort into its games that it did into vandalizing hotel rooms, hockey wouldn't carry the ratings heft of figure skating or skiing, nor would it lure as attractive of an advertising demographic.
. . .
Only H.G. Wells could have been proud of CBS's time-warping coverage, which often included staying away from live action in prime or late-night shows to air tape of major events 24 hours or more after they occurred. Why not show it live if at all possible, then air it again on tape the next night? Men's hockey, despite the U.S. team trashing and thrashing on and off the ice, produced several classic games, all on well past midnight in the East, then barely reprised the next night in prime time.
Compare that to now, and the free flow of information. How many casual sports fans are going to sit through a full tape-delayed hockey game when the result is a tap away? And again, how many diehards, who will definitely know the final score ahead of time, will do that? Think back to Sochi in 2014, when T.L. "T.J." Oshie single-handedly defeated Russia in a 126-round shootout on a North American Saturday morning, thereby asserting America's dominance as a superpower and ensuring the Russians would never exert any nefarious influence over our way of life. NBC replayed it in primetime. Not the whole game, just the shootout. And they packaged it with the result in full view, an "in case you heard about it and haven't seen it yet, or maybe want to see it again" type of presentation. It got the first half hour of programming, maybe, and then it was onto, presumably, figure skating. That's the presence overnight hockey will have in the prime viewing hours if something really, really interesting happens. Otherwise, it's going to be an intimate gathering of a couple hundred thousand making counterproductive caffeine consumption decisions.
Now, I am aware that when it comes to hockey, both the IIHF and IOC know where their bread is buttered. And with NBC throwing enough money at the Olympics nowadays to influence some scheduling decisions, we know that the USA and Canada will be put in the same pool to guarantee at least one game between the two, and those in charge of scheduling will maybe push the start of that game to something like 10:00pm PyeongChang time, so it airs at 8:00am Eastern, likely on a Saturday or Sunday. But still, what's the top end of viewership for that game? Let's go back to Sochi for comparison, when Team USA played Canada at Noon Eastern (9:00pm Sochi time) on a Friday, and that game set all kinds of ratings records. It was the highest rated hockey game ever! (on NBCSN) (which had only existed for two years at the time) It gave the network its best ratings in history! (in daytime) (on a weekday) (when they normally air reruns of fishing shows) (and the USA-Russia game on Saturday morning got more viewers) It was, uh, about the equivalent of any Stanley Cup Final game not involving the New Jersey Devils since 2008.
(Side note: My God, look at the numbers for that Anaheim-Ottawa series in 2007. It's a minor miracle this league still exists, and I wonder how many NBC Sports executives have cyanide capsules at the ready, given how this year is shaking out.)
So that's where this tops out: Give USA-Canada a pool game with a special timeslot, and hope Team USA somehow gets into the medal round, and you get up to two games' worth of Stanley Cup Final ratings. That's not four people, but it's not exactly something worth a three-week midseason dead spot and a cancellation of the lucrative All-Star weekend. Speaking of:
The league doesn't make any money off of it. This is the big one, right? The NHL's owners are being asked to give up their talent and schedule in the name of the purity and splendor of Olympic competition, and also to help subsidize the tiger blood lasagna some IOC executive will order for room service on a weekend jaunt to Davos. The league's leaders finally knocked their heads together enough to coordinate the World Cup and promise they'll keep doing it regularly this time, because making money is good, actually. And if the World Cup stabilizes and grows, to the point where there's eight national teams and maybe some play-in qualifiers, then who needs the Olympics? Let the Olympic tournament stand as an interesting U-23 competition, like it does in soccer. People who want to watch will still watch that. And Americans at large, possibly seeing a lineup of Good College Boys playing against a bunch of big-ruble KHLers from Russia, might find a compelling storyline worth cheering for. Meanwhile, the NHL can make its money on its own tournament without having to wait for those mythical secondary Olympic revenues to arrive, because...
The potential for growing the game internationally is greatly exaggerated. This is the main argument from the hockey punditry: "Oh, you gotta grow the game. Putting hockey's best on the world stage is the best way for you to grow the game." That untapped potential for growth comes out in musings like this one from TSN's Rick Westhead:
Boy, those sure are some large audiences! I encourage you to click on the graphic, though, which is a clipping from a promotional brochure that defines those millions and millions of foreign Winter Olympics viewers as "anyone who watched at least one minute of programming from Sochi." One minute. So, perhaps some follow-up questions are needed to gauge the true international growth potential for the NHL and hockey in general, like:655 million Chinese, 38 million South Koreans, 80 million Brazilians watched last Winter Games.— Rick Westhead (@rwesthead) May 4, 2017
Aren’t they potential fans & customers? /2 pic.twitter.com/TAyfC9ItIG
- What were the TV ratings for Olympic hockey in countries like China, Brazil, and South Korea, that did not have teams participating in the tournament?
- Did networks in these countries even include hockey in their Olympic telecasts?
- Does the NHL have broadcast rights agreements in any of these countries?
- If so, what kind of TV ratings does the NHL achieve in countries with little-to-no historical ice hockey fandom?
- How many NHL-caliber arenas with functional ice plants are available in these countries?
- In terms of both time and money, how much of an investment is needed to establish and/or develop youth hockey programs in these countries?
- Should the NHL go all-in on China because they have one KHL team with attendance averaging in the hundreds that somehow has enough money to wave in front of Mike Keenan, because it's China, and you're better off not asking where the money's coming from?
- Would the NHL play in the Olympics if all the games had a one-minute time limit?
A few more go-rounds against Slovenia at 2 in the morning is not going to alter that to a significant degree.
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