NHL Anti-Thread: Bad Business Decision Aggregator

[habsfan1]

[The_Admiral]

13 hours ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

supposed NBA "woke culture" 

 

I don't think there's anything "supposed" or scare-quotey about it. It's there, and the NHL is trying to rip it off, albeit awkwardly, as usual. 

 

There's not as much to dispute here as you think there is, no matter how unfair this writer may have been to LeBron in the past. "Ashamed of its core fanbase" has been the NHL's story for years. Now there's another angle to that story that has come from Tumblr goblins maturing into desk jobs. That leads us to the league having this new clumsy obsession with identity.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

If you watch the NBA product -- and this is probably true for the NHL product -- there is basically zero mention of politics, "woke" or not. The games are about the games.

 

You're allowed to fixate on random social media posts, pregame warmups and what other people think about LeBron James, but it's such a small, tiny fraction of the entertainment output of these leagues (well, LeBron excepted, but not for the reasons you constantly focus on).

[monkeypower]

I don't know how doing Pride Nights (or any sort of minority nights or any sort of non-traditional marketing? I guess?) can be taken as the NHL being "ashamed of its core fanbase". They want to open up hockey to more people and groups that haven't historically been involved in hockey, yeah it's ultimately a business decision, but framing that as a bad thing? I don't know about that.

 

And maybe it should be ashamed of some of its core fanbase.

[FiddySicks]

9 hours ago, monkeypower said:

I don't know how doing Pride Nights (or any sort of minority nights or any sort of non-traditional marketing? I guess?) can be taken as the NHL being "ashamed of its core fanbase". They want to open up hockey to more people and groups that haven't historically been involved in hockey, yeah it's ultimately a business decision, but framing that as a bad thing? I don't know about that.

 

And maybe it should be ashamed of some of its core fanbase.

I think that’s the point that’s trying to be made. Hockey fans I’m assuming can be seen as more “blue collar” (at least in comparison to your traditional NBA fanbase), and with that can come some warts. 

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

8 hours ago, FiddySicks said:

I think that’s the point that’s trying to be made. Hockey fans I’m assuming can be seen as more “blue collar” (at least in comparison to your traditional NBA fanbase), and with that can come some warts. 

 

And with that comes the obligation to stand against such nonsense.

 

Recall the powerful liberating slogan "We're here. We're qu--r. Get used to it." That states, quite plainly, that gay people exist, have always existed, and will always exist, and that they constitute a normal part of human duversity. It's the simple reality that gay people are found within every group — including hockey players and even hockey fans. This understanding is what is underscored by "Hockey is for everyone".

 

Certain governments may wish to distinguish themselves from the Western world by embracing a toxic anti-gay hatred that is no longer acceptable in the West. Still, in the immortal words of George Costanza: we're trying to have a civilisation here.

[Luigi74]

On 3/26/2023 at 12:32 AM, FiddySicks said:

I think that’s the point that’s trying to be made. Hockey fans I’m assuming can be seen as more “blue collar” (at least in comparison to your traditional NBA fanbase), and with that can come some warts. 

The crowd at NHL games isn't blue collar.

[spartacat_12]

On 3/25/2023 at 11:48 AM, the admiral said:

 

I don't think there's anything "supposed" or scare-quotey about it. It's there, and the NHL is trying to rip it off, albeit awkwardly, as usual. 

 

There's not as much to dispute here as you think there is, no matter how unfair this writer may have been to LeBron in the past. "Ashamed of its core fanbase" has been the NHL's story for years. Now there's another angle to that story that has come from Tumblr goblins maturing into desk jobs. That leads us to the league having this new clumsy obsession with identity.

 

[Geoff]

I didn't get a chance to post it last week but OITGDNHL would the commissioner decide to pick a new uniform supplier and go with the almost universally hated merch partner.

[FiddySicks]

2 hours ago, Luigi74 said:

The crowd at NHL games isn't blue collar.

Blue collar isn’t exactly the word I wanted to use there, but I’m struggling to come up with something that gets my overall point across while simultaneously not being unintentionally inflammatory. 

[Luigi74]

38 minutes ago, FiddySicks said:

Blue collar isn’t exactly the word I wanted to use there, but I’m struggling to come up with something that gets my overall point across while simultaneously not being unintentionally inflammatory. 

If you meant conservative(note the small c) that segment of both the NHL and NBA ticket buyers has been aging out since well before the pandemic. 

[monkeypower]

Hockey fan dinosaurs aren't limited to age.

[habsfan1]

[GDAWG]

 

[spartacat_12]

On 3/30/2023 at 2:35 PM, GDAWG said:

 

 

I finally got through watching Welcome to Wrexham, and it has me even more fired up about the potential of Reynolds being involved. He admittedly wasn't a football/soccer fan before & has become extremely passionate about the club & the community. I can only imagine how he would handle a team that plays a sport he's much more familiar with in a city that he already has a close connection to.

 

Meanwhile, one of the other potential buyers is a group led by Graeme Roustan of The Hockey News. A man who, a couple years back, decided to print this article, then proceeded to block half of the Sens fans on Twitter for rightfully having some comments about it.

 

[Sodboy13]

The Arizona Coyotes finally have a plan for sustainable revenue, and it is "Sue the city of Phoenix for $2.3 billion for reasons," announced with a press release that reads like a Donald Trump tweet.

 

It's going as well as it ever has.

[Gary]

4 hours ago, Sodboy13 said:

The Arizona Coyotes finally have a plan for sustainable revenue, and it is "Sue the city of Phoenix for $2.3 billion for reasons," announced with a press release that reads like a Donald Trump tweet.

 

It's going as well as it ever has.

https://www.abc15.com/news/region-southeast-valley/tempe/coyotes-file-2-3b-countersuit-against-phoenix-over-proposed-tempe-arena-complex

 

Local affiliate has the story, basically countersuing Phoenix over the skyways of Sky Harbor Airport. Where the both Phoenix and Tempe made a pact that they would never build houses or homes of the area. But what cracks me uo is the fact the Coyotes were never named in the lawsuit

[throwuascenario]

I apologize if this is the wrong place for this, but I couldn't find another sports business related thread.

 

Does anyone else think that one of the reasons that the NHL, along with the NBA and MLB have fallen eons behind the NFL in popularity is because of how available the NFL makes games on TV?

 

I've never understood why you woudn't do everything to copy the NFL if you're one of these leagues that is eating its dust. With the further decline of cable, teams in all 3 of those leagues should be giving their games away, at least locally, like the NFL does.

 

I'll use a baseball example because it applies to me, but the exact same thing could easily apply to the NHL or NBA:

 

I grew up in a market with no MLB team. A few years ago, I moved to a city that doesn't have one but is very close (1.5 hours) to one that does. I would've very likely became a fan of said team and bought tickets, merchandise, and contributed to ad sales by watching their games on TV. But I don't have cable and would've had to buy a Bally Sports+ subscription to watch them. Seeing how I didn't grow up a fan and have no current attachment to the team, that was more than I was willing to do. So I gave up on the idea and they've made exactly $0 off me since.

 

If your only marketing to people who are already fans of your product, you literally cannot grow your fanbase by definition. It boggles my mind that with all the revenue extra fans can bring in, that they'd nickel and dime people completely out of their fanbase by making their games inaccessible.

 

Look how many fans the Cubs brought in when WGN was nationally broadcasting their games. Astonishingly, exposing your brand to the widest possible audience works to expand your fanbase. Who would've thought?

[Cosmic]

5 hours ago, throwuascenario said:

I've never understood why you woudn't do everything to copy the NFL if you're one of these leagues that is eating its dust. With the further decline of cable, teams in all 3 of those leagues should be giving their games away, at least locally, like the NFL does.

Going through my father-in-law's junk after he died, I found this weird promotional newspaper all about the local Fox affiliate from ~1990. They had like 20 Sabres games on a free OTA channel that year, and I often think about how backwards things are now.

[habsfan1]

The endless legal inner turmoil isn't an encouraging way to convince voters to vote yes.