OKay so I’m normally not one for conspiracy theories (unless I’m listening to Coast To Coast AM and laughing my ass off), but the following post at The Situationist* really has me scratching my head and wondering… and it starts right off with something I somehow missed from the ESPN Ombudsman ( a laughable position, but I digress).
Negative Press: Is ESPN Killing the National Hockey League by Influencing Public Attitudes?
ESPN’s ombudsman, Le Anne Schreiber, felt compelled to examine hockey coverage on the network. In an article last month, she confirmed that hockey coverage has indeed diminished 28% on Sportscenter over the last three years and that hockey-oriented shows such as NHL 2Night were cut altogether since ESPN’s loss of NHL rights.
The reduced exposure on ESPN can only be harmful to the NHL. By minimizing coverage and highlights, the network is effectively reducing the imprint of the game on Americans’ collective sports consciousness. Worse still, several ESPN writers and commentators have gone out of their way to emphasize the demise of hockey. Le Ann Schreiber recently noted that during the NHL’s regular season, hockey was only mentioned on-air if there happened to be “some egregious brawl” or if it was being “dissed” for its invisibility and irrelevance.
28% decrease in coverage? Say what you will about the popularity of hockey in the United States, but not even ONE nightly show dedicated to hockey verges on ridiculous - especially with the number of ESPN networks approaching the highly desired The Ocho. And what will Barry Melrose do now?
It ain’t cheap to look this good.
But back to the seriousness. It’s obvious to anyone who watches ESPN that hockey coverage has become fewer and far between and when it is covered it’s usually about something bad or with a tinge of “yeah, but hockey’s in a bad state of things.”
In sharp contrast to the treatment of the NHL, ESPN favorites such as NASCAR face little scrutiny and massive hype. Once a niche sport with limited appeal, NASCAR is ESPN’s new hot property and has found itself to be the chief beneficiary of the network’s downgrading of hockey. Northwest News Group columnist Kevin Kaduk notes that since ESPN’s purchase of NASCAR broadcast rights, the network has been force-feeding the sport to its readers via its various news outlets. Indeed in January 2007, ESPN senior vice president Jed Drake explicitly promised as much. Unlike its coverage of the NHL, ESPN has shown remarkable patience with NASCAR as evidenced by its burying or putting a positive spin on negative NASCAR news such as that of falling TV ratings for the sport.
What? Falling TV ratings for NASCAR? Honestly I hadn’t heard that. Thanks ESPN for not reporting the news! If they made as big of a deal of falling NASCAR ratings as they consistently do falling hockey ratings, we’d be hearing about it all the time. Alas…
To make matters worse, such informational social influence can translate into normative social influence, which is born of the need to “conform to the rules of other people.” If it seems that a growing number of people dislike hockey or that being a hockey fan exposes one to ridicule, many will hide, ignore, or lose their affection for hockey.
Thus, the network’s negative portrayal of hockey is very likely causing a profound two-fold effect on the viewing public by prejudicing their perception of the facts and by affecting their feelings for the game.
Indeed. The more ESPN’s talking heads and faceless writers (or God Damnit I WISH They Were Faceless Writers) say hockey is failing, the more people will feel the need to believe that as well because ESPN is so ‘respected’ among the casual sports fan. So now hockey has yet ANOTHER hill to climb - fighting the biggest and in some areas ONLY source of sports-centric news into giving their sport as much credibility as even Arena Fucking Football.
Speaking of the Arena League, I was a brief fan when there was a team in Indiana, but finding news of that league on ESPN was like looking for a live dog in Michael Vick’s backyard: if you were lucky enough to find it, you probably would have been happier if you hadn’t. But then the AFL gets on ESPN (after ESPN buys a stake in the league), pimps out John Elway and Jon Bon Jovi, and suddenly I’m awash in AFL playoff highlights at the same time that hockey highlights are reaching the frequency of Jonathan Ogden stops Dwight Freeney highlights. Maybe it’s just me, but ESPN owning part of a sports league screams of conflict of interest.
When he’s not selling cars he’s desperately trying to get you to care about an obscure indoor sport that languished in the fringes of American minor-minor leagues until ESPN bought part of the league. Look, Jon Bon Jovi!
But reports of hockey’s death are greatly exaggerated. Professional hockey is doing relatively well in both its traditional and non-traditional markets. Financially speaking, the NHL’s has rebounded since its disastrous lockout during the 2004-2005 season. Television ratings may be down nationally but the NHL’s attendance figures are still relatively strong with record crowds attending games this past January. Indeed, the NHL’s attendance figures, while lower, are somewhat comparable to those of the NBA - a league widely hailed as successful by sportswriters. In addition, franchise values have gone up markedly since the lockout allowed league owners to break the players’ union (the NHLPA) and implement a favorable new collective bargaining agreement which included, among other features, a hard salary cap. As Eric McErlain details on Off Wing Opinion, prospective owners such as Jim Balsillie and an ownership group in Kansas City have been chomping at the bit to introduce hockey to new markets via re-location of struggling franchises after paying a hefty premium for the privilege.
Amen and hallelujah! It’s something that doesn’t really get mentioned by ESPN - while ratings may be down attendance is doing great. Something I didn’t realize - the NHL’s attendance is on par with the NBA. When are we going to get the “NBA is failing!” stories - something I’d be more prone to agree with (falling talent levels, a boring one-on-one focused game, no fundamentals.. but that’s another post).
As the author of that column states, all is not indeed well with the NHL. Versus as a network can barely be found on cable networks that actually carry it and the league has far over-expanded. I would have loved to have seen the NHL contract some teams during the lockout. I would have loved to see them trim down the schedule and make it harder to get into the playoffs than it is to predict the result of a coin toss. Can fixing these negatives and the existence of the positives of the game outweigh a negativity campaign by the bully in the sports world that is ESPN? I doubt it.
Now here’s the big question that The Situationist doesn’t seem to get in to - why? What interest does ESPN have in knocking hockey down to the level of curling and inclined extreme chair bowling? My guess is that it’s not so much a dislike of hockey - hey, The Worldwide Leader is full of sports fans and I’m sure there are a good number of hockey fans, being in New England and all - but a love of the STORY of a once proud league falling and falling fast. What makes a better story, a league suffering a lockout but stumping the critics with a successful comeback or the failure of an entire sport?
The latter, obviously. We’ve seen the former before. Baseball made its comeback. The NFL survived a strike to become the dominant sport in the country. Basketball has been strangely labor-trouble free and just sort of… stagnant since the Magic-Bird-Jordan era. But Hockey! ah! Only those weird Canadians watch that, and a story about that league failing so spectacularly - now THAT is news. It’s almost like ESPN was expecting the league to fold during the lockout, and when it didn’t, when it actually succeeded in fixing the problems that led to the lockout, they had to scramble for a storyline instead of reporting the one that was there.
It really ties into the idea that ESPN is becoming less about reporting sports news and more about making sports news, with their handling of hockey just another sad example.
Ageless badass Chris Chelios has something to say to anyone who disses hockey.
*While not a sports blog, The Situationist does seem to be a pretty interesting read for those into “a forum for scholars, students, lawyers, policymakers, and interested citizens to examine, discuss, and debate the effect of situational forces – that is, non-salient factors around and within us – on law, policy, politics, policy theory, and our social, political, and economic institutions.” If you’re into that sorta thing. And apologies for liberally quoting so much of the column but it was very good and I couldn’t do it justice.