Outsider looking in. Pay Raymond. And let CHL kids play in NCAA if they want to. Leagues interest should be to produce the best talent. To the WNBA thing. Its truly wild that they get a vastly bigger budget for media. Nobody watchs WNBA and the same could be said for the NHL. NHL should look to hiring some younger people to figure out how to gain interest in the game of Hockey. Its the only sport I focus on. But Hockey needs more eyes. Even keeping fighting in the game isnt brining eyes. They need to figure out how to market the sport better.
- poisondhearts37
I agree with you on the NCAA. A kid being “pro” shouldn’t keep them from being able to change that route. However, the collegiate free agent loophole should be addressed at some point. As for the WNBA, this was the biggest year they ever had. A couple of players came into the league that saw prime time ratings break 1 million views on a couple of broadcasts. One of the players had a Nike contract in their senior year at Iowa. The league went from no views to a couple of players driving the numbers way up. That could be a one year blip, and we’ll see if any of that holds. The NHL just has way too few eyes on the product. I want to see Raymond as a Wing, but his deal will push Seider’s deal. No one knows what revenues will be like this year and if any of these projections were off, the players are the ones stuck with the tab in terms of escrow.
For marketing, the greatest marketing of any sport is kids playing it. I had a nerf football at a pretty young age, there basketball nets at the church across the street. Hockey can be a tougher fit. Yes, there’s ball hockey. But to get a kid equipped and on the ice is probably more difficult than any other sport. Canada does a great job with community rinks. The “play hockey for free” days are awesome (Tim Hortons I think) but once you get to pee wee or travel there’s $ involved that can be tough. Great observations and thank you so much for the drop in!
