Time out for NBA, NHL

Thanks to the Dallas Mavericks, who appeared as eager to start their summer vacations as the members of the Miami Heat, the pro basketball season ended last night, a day after the pro hockey season concluded.

So let's assess why it is the NBA remains relatively popular as a TV draw, while the NHL is in danger of being lapped in the Nielsen ratings by Arena Football.

With 11 million total viewers for last night's Game 6, the NBA doubled the NHL's audience from Monday (5.45 million viewers), even though hockey had the added attraction of a Game 7 matchup and the thrilling return from a 3-games-to-1 deficit by the Edmonton Oilers.

I'm not saying there is any one reason why the NBA continues to dominate its fellow winter sport when the two-month playoff cycle begins in April, and why, at the end, few people pay attention to who's hoisting Lord Stanley's Cup but everyone seems to know (before the game begins, in this case) who the NBA Finals MVP is.

But one big reason is the TV coverage.  Look at ABC.  They've got a camera on a clothesline. They used it tentatively at first, but now they'll televise long stretches of NBA games just using that one camera. If you've got a big screen TV, especially of the HD variety, you know how much more enjoyable watching a game from right above the floor can be. The clothesline-cam sometimes misses the fast breaks and can't track some outlet passes, but you can't deny that NBA television coverage has improved from the days of Marv and the Czar of the Telestrater on NBC.

Now compare that with NBC's coverage of Game 7. I am amazed that after all these years, nobody has figured out how to televise a hockey game. When the puck goes into the boards on the camera side of the ice, it vanishes. And there you are, frantically scanning the frame, waiting for the puck to re-emerge. It's idiotic. Actually, I think NBC's coverage has gone backwards since ESPN/ABC had the rights to the NHL. NBC will probably argue that it has as many cameras on the ice as ESPN/ABC did. But they are not nearly as well deployed or directed as they were when the NHL was at ESPN/ABC.

There are other reasons the NHL is unpopular: the strike, the addiction to fighting (a big turn-off for me), the nonexistent marketing, the fact that it's hockey ... but even if you fix all of those you still have to present it in hi-def so that people can't turn away from it. Until then, the NHL is doomed to getting lapped by college lacrosse, the WNBA, and any other sporting events that have made the leap into the 21st century.

Comments

[Harold]

It's funny: I had the opposite reaction. I found the hockey coverage fine, but I found the close-up angles in the NBA coverage distracting and disorienting. It's probably because I'm Canadian and watched the game on CBC, although I suspect the camera angles of the puck along the board isn't any different from what NBC showed. Ever since Fox experimented with the glowing puck (to much derision here in the Land of Hockey), I've thought about the problem of puck visibility on TV. I've concluded it doesn't matter much once you're used to the game. You figure out where the puck is by how the players are moving and reacting to one another, not by actually seeing the puck. That's small comfort to a casual fan or someone trying to learn the game from TV, though.

I completely agree with you about the fighting, lack of marketing, and the fact that hockey has only shallow roots (if any) in most of the USA. The NHL has much work to do. The rule changes (and enforcement) this year made the game faster and better, though. This year's final was an amazing display of drama, intensity, and skill. It's too bad more Americans weren't watching.

[Fred Farrar]

But NBC DID broadcast the Stanley Cup finals in HD.

While it made following the puck so much easier there still was the underlying problem (for me: even when I can see the puck I just don't care.

And then there was the slight problem of all those games televised by OLN. If the NHL were a real major league it would have a real cable network broadcasting its playoffs.

[drew]

The NHL is a great sport and the only shame is that more folks don't know about it. Aaron, first of all there was a lockout (not a strike). This hurt the game but it came back stronger and more exciting than ever.

Attendance was up over 2 years ago compared with baseball's 25% decline after the recent World Series cancellation.

I do not care for fighting in hockey but for the most part it is a non-issue. There are still bench clearing brawls in baseball while they have completely disappeared in hockey. There is the odd fight in the NHL but there are also fights in baseball, basketball and football. Just because there are rules against it does not mean it will go away 100%.

I agree with you on marketing. The NHL could not market its game to save itself. But its fan base is loyal, wealthy, young and fanatical.

You say that you do not care for it because ... it's hockey. What kind of comment is that? You can't like something unless everyone else does as well? I am tired of the media trying to tell me what I do and do not like. You're an expert, but did not even know that NBC showed the NHL playoffs in HD?!

Drew

[Aaron]

I know NBC telecast the finals in HD. I watched it that way. I wasn't being clear -- they have to present it in hi-def IN SUCH A WAY THAT people can't turn away from it.

Drew, find me the passage where I say I "do not care for it because ... it's hockey." I don't say anything even close to that.

But you're right, it was a lockout.--AB

[Jofus]

I live too far from the Canadian border to have watched the CBC's coverage, but I will say this: I thought NBC's coverage of Games 3 through 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals was thr best-ever American television coverage of the NHL.

The play-by-play team of Mike Emrick and former New York Rangers' goalie John Davidson was magnificent. Davidson in fact has made an argument for being the best analyst in all of sports television.

During the Finals, NBC annonced that the network would add three games to their playoff telecast schedule for 2007 (meaning between 13 and 16 playoff games in 2007, depending on the length of the Finals, as opposed to 13 games this year with a Finals going the limit).

Hopefully, two of those added playoff telecasts will be Games 1 and 2 of the Finals, so that the entire Finals will be on over-the-air network television in the United States for the first time ever.