The NHL is losing viewership and concerning reports that affect the Chicago Blackhawks and Bedard surface

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Joshua Deeds
October 15, 2024 (4:12 PM)

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A report has surfaced about the NHL, and it's viewership records and not exactly promising.

According to Drew Lerner, who writes for "Awful Announcing" the NHL's opening night saw troubling numbers.

The decline in viewership on opening night is not good news for Gary Bettman and the Board of Governors, not to mention all 32 NHL teams.

Lerner mentions that the NHL now has lower viewership than the MLB and the WNBA. The opening night of the NHL season only reached 559K viewers, which was an astounding 23% lower than the 2023 season.

Here's Drew Lerner's Report:

In an interesting programming decision, two teams situated west of the Mississippi River opened the season while it was still afternoon on the East Coast. The St. Louis Blues and Seattle Kraken opened the action during the late afternoon window, averaging 348,000 viewers, down 42% from last season's Nashville Predators-Tampa Bay Lightning game (598,000 viewers).

Game two of the tripleheader was the top hockey audience of the night, as the Boston Bruins and defending champions Florida Panthers averaged 790,000 viewers. The game was down 45 percent from last season's Chicago Blackhawks-Pittsburgh Penguins game that averaged 1.43 million viewers and included Bedard's debut.

The NHL closed out the night featuring its new franchise, the Utah Hockey Club, up against the Blackhawks. The game averaged 522,000 viewers, down 24 percent from the Seattle Kraken and Las Vegas Golden Knights nightcap last season (691,000 viewers).

As many have pointed out, all three NHL games were beaten out by Game 5 of the Minnesota Lynx-Connecticut Sun WNBA semifinal series over on ESPN2, which averaged 984,000 viewers, and continued a strong postseason for that league.

- Drew Lerner

It's bad for the players in the NHL, and owners as the two parties split Escrow at the end of the season, based upon revenue received during the season.

It's a "50/50"split based on the CBA and there are harrowing implications of this decline in viewership, which means a decline in revenue.

But the players' biggest beef is with escrow payments. Here's how those work: Players and owners split the NHL's "hockey-related revenue" 50/50 (players get their share in salaries). At the end of the playoffs every year, both sides get together and count up how much money the NHL made that season. They then use that number to estimate how much it'll make the next season (a five per cent bump is a typical ballpark guess). The salary cap, which is designed to make sure the players get 50 per cent of the revenue and no more, is then set based on that number.

But because it's impossible to predict exactly how much revenue will come in, a percentage of every player's paycheque is held in escrow until the money is counted at the end of the season (it isn't always the same, but 15 per cent is a good ballpark number). If the NHL does really well and exceeds the revenue projection by a significant amount, all that money is returned to the players. But if it doesn't, the owners get to keep however much they need to ensure they end up with exactly 50 per cent of the revenue.

This is another instance of the NHL failing to meet its audience, and future audience where it's at. Instead of making it easier to view a game, teams are subject to Blackouts, especially in your local area.

There are multiple streaming services you have to buy, in order to see your team play multiple games a week.

This could be part of the reason for the decline in viewership, along with the inability of the NHL to remain relevant with its promotion practices.

As Connor Bedard continues his ascent to his prime, Gary Bettman, and even the Chicago Blackhawks are fumbling this opportunity to harness his prowess to entice more people to become hockey fans.

The dinosaurs are literally in charge at this point.

Lastly, the Chicago Sports Network debacle is also part and parcel of the arrogance of the team and its failure to address basic business practices.