NHL Finals without interest. Stanley Cup battle had the fewest viewers since 2007, down 43% from last year

The Stanley Cup Finals just ended, which it has to be said did not attract much interest. There are several reasons for that, the biggest one being the lineup – neither Vegas nor the Panthers are “minor market” teams.

Even when the final lineup was set, it was clear that it wasn’t going to break viewership records. NHL executives wanted a Canadian team in the finals, or a team from the “original 6” that would guarantee ratings.

But in that respect, the finals went as badly as they could, with the Vegas Golden Knights and Florida Panthers making it through. Two teams from the hottest areas of the US, where hockey is not as popular.

Sure, Vegas fans have grown to love and support the local hockey team, but it’s still not the hockey madness of Toronto, Winnipeg, Montreal, Detroit or Boston. Florida, on the other hand, has had one of the lowest attendance numbers all season, and fans have only started coming with success.

A lackluster finale

Moreover, the finals were unentertaining even for a neutral fan. You found thousands of viewers who said they didn’t really care about the outcome of the finals and didn’t root for either team. The Panthers aren’t exactly a hockey tradition, Vegas on the other hand is seen by many fans as a team created by the league.

The viewership wasn’t helped by the clear-cut outcome. Vegas dominated every game, taking a 2-0 series lead into Florida. The Panthers were fortunate to take game one in overtime, but Vegas then easily won the next two games and celebrated without much of a fight. The plot was missing.

This year’s Stanley Cup Final was the least watched since 2007. The finals were down 43% from last year. The year before, the Colorado Avalanche and Tampa Bay battled it out for hockey’s most valuable trophy and it was an extremely exciting spectacle.

There are several reasons for the decline in viewership. The first is the composition of the finals, as mentioned above, the Vegas and Florida teams don’t really appeal to neutral fans.

Sports agent Allan Walsh on Twitter, for example, points to the fact that the finals only ran on cable TV (TNT) and not nationally (ABC, BCS, NBC, etc.). Many fans agree with this argument.

“It was fine, but it should have ended in May. Nobody cares about hockey when it’s 33 degrees outside,” a fan tweeted another possible reason for the decline in viewership. “Nobody cares about hockey in the desert, ” another fan added.

It’s not that there’s no interest in hockey per se. Before the playoffs began, NHL executives were scratching their heads wondering how teams with huge fan bases like Boston, Toronto, Edmonton and the New York Rangers would market the declining NHL.

They were encouraged by the first round of playoff ratings, which were 18% higher than last year. The seventh game between the Bruins and Panthers was even the most-watched in 10 years.

But the traditional big-market teams were gradually falling out of the game until only the “desert” teams were left. And the league management was left with nothing but eyes to cry about. But it can’t be argued that there is no interest in hockey as a whole, because if Edmonton played Toronto or Boston in the finals, ratings would skyrocket and there would be virtually nothing else to do in North America.

Source: Twitter