Interesting stuff on the NHL from Sports Media Watch regarding demographics:
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Kids 2-17 made up between 11% and 14% of the audience for each NBA Finals game, ahead of the other events examined. The demo made up just 5-6% of the audience for each World Series game, lagging behind the Final Four (7-8%), the BCS (8-10%), and the Stanley Cup Final (9-11%).
. . .
The Stanley Cup Final led the way in viewer affluence ($73K-$84K), with the two games on NBCSN topping $80,000.
The Stanley Cup Final, which was the youngest skewing event outside of the NBA Finals, would seem to have the mix of youth and affluence that advertisers crave — if only it could get larger numbers overall. It is telling, for example, that while adults 18-34 made up a larger proportion of the audience for the Stanley Cup Final, the old-skewing World Series still attracted more viewers in the demo.
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It should be no surprise that men watch sports in greater numbers than do women. However, when examining some of the highest-profile sporting events of 2013, women consistently made up more than a third of the audience.
Female viewers made up between 37% and 40% of the audience for the NBA Finals, with 10.6 million tuning into Game 7 — 40% of the total audience (26.3M). For the World Series, female viewers were 39-41% of the audience, topped by 7.9 million for Game 6 — 41% of the total (19.2M). Women made up similar proportions of the audience for the Stanley Cup Final (between 36 and 42%), NCAA Tournament Final Four (38-39%), Bowl Championship Series (33-36%), and WNBA Finals (34-40%).
Of the events analyzed, tennis’ U.S. Open singles finals had the largest percentage of female viewers. Women made up 48% of the audience for the women’s final and 49% of the audience for the men’s final. Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final ranked third (42%), followed by Game 6 of the World Series (41%).
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The Stanley Cup Final was an especially weak performer among minority viewers. African Americans made up between 1% and 5% of the audience for each game, Hispanics made up between 2% and 6%, and Asian viewers made up between 3% and 4%. Overall, the demographics made up just 6-13% of the audience for each game, making the Stanley Cup Final easily the least diverse sporting event examined.
Upshot:
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The NHL may not have the numbers of the other leagues, but it skewed younger than every event but the NBA and had the most affluent audience of the events examined. Advertisers thirst for young audiences with disposable income, and the NHL would be in great shape if it could attract more viewers. One problem — 2013 was an unusually good year for the league, and the numbers may drop back to Earth this season. Another problem — the Stanley Cup Final had the least diversity of any event examined.
Interesting stuff that paints a promising, albeit flawed, picture of the NHL. I don't have anything empirical on this, but I have noticed that among girls who identify as hockey fans, it's a much more genuine fandom than the "teehee just one of the boyz!!" you get with the NFL. Not that there aren't legit female fans of the NFL, and not that puck bunnies don't exist, but just some anecdotal observations here. Locally, it's no secret that there are lots of female fans. Too bad they're all sluts who deserve to get knocked up and not know who the dad is, right, Matt Abbatacola?
As for the race thing, I don't know how much you're ever going to penetrate that market. I think a lot of that has to be done on the team level, not the league level. The Blackhawks are practically sitting on a gold mine here.
That NHL fans are more affluent and tech-savvier than average is something we've known for some time. I think that helps to explain why the NHL has always had a policy of benign neglect with youtube where baseball has only recently given up on trying to stomp it out at every turn. Fostering that online presence can't hurt.
Ultimately, I think the NHL has a very high ceiling for interest, but only in the cities where it's played, and even then, only the ones with hockey traditions. I don't think we've hit the ceiling here, or in New York, or in any city that isn't Toronto/Montreal. You're never going to get true national interest, but if you concentrate on maxing out interest in places like Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and Minnesota, from there you can still have a very advertiser-friendly product.
EDIT: Speaking of Montreal, just saw that they're going to make $68 million a year from RDS for 60 French-language local telecasts. The other 22 are part of the national contract. That's a
lot of money for 75% of a schedule and only the French audience.
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Molly Lambert wrote:
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