Wednesday, September 15, 2004
All Done
It's official. The NHL announced they will lock out the players at midnight tonight. Commissioner Gary Bettman made a number of good points against the union, but in the end I still don't give a crap. It's of no consequence to me who's to blame. Hockey's gone, probably for the year and like most people, whatever money I might have spent on their products will go elsewhere this year and frankly they may never come back.
When the league did this in 1994, it was damaged, but it seemed like it finally recovered last year. If it took 10 years then, it will be worse now. The problem being that when they locked-out in '94, there were really only three other major sports, ESPN 2 was just really getting off the ground and most viewers still got their fix from the broadcast networks. That's no longer the case.
Now there are numerous Fox Sports, ESPN, ESPN 2, College Sports TV, TBS and TNT carry sports, so does USA, speed network and then there's the NBA network and NFL network. Plus the satellite companies and cable all carry packages that allow you to view all the games from college football, basketball, MLB, the NFL and NBA. The NHL is just a blip.
If they don't figure this out in the next couple of weeks I guess I can only say... good-bye NHL as we know you. Good luck getting people to come back. Better luck to you in getting most people to notice you went away in the first place.
When the league did this in 1994, it was damaged, but it seemed like it finally recovered last year. If it took 10 years then, it will be worse now. The problem being that when they locked-out in '94, there were really only three other major sports, ESPN 2 was just really getting off the ground and most viewers still got their fix from the broadcast networks. That's no longer the case.
Now there are numerous Fox Sports, ESPN, ESPN 2, College Sports TV, TBS and TNT carry sports, so does USA, speed network and then there's the NBA network and NFL network. Plus the satellite companies and cable all carry packages that allow you to view all the games from college football, basketball, MLB, the NFL and NBA. The NHL is just a blip.
If they don't figure this out in the next couple of weeks I guess I can only say... good-bye NHL as we know you. Good luck getting people to come back. Better luck to you in getting most people to notice you went away in the first place.
