At first, the title of this article may seem bizarre, crazy, obvious, or some combination of the three. I think the average sports fan understands that the NFL is king and the other Big 4 sports leagues simply play second (and third or fourth) fiddle to the National Football League and that any attempt to dethrone it in a head-to-head battle is an exercise in futility. We already know the results. The problem, though, is that the NHL, including commissioner Gary Bettman, doesn’t seem to understand that.
The NHL already faces the uphill battle of its season coinciding with other sports. When the puck drops on the regular season, the NFL calendar is in full swing, college football teams are tackling their conference schedules, the MLB postseason is taking place, and the NBA season is on the horizon. And since the NHL doesn’t appear to have any plans to move its schedule or shorten its regular season (in fact, the league and players’ union have discussed expanding it), it’s going to have to come to grips with the fact that it’s fighting for TV viewership and revenue during the busiest time of the sports calendar.
Now, can the NHL compete with Major League Baseball? Absolutely. By the time the NHL season starts, there are fewer than 10 teams left in contention for baseball’s Commissioner’s Trophy, and when the Stanley Cup Playoffs are taking place, it’s early in the baseball calendar. Plus, there are 162 games, so fans are fine with missing a few of them if their favorite NHL team’s Stanley Cup hopes are alive and well.
Traditionally, the NHL’s direct competitor has been the NBA. The two leagues’ schedules are nearly perfect parallels, running from October into June. Many of their teams share an arena and both leagues anger their audience members with regional sports networks (RSNs) and blackout restrictions. Both leagues’ revenues have also exploded over the same time period: since the 2004-05 season, the NHL has increased its revenue by 187% (from $2.24 billion to $6.43 billion), while the NBA has increased its by 255% ($2.66 billion to $11.34 billion).
Related: NHL Blackouts & Why They Happen
This brings us to the not-so-subtle giant that is the NFL. The only real similarity between the NHL and the NFL is that their schedules overlap from the start of the NHL regular season through the Super Bowl. They don’t share venues, play different numbers of games, and one has blackouts via the RSN model (NHL), while the other…doesn’t. And these differences show in the popularity and value of the two leagues.
Since 2004, the NFL has seen its annual revenue grow from $6.03 billion to $20.24 billion in 2023. That’s an increase of 235%. And it plays out on the television screen too, where 93 of the top 100 American broadcasts in 2023 were NFL games, including the top 20 of them. The only non-NFL sports events to make the top 100 were college football games. 17.9 million viewers tuned in on average to watch NFL games in 2023, further showing its popularity.
While it’s difficult to find the average number of viewers for the NHL, we can look to the Stanley Cup Playoffs to see the massive difference in popularity. During the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs, an average of 2.62 million viewers tuned in across North America. That’s the time of the season when the most eyeballs should be tuning in, yet it’s only 14.6% of the NFL’s average during the regular season. It gets worse if you only look at the 2023 NFL Playoffs (largely played in 2024), which averaged 38.5 million viewers.
This takes us back to the title of this article: the NHL can’t beat the NFL.
Is the NHL Actually Trying to Do Battle With the NFL?
If you’re somebody who looked at the title and thought, “Well, that’s obvious. Why are we even talking about it?,” it’s a fair reaction to have. On the surface, you may not think that the NHL is trying to compete with the NFL, but a quick look at its scheduling and marketing decisions may convince you otherwise.
From a scheduling perspective, the NHL doesn’t seem to recognize that its fans may want to watch other sports. Sure, there will always be the hardcore fans who watch every game their team plays and even tune in to watch other teams play when theirs isn’t. Those fans will watch hockey over almost anything else. The problem is that those fans are in the minority. I’m guessing that the majority of hockey fans are sports fans in general and choose to watch other sports if their team isn’t playing…and, depending on how their team is doing, perhaps even if there are playing. Each team plays 82 games, after all, so a lot of people are comfortable missing the occasional one.
With that in mind, why is the NHL making scheduling decisions that put its product up against other leagues and force itself into an unnecessary battle for viewers’ eyes?
Loaded Schedules on Crowded Sports Days
Before diving into this, let me acknowledge something: I know that the NHL and its teams don’t have control over every aspect of the schedule. They have to take into consideration travel, when (and where) teams previously played, upcoming games, and arena availability when scheduling games. So, I recognize that creating the perfect schedule is impossible. That being said, since the start of the 2024-25 season, here is the breakdown of games by days played (looking only at Sundays, Mondays, and Saturdays, when the most competitive and popular football games are played):
| Friday | Saturday | Sunday | Monday | Tuesday |
| Oct. 11 – 4 games | Oct. 12 – 14 games | Oct. 13 – 4 games | Oct. 14 – 6 games | Oct. 15 – 9 games |
| Oct. 18 – 3 games | Oct. 19 – 13 games | Oct. 20 – 3 games | Oct. 21 – 1 game | Oct. 22 – 16 games |
| Oct. 25 – 4 games | Oct. 26 – 14 games | Oct. 27 – 4 games | Oct. 28 – 8 games | Oct. 29 – 7 games |
| Nov. 1 – 6 games | Nov. 2 – 11 games | Nov. 3 – 7 games | Nov. 4 – 2 games | Nov. 5 – 11 games |
| Nov. 8 – 4 games | Nov. 9 – 12 games | Nov. 10 – 3 games | Nov. 11 – 6 games | Nov. 12 – 7 games |
As you can see, the NHL seems content to have full schedules on days when it’s competing against the NFL and college football. Granted, they do a decent job of having quieter Sundays, but there’s no reason to have 11-plus games on Saturdays and upwards of eight on Mondays, especially when Fridays have been light on games and even Tuesdays are relatively light. Going up against the NFL and college football is a battle the NHL will lose almost every time. But there’s more to it.
Frozen Frenzy
You may have noticed the one Tuesday (Oct. 22) with a lot of games. In fact, all 32 teams played that day in an event the league marketed as Frozen Frenzy. On the surface, it’s a great idea. The games start earlier than normal (6:30 p.m.) and the next game starts every 15 minutes for the rest of the night. As a hockey fan, it should be a roaring success. The problem with it is that Oct. 22 was also the NBA’s opening night and the Boston Celtics were unveiling their championship banner. So, even though it wasn’t the NFL or football that the NHL was competing against, Frozen Frenzy was put up against the Celtics vs. New York Knicks, two of the most iconic franchises in all of sports.
The results were as to be expected. The NBA’s double-header (the Los Angeles Kings and Minnesota Timberwolves also played) averaged 2.95 million viewers, while the NHL’s triple-header on ESPN averaged 381,000 viewers. The NHL’s average was an 11% decrease from the 2023-24 version of the event. The idea of marketing the day when all 32 NHL teams are playing is brilliant and should be commended even if it’s obvious; however, the execution of said marketing left a lot to be desired.
ESPN’s “whip-around” show for the Frozen Frenzy, which mimics the NFL Network’s Redzone channel by giving viewers access to the best action from all the games, was a dud, with an average of just 83,000 tuning in. That’s a 57% drop from last season’s program. Perhaps this massive drop-off is the result of other options on television, but I think it has more to do with the Redzone-style programming simply not working for hockey. Hockey is a sport with constant action, and goals can be scored at any time and from nearly anywhere on the ice. There aren’t set plays that allow producers to conveniently switch between games, which is the case with football. So, instead, it becomes mostly a highlight-style program, sharing the same clips you can find on social media and YouTube.
To summarize, the Frozen Frenzy day when all teams play is a great idea. But why not schedule it in late February or early March after the NFL and college football seasons have wrapped up but before the MLB season starts? At that point on the calendar, the NHL is only competing against the NBA for viewership.
Monday Night Hockey on Prime Video
For the 2024-25 season, the NHL and Rogers Communications announced an agreement with Prime Video to stream one game each week on Monday night. Again, it’s a great idea on the surface. Streaming is already extremely popular and continues to grow, so it makes sense for the league and Rogers to capitalize on it. But there’s already a very popular sporting event on Monday nights in the fall and early winter: Monday Night Football on ABC/ESPN/TSN, which has been airing for over 50 years.
Now, Monday Night Hockey is only available for Canadian Prime subscribers, so the available audience isn’t the same for both programs. Plus, Rogers’ direct competitor, Bell Media, broadcasts Monday Night Football in Canada, so it’s understandable from that perspective. However, it’s still putting hockey up against one of the most popular sports programs on the calendar, which is a battle they’re unlikely to win.
Please, NHL, Give up This Fight
I think it’s safe to assume that nearly everyone recognizes that the NHL will never catch the NFL, neither in revenue nor popularity. But that’s okay. It doesn’t need to match or surpass the NFL, and its marketing and scheduling decisions shouldn’t be made with that goal in mind.
So, to the NHL, I make this request: Please stop scheduling busy days of games on football days. Please wait until after the football season is over to have marquee events. You’re forcing your fans to decide between one NHL game in an 82-game season and one NFL game in a 17-game season, which is a battle you’re going to lose with most fans. You keep trying to force this competition, but it’s pointless. You’re not going to win. What you’re doing is the definition of insanity. You keep trying the same thing over and over again with new expectations but are experiencing the same results.
The NFL doesn’t have to be your friend, but it also doesn’t have to be your primary foe. Pick an easier opponent, like the NBA or MLB. Those are fights you can actually win some rounds in.
As an aside, if you’re really interested in giving your fans a better viewing experience and want to grab a larger percentage of the sports broadcast pie, take a page out of the NFL’s playbook and do away with RSNs and blackouts. They’re outdated and only anger your fans.
