The National Hockey League playoffs are under way with the goal of a three-peat Stanley Cup victory by the Tampa Bay Lightning. Can the NHL retain its status as one of North America's Big Four professional sports leagues?
For the better part of a century the U.S. has mostly obsessed over the National Football League, Major League Baseball, and the National Basketball Association. The NHL and NBA battled for the third spot for many years, but in the past few decades hockey has been overtaken by the orange ball.
Other sports haven't made it into the pantheon. The North American Soccer League made a sustained effort in the 1960's and 70's to sign global but aging stars, but overextending itself and folding in 1985. The NHL is the U.S.'s fourth-favorite sport, but soccer looks like it could replace it. Major League Soccer has added eight teams in the past five years and is about to add two more.
The NHL is more popular in the U.S. than soccer is in England. You don't need anything else to mark the goals, ball, and buddies. Hockey requires pads, skates, a helmet, a stick, and an ice rink. The Sports and Fitness Industry Association says that 1.2 million U.S. kids play soccer regularly, compared with 243,000 who play ice hockey. Soccer is popular in immigrant communities.
MLS is starting to catch up with the NHL. The franchise fees are the amount owners pay the league for the rights to a new team. Toronto FC's owners paid $10 million in 2007. Charlotte FC cost David Tepper $325 million. That increase in 15 years is more than thirtyfold. The owners of the Seattle Kraken paid 888-276-5932 888-276-5932 888-276-5932 888-276-5932s to start playing in the NHL last year, less than the 888-276-5932s they paid in 2000. MLS franchise fees could surpass those in the NHL by the end of the decade. Soccer teams are being valued like tech stocks.
MLS has one problem, according to Patrick Crakes, a sports media consultant. The NHL's teams are able to secure local contracts worth tens of millions of dollars a year because of the higher national broadcast fees. Local TV companies are committed to long-term deals with the Big Four sports, making it hard for MLS to break in.
The NHL is facing an upstart. The challenge needs to be fended off by it.
Formula One finally found a way to get Americans to care.
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