A few thoughts from a white, millennial, Canadian, son of a former NHLer:
I often find myself drawing comparisons between hockey and golf, both mostly suffer the similar fate of requiring a lot of land/space to play the sport. So right away this limits the ability for a majority of the population living in large North America cities to access the sport.
For perspective the city of Vancouver has failed to really ever produce a hockey superstar, save for Connor Bedard the upcoming #1 pick (insert longer discussion about North Vancouver being so much more rural and likely to produce NHL talent).
Also cities struggle to have enough facilities to produce great hockey/golf talent, there is 1 city rink to every 3 or 4 rural/suburban rinks. And the same is true for golf courses (at least in this region of pacific canada).
This is mostly true in Toronto, Montreal, etc. hockey talent inordinately comes from smaller suburban hotbeds and especially the prairies. From what I know golf has the similar struggle of producing talent that large population centres fully identify with, and until Tiger wood’s ascent golf was mostly consumed by white people (Americans and Europeans). Tiger’s domination has brought a lot more minority eyeballs, but when you look at the sport the demographics of those participating hasn’t really changed. I would imagine the same would be true if a minority NHL player became the next superstar.
In general I think alienating life long fans and the base of the demographic to chase after a demographic that will never really like your sport the same way is entirely foolhardy.
Just keep playing into the core fans, blast the ACDC loud and proud and accept the reality that the Phoenix coyotes are not going to succeed and neither is chasing those BIPOC eye balls.
Note - there is also greater factors to discuss surrounding financial access (hockey is CRAZY expensive)that suggest it’s just not a sport that will ever succeed against other most accessible sports. Not to mention the cultural aspects of hockey… blah blah I could go on. Anyhow appreciate the thought provoking post. Apologies for the rambling thoughts.
Once again, I argue that this belief that leaning into identity politics misses the usual greatest issue for many organizations - class. Plus there's the fact that teens and such aren't tuning out of sports because of race and gender but because video games are cheaper, require less work, give them agency, and are in some cases social networks on their own.
The NHL and NBA are certainly TikToking past the graveyard (pssst TikTok is loaded with video game footage! Take a hint people!)
The 11-year-old letter writer seems completely fictional. A perfectly made up story to sell an idea, some sort of bizarro world Grievance Scholar prodigy. I just have a hard time believing even the most socially aware child is taking the time to write a letter to the league asking for more DEI.
Oh my gosh thank you for calling this out, I thought the same thing. I can barely get my 10 year old to do her homework, definitely not hearing her feeling compelled to write organizations about their DEI initiatives... lol
And then the organization finds said letter, and said little girl, so compelling that they alter the direction of a 100 year old sport to suit her feelz.
Maybe kinda related, I think of Ethan's line from a previous article:
"Sports leagues would prefer that their real fan be a sophisticated, highly educated, multiracial Gen Z woman who swings by the arena after leaving her downtown tech job. In reality, the real fan is more often Jersey Jerry, the Barstool lump who shat himself on a subway train."
Two points based on my experience as the parent of Gen Z boys:
1) Most white Gen Z boys are in a backlash against woke, and these moves will further alienate them.
2) The most popular youth sport is *by far* the NFL-sponsored flag football leagues, which have the major benefit of *not* being linked to an AAU-style competitive-recruitment atmosphere. Everyone plays it on the weekend in addition to their individual high school sport specialization.
I used to be a hockey fan, but I really haven’t watched it for a decade whereas I continue to consume a ton of content for other major sports. I am also a person of color, but I can tell you that the lack of diversity had zero to do with why I haven’t watched hockey in about a decade. It does have anything to do with scoring being at its lowest level in history and continuing to trend downwards. Instead of wasting their time with this BS, how about figuring out a way to improve the product to showcase your stars. Right now, half of the goals feel like a complete accident. In the playoffs more often than not it comes down to which team has the hotter goalie.
"They try to hire a non-White person, specifically, in Florida, only to run into Ron DeSantis."
I think you're trying to be glib, but I contend that's a rather unfair mischaracterization of the situation. They were holding a job fair that specifically stated that you had to be a member of their self-defined protected classes. The exact text was: ""Participants must be 18 years of age or older, based in the U.S., and identify as female, Black, Asian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic/Latino, Indigenous, LGBTQIA+, and/or a person with a disability. Veterans are also welcome and encouraged to attend." If you want to encourage participation by those groups, that's a fantastic thing to do. But they've been captured by these religious nuts that think melanin deficiency equates to evil, and that harm will be done to those who fall somewhere on the intersectionality Venn diagram by even being in their presence.
They didn’t “try to hire a non-White person, specifically, in Florida”, and then were forbidden from hiring said person by the governor of Florida, they tried to hold a job fair that specifically forbid the participation of people based on their immutable traits. To someone who may not be familiar with the story, your wording suggests something nefarious.
Michael Shellenberger wrote an excellent and depressing article about Woke Totalitarianism that speaks to your experience.
"Woke totalitarians are plainly seeking the total reorganization of society along the lines of a racist “hierarchy of oppression” that puts black and indigenous people above other “people of color,” (i.e., Latinos and Asians) as a single “BIPOC” ruling class. This is ostensibly to create the reverse of past hierarchies and is thus transparently vengeful and racist."
It's true. We all see it. And it exploded quickly. From BIPOC-only (non-white) meeting groups at a Washington Elementary School, to black-only graduations, to a Michigan school board member decrying whiteness as evil and worse than animals, to Sheila Lee Jackson's house bill 61, to nationwide college acceptance and hiring policies, the anti-white hate is STRONG and growing. It must be checked. I am terrified for my 3 year old son who is just an innocent kid who wants to play with any kid who likes trucks, and yet he is hated because of the color of his skin. And everyone is just letting this hate foment and force its way into the pillars of society. We must be strong, rise above the hate, and care for the future of ALL humans.
I would love if you would be up for a complimentary podcast whenever you publish a piece like this. As you make clear in the piece, you are coming at this as an objective outsider, not someone who lives in the hockey world. I’d love to hear this continue into a conversation with someone that is from that hockey world (journalist-not some NHL employee) to flesh out the things you write about.
I think almost every piece you write could benefit from this kind of “debrief” with a specialist to compliment your sports generalist approach.
All I can say is that this assessment doesn't square with my experience as a hockey dad or hockey fan.
Warm parts of the US are some of the best (and growing) markets for hockey in the country. The Phoenix area is a youth hockey hotbed. ASU is nationally ranked. Miami, Tampa, and North Carolina (which is hosting an outdoor game in a 50K+ seat football stadium tomorrow night) are thriving.
When I go to local rinks in suburban DC, I see robust girls programs and significant ethnic diversity that reflects the local area (in contrast to my sister's kids' program in the Hudson Valley). That's good, right?
How is the NHL's signaling to these kids and their families that they should feel welcome a bad thing? A decade ago, it wouldn't be uncommon to hear a gay slur directed at a player at a Caps game. Today, that's very uncommon. Again, a good thing that is a sign of societal progress.
A predominantly white fanbase isn't inherently bad. But it is bad when it becomes hostile to other things. I see more people of color at NHL games today than I did as a kid. I think the NHL's inclusion efforts play at least some role. And as you point out, the other problem with an inherently white fanbase is that it doesn't keep up with the demography of the country (or the metropolitan areas where the teams are located). When the NHL looks at its relative lack of diversity compared to all the other major sports, they likely consider that as an issue.
The NHL's main problems come down to the fact that it's a tough sport to just pick up without significant means unless you live somewhere frigid and it's something that everyone just does; coupled with problem you enumerate about young people not watching much sport on TV other than football. The NHL seems to be trying hard to combat the participation issue with "Learn to Play". programs in which equipment is highly subsidized. But it's very hard to compete with basketball and soccer whose participation costs are much lower.
I don't think the NHL's underlying issues are going away, but also don't see much downside to trying to expand the tent.
Although i generally agree with your opinion, I think a point Ethan is trying to make is that by focusing on these initiatives that dont ultimate yield growth or eliminate the down turn their experiencing, you are potentially looking in the wrong directions and not focusing on relevant or accurate solutions. Your message really is the talking point of so many people with social justice issues of “why be apposed, what harm is causing?” And important people be they NHL owners, politicians, or leaders of institutions wasting their time and focus on issues that arent really issues is harmful in mine and others opinion.
1) The first argument would be a lot stronger if Ethan had presented alternative ideas that would yield growth or had effectively argued how these efforts were counterproductive.
2) I have yet to hear a reasonable answer as to "what harm it is causing" to be inclusive, at least in this context. There are certainly some viable critiques as to the implementation of inclusivity efforts, and ESS never misses a chance to make them (and yes, there's nothing funnier than "End Racism" in NFL end zones). As a straight white guy, I've moved pretty comfortably at sporting events for most of my life; but I know that's not the case for many.
The harm is caused is that the vast majority of non-BIPOC’s (aka white people) don’t have a racist bone in their body and just treat people the way they treat everyone else. These efforts alienate those people, as the not-so-subtle message is: whites = oppressor.
But more importantly, it furthers a horrific narrative that racism is around every corner. And the more this continues to be yelled from the mountain tops, the more we as a society contribute to the anxiety of minorities, assuming 1 in 4 people doesn’t like them because they look different.
Lastly, I cannot deny your own experience at Capitals games. What I can say is that I’ve been to literally over 1,000 sporting events in my life, including 3 seasons at every Tampa Bay Lightning home game. I have never once heard a person yell out a racial slur at a player.
Solid points. But ill respond by saying i wish ESS did have the solution to complicated problems, but i appreciate he doesnt pretend to when he doesnt, and isnt the person with the power and responsibility to make those right decisions. I use to think it was irresponsible to call out what people are doing wrong if you don’t have solution, but these days i tend to believe that just seeing a problem clearly is sometimes the hardest part, the solution may even be impossible. I guess my belief is that individual people, and even organizations of people, have a certain bandwidth of focus, attention, and capability. So when i think of what harm is created by being inclusive (which doesnt actually represent what i was saying) the harm is in diverting valuable focus and resources towards a misguided solution to a potentially nonexistent problem. Maybe this time it leads to the continued struggle and eventual collapse of the NHL because they squandered years promoting a message that resonated with nobody and fixed nothing. That has little to no effect on most people lives. But this is just a small public example of the same mistake many company leaders and politicians are making that are impacting our society all the time.
Yeah I played youth hockey with two black kids on my team in the 80s and 90s and while I was not at all times in their presence l, I can say I don’t remember hearing a single slur, not even once. We did all make homophobic jokes constantly though. I stopped around age 16, but it was still going strong.
I think I can help, starting with your second point: it's not causing any harm, except that as a business the only thing that should matter for the NHL is ROI. Investing a ton of money and not securing a future fan base would be a disaster. The critique is not that it's inclusivity efforts are harmful in themselves, but that they are a poor way of aquiring a new customer base.
As for your first point: leagues should probably spend most of their money driving down the costs of equipment and leagues for kids (maybe even subsidizing for the poor) while also investing in technology. Kids need to be able to experience sports events together while not being in the same room. Why watch hockey alone when you can play Fortnite with your pals?
I think the counter argument is $1000marketing at a surburban schools where you don’t need to heavily subsidize everything will get you more players and future fans than dumping $10,000 into a learn to play program at an inner city school where none of the parents can afford the sport. Now whether that is true is an open fact, but I suspect it is. Right now our inner city program often seems to have more paid staff than participants.
I find it interesting that NHL.com's Community section includes (what I consider) many worthwhile efforts to grow the sport, such as the "united by hockey" touring museum exhibit, "Hockey For Everyone", a directory of places across North America where kids can start learning to play hockey, and so on.
And YET - the actual Community link doesn't go to any of those pages! It routes specifically and only to the Diversity and Inclusion Report. Which is perhaps the least actionable element of NHL community outreach!
I want hockey to be more income-accessible. I want hockey to grow in and reflect the communities it serves. I don't want cheap talk over actual action that can give everyone a chance to experience this game.
When ESS brought up the committee of teenagers advising the NHL my mind immediately drifted to the The Simpsons Who Shot Mr. Burns when the students and faculty line up to give advice on how Springfield Elementary should spend their new oil money, and the Monorail episode where the town also gives suggestions on how to spend their money.
It’s weird how sports leagues become so obsessed with attracting non-fans. While I understand that you always want to be growing your customer base, the risk of alienating your core fans is so much greater.
I’m a supporter of MLS and their recent contract with Apple got so many fans up in arms. Many felt that they were essentially resigning themselves to never attracting casual fans who might happen to stumble onto a match while channel surfing which is so silly (like that still happens).
The league has been around since ‘96. If people were interested, they would have found it already and even if they just heard about it, they could still attend a match in person which is another way to attract people. Plus, the new deal made it easier for their hard core fans to consume their product.
This obsession with continuous growth is forcing business to make poor decisions long term.
“ Browning hails the project as a “gift that keeps on giving,” revealing that the idea was born out of a letter she received from an 11-year old girl and keen NHL fan, Sabrina Solomon, soon after being appointed as chief marketing officer five years ago. Impressed by her creativity, Browning invited Solomon to present some of her ideas to the league.”
This only confirms my suspicions that these woke folks are stuck in a state of arrested development, utterly incapable of critical thinking, mired in the logic of, literally, an 11 year-old.
I'm imagining the Youth Advisory Board meetings being similar to the Hooli focus groups on Silicon Valley.
"Who here thinks what Don Cherry just said is "hella lame"? Amy, Josh, Cindy, Saad, Brittney..."
YES
A few thoughts from a white, millennial, Canadian, son of a former NHLer:
I often find myself drawing comparisons between hockey and golf, both mostly suffer the similar fate of requiring a lot of land/space to play the sport. So right away this limits the ability for a majority of the population living in large North America cities to access the sport.
For perspective the city of Vancouver has failed to really ever produce a hockey superstar, save for Connor Bedard the upcoming #1 pick (insert longer discussion about North Vancouver being so much more rural and likely to produce NHL talent).
Also cities struggle to have enough facilities to produce great hockey/golf talent, there is 1 city rink to every 3 or 4 rural/suburban rinks. And the same is true for golf courses (at least in this region of pacific canada).
This is mostly true in Toronto, Montreal, etc. hockey talent inordinately comes from smaller suburban hotbeds and especially the prairies. From what I know golf has the similar struggle of producing talent that large population centres fully identify with, and until Tiger wood’s ascent golf was mostly consumed by white people (Americans and Europeans). Tiger’s domination has brought a lot more minority eyeballs, but when you look at the sport the demographics of those participating hasn’t really changed. I would imagine the same would be true if a minority NHL player became the next superstar.
In general I think alienating life long fans and the base of the demographic to chase after a demographic that will never really like your sport the same way is entirely foolhardy.
Just keep playing into the core fans, blast the ACDC loud and proud and accept the reality that the Phoenix coyotes are not going to succeed and neither is chasing those BIPOC eye balls.
Note - there is also greater factors to discuss surrounding financial access (hockey is CRAZY expensive)that suggest it’s just not a sport that will ever succeed against other most accessible sports. Not to mention the cultural aspects of hockey… blah blah I could go on. Anyhow appreciate the thought provoking post. Apologies for the rambling thoughts.
1/ NHL : BIPOC :: GOP : Black People
2/ Living Space = Affordable family formation (h/t: Steve Sailer)
3/ Your pops had a sweet ass mustache. Hope he is well and he kept one of those beautiful old Jets jerseys.
This Substack is fucking great
Once again, I argue that this belief that leaning into identity politics misses the usual greatest issue for many organizations - class. Plus there's the fact that teens and such aren't tuning out of sports because of race and gender but because video games are cheaper, require less work, give them agency, and are in some cases social networks on their own.
The NHL and NBA are certainly TikToking past the graveyard (pssst TikTok is loaded with video game footage! Take a hint people!)
Ding ding ding! As always with every single woke push, class is often ignored.
The 11-year-old letter writer seems completely fictional. A perfectly made up story to sell an idea, some sort of bizarro world Grievance Scholar prodigy. I just have a hard time believing even the most socially aware child is taking the time to write a letter to the league asking for more DEI.
Oh my gosh thank you for calling this out, I thought the same thing. I can barely get my 10 year old to do her homework, definitely not hearing her feeling compelled to write organizations about their DEI initiatives... lol
And then the organization finds said letter, and said little girl, so compelling that they alter the direction of a 100 year old sport to suit her feelz.
Please.
Maybe kinda related, I think of Ethan's line from a previous article:
"Sports leagues would prefer that their real fan be a sophisticated, highly educated, multiracial Gen Z woman who swings by the arena after leaving her downtown tech job. In reality, the real fan is more often Jersey Jerry, the Barstool lump who shat himself on a subway train."
Two points based on my experience as the parent of Gen Z boys:
1) Most white Gen Z boys are in a backlash against woke, and these moves will further alienate them.
2) The most popular youth sport is *by far* the NFL-sponsored flag football leagues, which have the major benefit of *not* being linked to an AAU-style competitive-recruitment atmosphere. Everyone plays it on the weekend in addition to their individual high school sport specialization.
I used to be a hockey fan, but I really haven’t watched it for a decade whereas I continue to consume a ton of content for other major sports. I am also a person of color, but I can tell you that the lack of diversity had zero to do with why I haven’t watched hockey in about a decade. It does have anything to do with scoring being at its lowest level in history and continuing to trend downwards. Instead of wasting their time with this BS, how about figuring out a way to improve the product to showcase your stars. Right now, half of the goals feel like a complete accident. In the playoffs more often than not it comes down to which team has the hotter goalie.
agree with this and the simplest fix would just be widening the net slightly
"They try to hire a non-White person, specifically, in Florida, only to run into Ron DeSantis."
I think you're trying to be glib, but I contend that's a rather unfair mischaracterization of the situation. They were holding a job fair that specifically stated that you had to be a member of their self-defined protected classes. The exact text was: ""Participants must be 18 years of age or older, based in the U.S., and identify as female, Black, Asian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic/Latino, Indigenous, LGBTQIA+, and/or a person with a disability. Veterans are also welcome and encouraged to attend." If you want to encourage participation by those groups, that's a fantastic thing to do. But they've been captured by these religious nuts that think melanin deficiency equates to evil, and that harm will be done to those who fall somewhere on the intersectionality Venn diagram by even being in their presence.
I just think I did a dispassionate description of events, absent value judgment.
They didn’t “try to hire a non-White person, specifically, in Florida”, and then were forbidden from hiring said person by the governor of Florida, they tried to hold a job fair that specifically forbid the participation of people based on their immutable traits. To someone who may not be familiar with the story, your wording suggests something nefarious.
Okay, I can see that. The exclusion of certain people from even participating in the fair is a step further
I know, that pesky equal protection clause in the 14th amendment. I guess ES has to keep his Bay Area cred.
Michael Shellenberger wrote an excellent and depressing article about Woke Totalitarianism that speaks to your experience.
"Woke totalitarians are plainly seeking the total reorganization of society along the lines of a racist “hierarchy of oppression” that puts black and indigenous people above other “people of color,” (i.e., Latinos and Asians) as a single “BIPOC” ruling class. This is ostensibly to create the reverse of past hierarchies and is thus transparently vengeful and racist."
It's true. We all see it. And it exploded quickly. From BIPOC-only (non-white) meeting groups at a Washington Elementary School, to black-only graduations, to a Michigan school board member decrying whiteness as evil and worse than animals, to Sheila Lee Jackson's house bill 61, to nationwide college acceptance and hiring policies, the anti-white hate is STRONG and growing. It must be checked. I am terrified for my 3 year old son who is just an innocent kid who wants to play with any kid who likes trucks, and yet he is hated because of the color of his skin. And everyone is just letting this hate foment and force its way into the pillars of society. We must be strong, rise above the hate, and care for the future of ALL humans.
Well if they don’t take it down what is going to happen is going to be a civil war eventually. One the BIPOCs cannot possibly win.
The civil war along racial lines may be what the powers that be want. And it is those powers who are the evil, not people of opposing melanin levels.
Ethan ,
I would love if you would be up for a complimentary podcast whenever you publish a piece like this. As you make clear in the piece, you are coming at this as an objective outsider, not someone who lives in the hockey world. I’d love to hear this continue into a conversation with someone that is from that hockey world (journalist-not some NHL employee) to flesh out the things you write about.
I think almost every piece you write could benefit from this kind of “debrief” with a specialist to compliment your sports generalist approach.
- Happy subscriber and GO CANES!
All I can say is that this assessment doesn't square with my experience as a hockey dad or hockey fan.
Warm parts of the US are some of the best (and growing) markets for hockey in the country. The Phoenix area is a youth hockey hotbed. ASU is nationally ranked. Miami, Tampa, and North Carolina (which is hosting an outdoor game in a 50K+ seat football stadium tomorrow night) are thriving.
When I go to local rinks in suburban DC, I see robust girls programs and significant ethnic diversity that reflects the local area (in contrast to my sister's kids' program in the Hudson Valley). That's good, right?
How is the NHL's signaling to these kids and their families that they should feel welcome a bad thing? A decade ago, it wouldn't be uncommon to hear a gay slur directed at a player at a Caps game. Today, that's very uncommon. Again, a good thing that is a sign of societal progress.
A predominantly white fanbase isn't inherently bad. But it is bad when it becomes hostile to other things. I see more people of color at NHL games today than I did as a kid. I think the NHL's inclusion efforts play at least some role. And as you point out, the other problem with an inherently white fanbase is that it doesn't keep up with the demography of the country (or the metropolitan areas where the teams are located). When the NHL looks at its relative lack of diversity compared to all the other major sports, they likely consider that as an issue.
The NHL's main problems come down to the fact that it's a tough sport to just pick up without significant means unless you live somewhere frigid and it's something that everyone just does; coupled with problem you enumerate about young people not watching much sport on TV other than football. The NHL seems to be trying hard to combat the participation issue with "Learn to Play". programs in which equipment is highly subsidized. But it's very hard to compete with basketball and soccer whose participation costs are much lower.
I don't think the NHL's underlying issues are going away, but also don't see much downside to trying to expand the tent.
Although i generally agree with your opinion, I think a point Ethan is trying to make is that by focusing on these initiatives that dont ultimate yield growth or eliminate the down turn their experiencing, you are potentially looking in the wrong directions and not focusing on relevant or accurate solutions. Your message really is the talking point of so many people with social justice issues of “why be apposed, what harm is causing?” And important people be they NHL owners, politicians, or leaders of institutions wasting their time and focus on issues that arent really issues is harmful in mine and others opinion.
1) The first argument would be a lot stronger if Ethan had presented alternative ideas that would yield growth or had effectively argued how these efforts were counterproductive.
2) I have yet to hear a reasonable answer as to "what harm it is causing" to be inclusive, at least in this context. There are certainly some viable critiques as to the implementation of inclusivity efforts, and ESS never misses a chance to make them (and yes, there's nothing funnier than "End Racism" in NFL end zones). As a straight white guy, I've moved pretty comfortably at sporting events for most of my life; but I know that's not the case for many.
The harm is caused is that the vast majority of non-BIPOC’s (aka white people) don’t have a racist bone in their body and just treat people the way they treat everyone else. These efforts alienate those people, as the not-so-subtle message is: whites = oppressor.
But more importantly, it furthers a horrific narrative that racism is around every corner. And the more this continues to be yelled from the mountain tops, the more we as a society contribute to the anxiety of minorities, assuming 1 in 4 people doesn’t like them because they look different.
Lastly, I cannot deny your own experience at Capitals games. What I can say is that I’ve been to literally over 1,000 sporting events in my life, including 3 seasons at every Tampa Bay Lightning home game. I have never once heard a person yell out a racial slur at a player.
Solid points. But ill respond by saying i wish ESS did have the solution to complicated problems, but i appreciate he doesnt pretend to when he doesnt, and isnt the person with the power and responsibility to make those right decisions. I use to think it was irresponsible to call out what people are doing wrong if you don’t have solution, but these days i tend to believe that just seeing a problem clearly is sometimes the hardest part, the solution may even be impossible. I guess my belief is that individual people, and even organizations of people, have a certain bandwidth of focus, attention, and capability. So when i think of what harm is created by being inclusive (which doesnt actually represent what i was saying) the harm is in diverting valuable focus and resources towards a misguided solution to a potentially nonexistent problem. Maybe this time it leads to the continued struggle and eventual collapse of the NHL because they squandered years promoting a message that resonated with nobody and fixed nothing. That has little to no effect on most people lives. But this is just a small public example of the same mistake many company leaders and politicians are making that are impacting our society all the time.
Yeah I played youth hockey with two black kids on my team in the 80s and 90s and while I was not at all times in their presence l, I can say I don’t remember hearing a single slur, not even once. We did all make homophobic jokes constantly though. I stopped around age 16, but it was still going strong.
I think I can help, starting with your second point: it's not causing any harm, except that as a business the only thing that should matter for the NHL is ROI. Investing a ton of money and not securing a future fan base would be a disaster. The critique is not that it's inclusivity efforts are harmful in themselves, but that they are a poor way of aquiring a new customer base.
As for your first point: leagues should probably spend most of their money driving down the costs of equipment and leagues for kids (maybe even subsidizing for the poor) while also investing in technology. Kids need to be able to experience sports events together while not being in the same room. Why watch hockey alone when you can play Fortnite with your pals?
I think the counter argument is $1000marketing at a surburban schools where you don’t need to heavily subsidize everything will get you more players and future fans than dumping $10,000 into a learn to play program at an inner city school where none of the parents can afford the sport. Now whether that is true is an open fact, but I suspect it is. Right now our inner city program often seems to have more paid staff than participants.
Maybe black people must be getting exhausted after sp many years of being pushed into every profession and hobby?
Like hey - I don't want to be a data engineer with a podcast who watches hockey and plays golf on the weekend
I find it interesting that NHL.com's Community section includes (what I consider) many worthwhile efforts to grow the sport, such as the "united by hockey" touring museum exhibit, "Hockey For Everyone", a directory of places across North America where kids can start learning to play hockey, and so on.
And YET - the actual Community link doesn't go to any of those pages! It routes specifically and only to the Diversity and Inclusion Report. Which is perhaps the least actionable element of NHL community outreach!
I want hockey to be more income-accessible. I want hockey to grow in and reflect the communities it serves. I don't want cheap talk over actual action that can give everyone a chance to experience this game.
When ESS brought up the committee of teenagers advising the NHL my mind immediately drifted to the The Simpsons Who Shot Mr. Burns when the students and faculty line up to give advice on how Springfield Elementary should spend their new oil money, and the Monorail episode where the town also gives suggestions on how to spend their money.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWO7QDuSj9w
It’s weird how sports leagues become so obsessed with attracting non-fans. While I understand that you always want to be growing your customer base, the risk of alienating your core fans is so much greater.
I’m a supporter of MLS and their recent contract with Apple got so many fans up in arms. Many felt that they were essentially resigning themselves to never attracting casual fans who might happen to stumble onto a match while channel surfing which is so silly (like that still happens).
The league has been around since ‘96. If people were interested, they would have found it already and even if they just heard about it, they could still attend a match in person which is another way to attract people. Plus, the new deal made it easier for their hard core fans to consume their product.
This obsession with continuous growth is forcing business to make poor decisions long term.
“ Browning hails the project as a “gift that keeps on giving,” revealing that the idea was born out of a letter she received from an 11-year old girl and keen NHL fan, Sabrina Solomon, soon after being appointed as chief marketing officer five years ago. Impressed by her creativity, Browning invited Solomon to present some of her ideas to the league.”
This only confirms my suspicions that these woke folks are stuck in a state of arrested development, utterly incapable of critical thinking, mired in the logic of, literally, an 11 year-old.