The Hockey Conundrum: Part IV
There’s been a lot of talk since the 2004–2005 NHL lockout about what the league can do better — how they can improve ticket sales, attract bigger and better sponsors, and recruit talented athletes who would otherwise choose a more lucrative career (tip: maybe go longer than a decade without a lockout). The Hockey Conundrum Parts I and II touched on the tendency to hold the other professional sports leagues in high regard; big brother beacons of popularity and success who have written the playbook the NHL must follow. But there’s one thing that the NHL does a better job of than any of the other mainstream professional leagues in the United States, and that’s attracting a female fan base.
Hear me out.
Being a female sports fan in itself is a challenge. It starts with the assumption we only like the players for their looks (honestly, who doesn’t love a mullet), followed by the constant challenges to our sports knowledge (“If you’re such a big fan, then what was Herb Brooks’ blood type?”), and ends with the three hundred and sixty-fifth explanation of what icing is. Yes, these things really happen, but I’d be willing to bet that they happen to female hockey fans less due to the excitement and shared camaraderie that comes from actually finding another hockey fan. Statistically there are way fewer of us and we tend to clump in specific metro areas. If I ever find myself traveling through Idaho and I meet a fellow Bruins fan, whether or not they know Zdeno Chara’s plus-minus rating is of no concern.
Hockey’s inclusivity of the female fan base benefits from the sports status as a “minor major”. Of the four most popular professional sports, hockey ranks dead last in viewership, participation, valuation, and revenue[1]. I’m sure the NHL values its female fans for many reasons, but chief among them is certainly the fact that a ticket sold is a ticket sold regardless of the holder’s gender. When your league is constantly struggling against the giants of the NFL and NBA, any kind of fan is your favorite kind of fan. At some point in the last few years the NHL front office realized this, and began marketing towards men and women collectively. Rather than seeing female hockey fans as a demographic that needs to be pandered to, the NHL correctly realizes that a female Oilers fan will boldly wear orange and blue no matter how much she looks like Kevin Smith. The NHL.com pro shop is full of fan gear tailored towards women but not a single item is pink. That a woman wants to wear her team colors but not drown in a men’s-sized jersey is not a hard concept to grasp, and the NHL has done this better any of the other professional leagues.
Perhaps hockey’s greatest advantage in captivating a female audience comes from the team rosters. Only a quarter of all NHL players are American, and while 47% are Canadian the remaining 28% come from across Europe[2]. The league’s global roots influence both culture and gameplay, which translates to the type of fan the sport attracts. The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) considers 13 countries “hockey nations”[3]. Nine of these appear on the Top 50 list of countries with the most gender equality; five of them are in the Top 10[4]. Globally, this bodes well for the NHL. If the league is flush with players who hail from gender-equal countries, then the NHL stands a better chance of better including females both on and off the ice.
None of this is to say that the NHL hasn’t had its fair share of face-palms along the way (let us never forget that horribly offensive Girls Guide to Watching the Rangers). Still, the NHL’s inclusive efforts shine brightest when compared to the other professional leagues. For all its faults, it’s still not as bad as the NFL. While only 32% of hockey fans in the United States are female[5], this number is rapidly growing and it seems the NHL as an organization is responsive to this growth. NHL players are statistically way less likely to be arrested on domestic violence charges than anyone from the NFL, NBA, or MLB [6]. It only took a handful of assault cases over the past few years for Gary Bettman and the NHLPA to introduce mandatory domestic violence awareness programs for all NHL teams [7]. I’m only being half sarcastic — it’s a good (if not painfully obvious) step forward. It’s unlikely that anyone will decide to become a hockey fan because players are less likely to beat their wives, but it’s a hell of a lot easier to remain loyal because of it.
All of this aside, very few people choose their favorite sports in such an objective way. Hockey is deeply rooted in tradition and family ties. If you know a female hockey fan, there is a very good chance that her family contains male fans and/or players, and a halfway decent chance she has played herself. But rather than rely on passive familial allegiance to bring in fans, the NHL has taken the offensive by increasing the number opportunities for female athletes to play long past the early-youth stage. Since the focus of youth leagues has shifted to long-term engagement and the American Development Model was introduced in 2010, youth hockey participation has increased 43% overall [8] and added roughly 2,700 female players per year [9]. This has made ice hockey the second fastest growing youth sport in the country, and has created a demand for teams at all levels and for all genders. Football, on the other hand, has seen a steady decline over the same period. The United States Soccer Federation implemented a similar strategy in late 1980’s and officially started a women’s national team 1991 [10]. Today, soccer is the most popular youth sport and the Women’s National Team is the most dominant and successful female pro team in the entire world. Though hockey still has far to go, women’s collegiate teams already generate twice as much revenue as their soccer-playing counterparts [11]. The demand is there, the players are there, and if there remains an increase of funding and attention towards youth development for all genders, the NHL will continue to see growth among its female fan base.
In the great scope of professional sports, it’s fair to take in all of this information and still say “who gives a shit?”—after all, the Super Bowl did just rake in 133 million viewers. In comparison, game 7 of the 2011 Stanley Cup Final tallied 8.5 million viewers, and it’s the most-watched NHL game since 1973 [13]. Does it really matter that the smallest fan base of any major American sport is statistically more female? No, not really. What matters, however, is that the NHL thinks it matters. You should absolutely give a shit about a league that that values all fans equally, because female hockey fans — henceforth known as hockey fans — aren’t an untapped source of revenue who are just trying to impress men. We’re die-hards whose fanaticism goes back generations, and who will bleed our team colors all over your pink jersey — which we’ll promptly pull over your head and pummel you through if you ever call us “puck bunnies.”
[1] https://dupress.deloitte.com/dup-us-en/economy/behind-the-numbers/us-professional-leagues-sports-and-technology.html
[2] http://www.quanthockey.com/TS/TS_PlayerNationalities.php
[3] Countries whose population contains between 1 and 10 registered hockey players per 1000 people, according to the IIHF Survey of Players, 2008.
[4] http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2016/
[5] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/02/which-sports-have-the-whitest-richest-oldest-fans/283626/
[6] http://www.vocativ.com/culture/sport/nfl-arrest-rates/
[7] http://www.tsn.ca/nhl-nhlpa-to-address-domestic-violence-1.418200
[8] https://unitedstatesofhockey.com/2014/06/17/u-s-hockey-participation-numbers-for-2013-14/
[9] http://www.usahockeymagazine.com/article/2010-12/opportunities-females-ice-hockey
[10] https://www.ussoccer.com/about/history/timeline
[11] http://web1.ncaa.org/onlineDir/exec2/sponsorship?division=d1
[12] http://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/2015%20Division%20I%20RE%20report.pdf
[13] In both these games, the winning team was from Boston. Because of course they were. Statistically speaking.
