The NHL, the Olympics and You
Towards the end of the Olympics there was a lot of chatter and print about whether or not Olympic hockey with NHL players is actually good for the NHL in terms of popularity.
Long-term results are hard to measure. Short-term is a bit easier. Some things to consider:
- National TV ratings before and after the break (and remembering to compare them to non-Olympic years and take major market teams into consideration).
- League attendance before and after the break (once again, comparing it to non-Olympic years)
- Web site traffic before and after the break (comparing it to non-Olympic years)
The NHL resumed play last night. In a week, I’m going to bring this topic up again and I hope hockey webmasters and bloggers will share their pre-Olympic, Olympic and post-Olympic statistics (or at least percentage increases and drecreases) with me.
Until then, what else do you think could be used to measure league popularity and whether the Olympics has any affect on it?
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