Wellyopolis

April 20, 2007

Game, interrupted

I heard the following on Marketplace from a guy called Ed Derse who's supposedly a sports business analyst:

[Hockey is] a little bit too stop-start. If they make it more fluid, I think it will be better.

in the context of discussing why [ice]-hockey is losing out to other sports.

Now, maybe hockey's slowed down since the olden days, but has Ed Derse seen the other sports that appear on American TV? Football is the world's slowest sport. Basketball goes quickly until you get to the final 10 minutes and then it's like football. All breaks, all the time. They don't dawdle around in baseball, but it ain't continuous. I can't buy the argument that people don't watch hockey because it's stop-start when Americans have a demonstrable appetite for sports that are even more interrupted.

Posted by eroberts at April 20, 2007 10:11 AM