The following guest post was offered up by colleague Scott Huntington…
Every true sports fan wants to see a contest when they tune in to watch their favorite team. But for the NHL, The 2019 Playoffs seem to be the year of the upset and it’s beginning to beg the question, is this more than fans are prepared to take?
The practice of measuring TV viewership for sporting events can offer a lot of insight into the psychology of North America’s sports fans. Situations like this year’s, where a leading team is knocked out of the championship race early, aren’t always the best for broadcasters. 
Tampa Bay’s Historic Defeat
It’s hard to imagine a more momentous upset than the 62-win Tampa Bay Lightning losing to the Columbus Blue Jackets. Hockey fans have watched Tampa Bay go on a season-long rampage, so to have them fall four games to none during the first round of the playoffs is devastating. It is still early in the playoffs and with the way Columbus’ Cinderella-like performance is playing out, we could see the Jackets develop a healthy following of their own, but for gamblers and network execs it’s bad news. It’s a little harder for the NHL to market a team that doesn’t have a superstar like Stephen Stamkos.
Speaking of superstars, the Pittsburgh Penguins just got swept by the New York Islanders as well. The Penguins have won the Stanley Cup twice in the last three years and are enormously popular, and a ratings powerhouse. They’re second only to the Chicago Blackhawks, who by the way, aren’t even in the playoffs. So now the NHL has to go through a month and a half worth of playoffs without some of most popular teams and without players like Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. See the problem?
It’s not all bad news. Many of the remaining competitors carry long-time followings. The Boston Bruins, Washington Capitals and St. Luis Blues are all clubs with loyal followings. Add to that the wild ride of the Las Vegas Golden Knights, the newly proclaimed “people’s team” and there’s still plenty of dynamite left in this year’s playoff series.
Then there are the upstart Islanders, with a Stanley Cup winning coach (Barry Trotz) who may also soon be the only winter sports team left in the New York area. While they ping pong back a
nd forth between their new/old home Nassau Coliseum and Barclays Center in Brooklyn, their story line for a national audience is just beginning,
Oh Canada
The ratings are always going to be high when Canada is involved, and this year we saw three Canadian teams make the cut. Calgary, the best team in the West, could be on the wrong side of an upset as well. They’re down three games to one and could get knocked out of the playoffs as early tonight. This would be another huge shock, and another reason for fans to turn off the TV for the second round.
The Toronto Maple Leafs are still alive, and by far the Canadian team with the biggest fanbase. They have the best chance to move on, being tied with Boston, but Boston is also the team that repeatedly knocks them out in seven games. Recent history has not exactly been kind to the Leafs. They look like Canada’s best hope at the moment, since the Winnipeg Jets lost a heartbreaker Thursday and now face elimination as well.
Money Spent, Money Lost
While the first round has been exciting and unexpected, it’s been rough on the fans of the popular teams, and the majority of people with money on the games. When people spend over $4.9 billion betting on sports, a lot of that money is going to be lost when there’s a major upset. In a Reddit league, only 30 people out of 30,809 picked the Jackets and Islanders to sweep, with one user literally eating his hat from losing a bet.
While that’s great news for legal betting services, its still TBD as to how it will play out on the fan side, as the unexpected now becomes the expected…
What does the NHL do?
The best thing for the NHL to do is to embrace the uncertainty and promote these games as must-sees with the angle that the first round is proof that anything can happen. They need to jump all over this, and market teams like Columbus and Colorado as the ultimate Cinderella stories. If they want people to tune in, they need to show that the unthinkable can happen on any given night, and you don’t want to be the one who missed it. People love a good underdog story, so it’s time to play it up as much as possible.
We’re only a week and a half into the playoffs. As we’ve seen so far… anything can happen.
