SportsBusiness Daily reported that overall attendance in the NHL is down 2.2 percent from last season. In December, Biz of Hockey looked at how attendance was doing and found that it was down almost 5 percent from where the league finished in ’09. The second half of the NHL season saw a sizable recovery possibly due to momentum gained from the Winter Classic, Olympics and playoff battles. And, despite the overall drop for the league’s worst draw the Phoenix Coyotes, the team finished 12.4 percent higher than it’s first-half percentage. The Coyotes weren’t the only team to see a second-half boost, the Nashville Predators finished 7 percent higher than they stood at mid-season while the Tampa Bay Lightning, Los Angeles Kings and Carolina Hurricanes drew just over 5 percent more fans. Only two teams saw second-half losses, the New York Rangers and the Atlanta Thrashers, both teams finished under 1 percent less than they were at mid-season.
Overall, the league drew finished 2.24 percent higher at the end of the season than where it stood at mid-season.
Hey, maybe we’ll get a bunch of 7-game series so the NHL will make big bucks and “everyone” wins? (Except, you know, the teams who lose.)
(H/T to Kukla’s Korner.)