A David's Lament: Has The Business Of Sports Cooled Our Love Affair With The Underdog?

Amen.

I think your post is great, and I am concerned about the uneven marketing of the league as well.

Sure, Tampa may never host a Winter Classic (though what with the downtown ice skating rink it’s possible from a technical standpoint) but is it such a stretch to think Our Team couldn’t play in one? Inside your heart, you know the answer, too—yes; yes it is. Consider this: since the inception of the Winter Classic in 2008, only the Sabres, Red Wings, Flyers, Bruins, Capitals, Blackhawks and Penguins (twice) have played in it. What do each of those teams have in common—they are (with the exception of the Sabres and the Caps) some of the oldest franchises with some of the largest fan bases.

I guess it boils down to this: after the lockout, the NHL is just now beginning to re-emerge as a relevant sport, and the Winter Classic (and Heritage Classic) is one of their new brand marks as they increase revenue and expand fan base. I think they’ve done a good job overall, but are now facing the risk of overselling the big teams at the expense of the smaller markets—Tampa included. Messrs. Vinik’s and Yzerman’s goal of perpetual playoff apperances and success will make Tampa more relevant to the sports fan nation-wide, but that will take some time.

Excellent post! Its unfortunately true, instead of focusing on the underdog, commentators lament about the performance of the favorites.

Personally, I’m disappointed.

In the recent past rooting for the underdog was a given, it helped acquire new fans and build up the support for that team. Now the underdog is treated as unworthy, especially by some of the key commentators in the game. Listen to the NHL channel on XM/Sirius, until the other day the Lightning were an afterthought. Even coming back and winning the Pens series was focused on the Pens shortcomings and very little on the Bolts effort.

Now that the Bolts swept the Capitals the positive comments come out of the woodwork. I still hear “Those games are boring” from one of their most prolific commentators however.

Hopefully momentum will build, after all this is the 2nd successful playoff run for the Lightning in 7 years, not many teams match that.

Also, notice the lack of the classic “David vs Goliath” imagery used by the media. Guess they save that for their darlings like LA now.

Even as an outsider, I find the lack of ability to root for the underdog very perplexing.

As a Philadelphian, the perfect example for me comes from your own market. In 2008, it certainly felt like the entire national media was on the Rays bandwagon during the playoffs, even if they hurriedly jumped off once it was all over. ‘Small market team that had never even had a winning season before, now here they are in the World Series and they’re so dominant that they have to be the favorite in this series!’ I promise I’m not saying that to rub it in, I’m just trying to draw a parallel about how willing the media was to spin that arrangement into a case of rooting for the small market financial underdog against the larger TV market. They could easily find an effective way to market your team this year, as I can think of multiple options myself.

You deserve whatever exposure you get from your success right now, because the current NHL mentality is not to give you any for free (which isn’t fair). But if they’re going to insist on trying to make the ‘southern markets’ work, they need to give you your due when you earn it. And for the record, even without the spectacular nature of the last two weeks or so, I think you guys are doing just fine.

It asked, “How do you think Capitals fans are feeling right now?” Well, what about Lightning fans? You know, the team that actually won?

They’re making it seem like the Capitals lost this series instead of giving any credit to the Bolts for winning it. While that may be partially due to the fact that the Caps were a 1 seed and the Lightning a 5 seed, we had 103 points this season, only 4 behind Washington. Even casually, there is obvious favoritism with teams like the Caps and Pens, not too different from the Red Sox and Yankees in baseball.

Also, did anyone notice that the two main teams that were featured in commercials for the NHL (Washington with the “Ovechtrick” and Philly with “the undefeated season”) were swept out of the playoffs?

Then the Neilsen ratings and ad revenue are, hopefully, Saul.

And looking forward to this series guys, going to be a good one.

Voted on your fan poll, Bruins in 6 I say.

Hopefully the schedule comes out soon and I can see if a flight down for game 3,4, or 6 would make sense.

The entire league stands to lose a lot of money when small markets win, that’s why it’s important to have consistent officiating as inconsistent officiating can be seen as league intervention in the outcome of a series. And no, consistently inconsistent officiating doesn’t count.