The new NBA season kicked off Tuesday night, with the Miami Heat hosting the Boston Celtics in a matchup of two of the most popular sports teams in any North American sport. And while professional basketball begins to dominate the sports landscape, along with the NFL, the current NHL lockout continues to put hockey on the back burner.
The biggest threat that the NBA poses to the NHL is that it can steal a lot of the casual fans who fell in love with hockey over the last few years, but don't want to deal with the lockout when the NBA excites them, too.
Watching the NBA is much better than listening to the same boring rhetoric from the NHL and its players time and time again. The lockout isn't even a big story in many cities at this point.
Casual fans are a vital part of the NHL. But as the NBA season gets underway, the chances that these important fans will remain interested in hockey decrease with each passing day. There are very few NHL franchises that don't compete for business with a nearby NBA team.
Another problem for the NHL is that many of its large-market teams are in cities where there is also a good NBA team that has ...
Read Full Article at Bleacher Report - NHL
Article written by Nicholas Goss
NHL Lockout: Start of 2012-13 NBA Season Moves Hockey Further off the Sports Map
October 30th, 2012 by Nicholas Goss Leave a reply »
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