NHL: L.A. Celebrates the Stanley Cup; Does the Rest of the Country Care? - Joe Chacon's Blog

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Joe Chacon's Blog

NHL: L.A. Celebrates the Stanley Cup; Does the Rest of the Country Care? Stuck

Posted on June 12, 2012 at 03:02 AM.

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There has long been this notion that major sports media outlets discount the West Coast in just about every sport.

Quick, don't blink, but as of this writing the Los Angeles Kings are on the front page of both ESPN.com and FOXSPORTS.com. Chances are once you hit those pages in a few hours it will have been replaced by either the Eurocup or the NBA Finals.

I can't argue with either one of those events putting a blanket over the Kings and their Stanley Cup Championship after some time; but tell me that the NHL coverage wouldn't have been more prominent if the New Jersey Devils weren't up 3-0 in the series.

Furthermore, how many more headlines would the Stanley Cup Final have gained if the New York Rangers or Boston Bruins had made it?

It appeared throughout the Stanley Cup Final that the Kings improbable run was continuously being overshadowed by the NBA Finals, Eurocup, and even Horse Racing.

Understandably, ESPN is pumping every last ounce of blood about the NBA to its readers because of how much money they have invested in their TV contract. And let's be honest, the NBA market is much greater than the NHL which is why Fox Sports was leading with the San Antonio Spurs collapse instead of the Kings taking a commanding lead in their final series with the Devils.

As a lifelong resident of Southern California, I've become accustomed to seeing every one of my sports teams take a back seat to the East Coast teams with regard to the media coverage.

No matter how bad the Red Sox and Yankees are, they will still be glorified more on SportsCenter than the Dodgers. Even if the Dodgers have the best record in baseball.

USC Trojans football has a blind eye turned to the program because they play in the Pac-12, which most "experts" say is a horrible football conference.

National media does pay attention to the Lakers, but mostly due to their chemistry problems. If the Lakers aren't self-imploding, it's not going to be a national story.

Finally, the Los Angeles Kings, who have one of the most Cinderella-esque stories in sports history have had to have their Stanley Cup run buried beneath just about every other sport that took place during the Final.

For those outside of Los Angeles and New Jersey: Did you feel the national media did an adequate job in promoting the Stanley Cup Final? Was Los Angeles being in the Cup Final a deterrent for you to watch?

Joe Chacon is a Staff Writer for Operation Sports and a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @JoeChacon.

Comments

# 1 SilentSanta @ Jun 12

You couldn't be more correct, and I've said numerous times in the past week myself. The Stanley Cup Finals aren't getting the attention they deserve.

Last week, for example, I turned on SportsCenter and it took 9 minutes for them to stop talking about Lebron and the Heat and to discuss the Cup finals. When they finally did discuss the Cup, it was for just 2 minutes, as opposed to the 9 they talked about the Heat/Celtics series, which wasnt even the championship series the the Cup is.

I wouldn't even say it is just the Kings getting overlooked, however. SportsCenter, or just ESPN in general, has never covered hockey well at all outside of when they had the rights to broadcast the games on TV. In the regular season on SportsCenter you're lucky to see 2 or 3 game highlights from the night before and if you do it's for about 1 minute at the tail end of the show.

Perhaps this is the reason, being a big hockey fan, that I always find myself switching off ESPN and tuning in to NBC Sports Network and NHL Network, where I can get my fill of hockey.

Anyways, congrats to the LA Kings on an insane run in the playoffs and on winning the Stanly Cup.

# 2 cbass1 @ Jun 12

I agree that the Stanley Cup Finals wasn't getting any attention. But I think that the reason is the NHL and not the media. If you have quality product you have to market and promote the product. I don't think I saw one ad promoting the Stanley Cup playoffs this year. I think Gary Bettman needs to sit down with his marketing team, and NBC to come up with a new Marketing plan to promote their sport

# 3 jyoung @ Jun 12

It is no coincidence that ESPN stopped covering hockey around the same time that they lost the TV rights to show live NHL games.

Neither is it a coincidence that ESPN began dramatically increasing its NBA coverage once they merged with ABC and began showing tons of weekly NBA games.

ESPN is a media outlet that protects its televised properties by covering them to the fullest while ignoring other sports they don't own the live rights to.

# 4 ven0m43 @ Jun 12

I've been a LA Kings fan since I was 3, but I am also a hockey fan. No matter what teams are in the playoffs I always watch the playoffs and Stanley cup finals.

For people that I've talked to, they either don't get nbcsports or have a really hard time finding it. Also for me the NHL network was dropped from my cable provider, so im stuck with only local games (Kings and Ducks) as well as the games that NBC provides
(most of the time east coast teams). The main problem that I see is that Hockey just isnt promoted enough and easily accessible for someone to stumble across. ESPN will show soccer games and I will come across them and watch them, even though im not a huge fan. For hockey its hard for someone to come across a game, let alone find the channel even if you want to find it.