Talk:Major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada/Archive 1

Nothing in the world can be major unless it is in the US, and is popular with all Americans. The US is the world's only major country and is the only country to make contributions towards winning wars for freedom, inventing all technology, and creating all culture.

AveJoe, you're vandalism to the article will always reverted and you will eventually be banned from here. You're comments make no sense.--BoyoJonesJr 17:36, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

You are another jealous foreigner who can't come to grips with the fact that he will forever be inferior for not being born in the good old USA. It's not my fault that you are reduced to nursing at the teat of American invention and culture while living in the freedom we gave you. You should at least show some gratitude.

Whatever--BoyoJonesJr 21:38, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

The NHL easily qualifies as a major sports league, because of the average attendance of the teams, television ratings, and media coverage of the events. Its popularity in Canada alone qualifies it. And everyone, please help spread the attitude of ignoring trolls (like people who say Hockey is a children's sport). They are clearly looking for a reaction; what purpose this serves them is unclear. I also want to say that there needs to be a lot more emphasis on the major football (soccer) leaugues around the world, because right now, the article seems to be too slanted towards us leagues. The problem is not too much info on the Big Four in the US (it is excellent), but too little information on the soccer leaugues. Information about cricket, wildly popular in certain parts of the world, should also be included. Otherwise, I propose that the title of this article be changed to "Major US sport leagues"

Alright thats enough, the NHL is a major sports league. Leave it in the article AveJoe, I don't care if you don't like hockey, its a major sport and thats the way it is. Now unless you have some legitimate reasons to exclude it from the article, then we'll discuss it, otherwise stop removing NHL.--BoyoJonesJr 14:41, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I feel I need to comment on the issue. The NHL is a major sports league, end of story. If someone personally doesn't like hockey fine, but that doesn't change the fact that its a major sport. Stop being ridiculous and leave the NHL.--BoyoJonesJr 12:48, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Leave the NHL in the article AveJoe--BoyoJonesJr 14:52, 12 June 2006 (UTC)


 * The NHL qualifies as a major league, as discussed on this page. --FrankCostanza 23:05, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I made a few tweaks in order to minimize the seperations of the NHL. Seemed prejudical to seperate it --oknazevad 03:11, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

With respect to the lack of support for the NHL in some states, not every sport has universal support. The NHL deserves to be in the list, most people I know from across the US consider the NHL to be a major sport. After the lockout, 90% of NHL teams have sold out their rinks more nights than not, the same as many football/basketball teams. There are markets where baseball doesn't sell, there are markets where basketball doesn't sell and heaven forbit, there are markets where football doesn't sell. Excluding the NHL on such conditions is a disgrace to Wikipedia! Tawker 06:02, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

This whole argument is getting tedious. first of all, it's the National Hockey League, not the national icehockey league. second of all, how is it a regional children's activity? please enlighten me on that. you know what's funny, you mention that you have common sense. now someone with common sense should clearly know that if your store doesn't have hockey related merchandise, and you wont do business with people that do, (causing you to lose money.) that NO ONE cares! for god sake. your tiny meaningless opinion is not shared with the rest of the world, although that doesn't mean mine is, at least my opinions have some logic tied to them. now as for america bveing the greatest nation in the history of the world, i here that Macedonia in the 4th century was pretty good too. you might have some competition there bub. and as for surrendering to foreign things, 90% of you products are made in foreign countries (no china is not the 51st state.) and most envious items like carss are made in countries like Italy and Japan. so if your gonna ban all foreign items, you might go out of business soon. so keep that common sense of yours, it seems to be doing a good job.

We should do a major re-write on this article, which I will try to get to soon. I plan to restore some material from the original article, which I will check and correct if necessary. The original article outlined the debate as to whether or not the NHL is a major league as opposed to taking the supposedly indisputable view that the NHL is or is not a major league.

In the abscence of any reliable polls to indicate Americans' opinions on the matter, I did some Google searches - it's not what I would call scientific research but in my view it's as reliable of an indicator to settle this issue as any:
 * When you enter "MLB NBA NFL" into the search engine you get 32.9 million hits.
 * When you enter "MLB NBA NFL NHL" into the search engine you get 29.8 million hits. When you enter three of the four initialisms including "NHL" but excluding "NFL", you still get 29.8 million hits.  But when you exclude "NBA" from the four you get 29.9 million and when you exclude "MLB" you get 34.1 million hits - more than when you exclude "NHL."
 * However, when you enter "MLB NBA NFL NHL MLS" you get only 4.44 million hits, and when you enter "MLB NBA NFL MLS" you only get 4.77 million hits

However, the numbers are somewhat less favorable to hockey when the search is done by sport.
 * "baseball basketball football" yields 47.9 million hits.
 * "baseball basketball football hockey" yields 29.9 million hits.
 * "baseball basketball hockey" yields 32.1 million hits.
 * "baseball football hockey" yields 32.0 million hits.
 * "basketball football hockey" yields 35.1 million hits.
 * "baseball basketball football hockey soccer" yields 22.2 million hits, however "baseball basketball football soccer" yields 38.6 million hits.

The numbers are proportionally similar when these searches are done on Yahoo!

Based on these numbers, more than 90% of the world's webpages which mention "MLB", "NBA" and "NFL" also see fit to mention "NHL" as well, but only a small minority also see fit to mention "MLS." When we search by sport (keeping in mind that these are worldwide searches), the numbers are less favorable to hockey, but still a solid majority of webpages that mention "baseball", "basketball" and "football" also mention "hockey."

All things put together, these statistics tell me that to a majority of people, the NHL deserves status similar to the other three leagues and hockey probably deserves status similar to the other three sports. However, as the original article said the NHL's status as a major league is accepted be alot of people, but is not universally accepted. This surely cannot be disputed.

Of course, if anyone has another reasonably scientific way of determining hockey's status in the minds of sports fans that they think is more reliable, please let us know.

(Rupertslander 02:30, 5 December 2005 (UTC))


 * Yeah, we know that the NHL's TV contract (120 million/year) is approximately a fourth of the NBA or MLB TV contracts, so if you set the major league status at 500 million/year, that would exclude the NFL. But, we also know that the NFL TV contract at 2.2 billion/year is four times that of the NBA or MLB, and that would put the NFL in an "ultra-league" or "mega-league" status of its own. Plus, there are other factors that determine major-league status, including player salaries, franchise stability, etc. and the NHL is consistent with all of them, whereas MLS and AFL is not.

Major league sports aren't a tradition thing. saying that something can never be a major league is a little harsh. look at the AFL of the 1960's. it didn't have a contract since the 1940's and it became a major league. to repeat myself major league's aren't a tradition. you can't just say that these three leagues will be the three forever. thats completely illogical. your point has no argument in it. your just saying that it cant be a major league, you haven't given any good reason other than "these leagues are the major ones and thats the way it is." than you destroy any possibility of argument by saying "FOX coverage of the NHL doesn't qualify the NHL, as FOX didn't televise the NHL until recently, and FOX didn't exist in the 1940's." i mean seriously. how old are you? who cares if fox didn't televise it until recently, of if it didn't exist in the 40's? thats not only irrelevant. but just plain idiotic.

Ok, Fine. australian sports dont belong, great. however i highly disagree with you decsion to delete the NHL (again!) first of all, there was no Television in the 1940's, so i suppose you mean radio. but back than the NBA didn't exist. and by no means was it "major" back then. second of all, what the hell does having a contract in the 1940's have to do with being a major sport today? things have changed. NHL ratings abroad in the U.S. are up 31% so far, and in some regions like San Jose they're up 175%. now if TV contracts is everything, and it gets one next year or the year after that, how does that disqualify it? because it hasn't had one for 60 years? wheres the logic? third of all, the sentence "The NHL losing an entire season also disqualifies it as a major sport, as no major sport has ever lost an entire season." is redundant because if you do consider the NHL a major sport than one major sport has lost an entire season. your disqualifying it before you even say your reason. if you want to make a good argument you should say "no OTHER major sport has lost an entire season". and what the hell does that have to do with anything anyways? please explain how that disqualifies it as major. and finally, this article is about major professional sports leagues. key word: LEAGUE! whether the SPORT is played in high schools has nothing to do with the actual league. cheers.

Australian sports doesn't belong here.

The NHL is not a major league, and can never be, as it has never had a full-season contract with the three major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) since the 1940's, as the other leagues have. Even today, the NHL has never had a full-season contract with these networks. FOX coverage of the NHL doesn't qualify the NHL, as FOX didn't televise the NHL until recently, and FOX didn't exist in the 1940's.

The NHL losing an entire season also disqualifies it as a major sport, as no major sport has ever lost an entire season.

Also, ice hockey is not played at the high school level in most areas of the United States.

(AvgJoe 01:52, 4 December 2005 (UTC))

Just a quick remark on the "cheaper tickets" - I'm in Vancouver, B.C. and tickets for the Vancouver Canucks are in the same price range as Seahawks tickets (with the exchange and all factored in.) Ticket prices really do depend on which city you are in, thats all I can say.

Based on the fact that the NHL has 24 US franchises and that each of those franchises draws at least 15,000 people per game, it can hardly be considered a "minor" leauge. As per other comments, the NHL is shown on top tier networks and many cities contain franchises with very high levels of support, cities such as Detroit, Denver, Tampa Bay, Dallas, New Jersey etc it is non-wikipedia'esque to remove the NHL from the major sports pages. As such, I have added in 1 line in the list with the NHL and changed all mentions of "three" leauges to "four." Tawker 05:18, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

NHL is most definitely a major professional sports league. The attendances, primetime spots on television, and fan base are all huge evidence of this. It is unjustifiable to say that it isn't just because of a strike, and because of revenues. Something that is overlooked is that hockey is usually a cheaper sport (that is, lesser-costing tickets) compared to other sporting events. --Mrmiscellanious 01:59, 30 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Yeah, the NHL TV contract is much smaller than the NBA and MLB contracts, but the NHL still had spots on top tier US networks like Fox, ABC-ESPN, and now NBC and OLN. In addition, if we considered the size of TV contracts alone to determine major league status, that would put the NFL in a league of its own since its contract is 4 times that of the NBA or MLB.

Can someone please just put the NHL back up there, enough of this "stick with three major sports only" crap. I understand not needing the australian major sports as well, however, Hockey is still a very popular sport north american wise. (which I assume this page is about, other wise soccer would definately need to be up there).

Agreed. Everything about the NHL fits the criteria set out by the article itself. Anyone who says therwise is an ignorant dolt. The previous version of the article was much more informative, as well. --oknazevad 13:06, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
 * It at least has to be mentioned. It's not like there's no doubt about it and wikipedia's supposed to cover all points of view. Golfcam 15:28, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Exactly, the NHL; by the standards set out by this article is a major league. it may not be popular in some southern states as baseball or nascar, but it makes up for it in the Canadian market(which is somewhat underestimated) and who cares is players get an average of 1.3 million dollars a year. thats more than i would ever need to make. i completely understand that this article needed to be slimmed. having a whole section to sports that MAY qualify as major league or australian major sports is unneccesary. however taking away a sport that is beloved by millions of people is just stupid

Wow, somebody really doesn't like hockey. Perhaps it would be better not to let your personal feelings get in the way of an NPOV article? Sajt 00:47, 5 December 2005 (UTC)