NHL games outselling NBA games
Throw on Sports Center, and you'll get a decent cross section of American sport: an NFL flame-out getting quarterback tips from the most infamously undeserving Super Bowl quarterback of a generation; LeBron; and once in a while, somebody accidentally sends their sext to Deadspin.
But what you won't see - and just as a hockey fan if you're not convinced - is hockey. Hockey is constantly dealing with an inferiority complex in the national media; the quarter of the "big four" pro sports without an equal chunk of the pie.
Part of that might have to do with its season being played simultaneously with the NBA's, a clearly more popular game. Did you hear about that guy untying everybody's shoelaces? Hilarious.
But... is the NBA more popular? We asked this Yahoo! Sports headline if that were the case.
It turns out, the NHL is outselling the hell out of the NBA - hockey has more sellouts, more road attendance, more teams playing in buildings of 90% of their limit... there are always asterisks when counting attendance numbers, but Puck Daddy's Greg Wyshynski is still saying this is a positive:
"Look, hockey fans: We can still pop the champagne here. The League's really, really going strong. We've taken slings and arrows from basketball fans while watching the diminishing returns of the NBA – a league that has its stars clustered on a handful of teams while desperately trying to generate new ones on moribund franchises – and it's good to see hockey's popularity getting recognized in comparison with its arena-mates."