How an NHL Shutdown Helped Another Sport to Boom
Just like how we recently explored the rise of hockey in Latin America, a phenomenon few would have seen coming just a few years ago, hockey has also played a big but unexpected hand in the explosive growth of another sport — poker.
The two sports have little in common. One is a notoriously physical game where its players, even at the highest professional levels are known for exchanging a few blows mid-game, whilst the other is played in a more civilised environment where fisticuffs will see you ejected.
Yet, hockey helped to create interest in professional poker, mostly by accident.
The 2004-05 NHL Lockout
North American sports are highly unionised, far more than we see in sports that are more traditionally popular in Latin America and Europe. This results in the occasional player strike, often referred to as “lockouts”.
The National Hockey League has had four of these since 1992. They typically force changes to the league’s season, reducing the number of fixtures, compressing the schedule, and running the playoffs later than originally planned.
However, the 2004-05 NHL lockout was much more severe. It lasted for 10 months and six days, resulting in 1,230 games going unplayed and the entire season being abandoned. This was the first time since 1919 that the sport’s coveted Stanley Cup was not awarded.
It’s difficult to put into perspective how significant and unprecedented this lockout was. No other professional sport in North America has had to cancel an entire season due to a labor dispute, leaving the NHL to hold this unfortunate crown.
The lockout was positive for the sport in the long run, as it helped to secure the sustainability of the NHL for players, teams, and fans. Today, the league is incredibly profitable but before the 2004-05 season, teams lost a combined $96 million a year.
Cancelling 1,230 games wasn’t just a problem for the NHL and the teams though, it created a headache for TV broadcasters. They were left with thousands of hours of airtime that needed to be filled.
Amongst their solutions was a card game that was already enjoying a spike in interest amongst players – poker.
The Poker Boom
Today, playing poker over the internet is a common activity as online card rooms like PokerStars cater to both new and existing players. In addition to a platform that facilitates poker games against players in a range of formats, a plethora of educational resources are provided to help newcomers to learn how to play poker with basics like hand rankings and betting rounds, as well as more advanced strategies for experienced players.
However, in the early 2000s, this was a novelty. The first online card rooms began welcoming players in around 2001, but were still maturing when a player won the World Series of Poker after qualifying for the tournament online for the first time in 2003.
This attracted a lot of attention to the sport as other players wanted to try and follow in this pioneering winner’s footsteps.
Just months later, the NHL players hung up their skates and sticks and sat out the entirety of the next season. As sports broadcasters replaced hockey with poker in their schedules, the new fans and aspiring players who had just developed an interest in the card game tuned in to see the biggest talent of the time compete in televised tournaments.
Tournaments like the European Poker Tour was first broadcast in North America in 2004, alongside the Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament, and the Ultimate Poker Challenge. Poker TV shows were also pioneered around this time, such as Poker Royale and Poker After Dark.
This ocean of poker content gave aspiring players a way to watch and learn from the leaders in the sport of that time, as well as bringing the game to many new fans who may not have got to enjoy such broadcasts had the NHL not given up the space on the airwaves.
