A Chicago Sun-Times poll suggests Chicago Blackhawks fans are not watching games on a regular bases
The rebuilding Chicago Blackhawks, who as of the morning of Feb. 1 boast the second-fewest points in the league, seem to be having a television viewership problem.
This is according to a recent survey of Chicago fans on Social Media. On Thursday, the Chicago Sun-Times ran their weekly “Polling Place” on X, surveying how often people watch the Blackhawks on TV regularly.
The results were pretty grim.
Poll No. 2: How many Blackhawks games have you watched this season?
— Chicago Sun-Times (@Suntimes) January 30, 2025
To sum up, of the 1,527 people who voted in the poll only 16% said they watch regularly. A staggering 67.8% said they watch little or none at all. Everything else in between ranged from around ten games watched (9.3%) to half the games watched (6.9%).
The Blackhawks are roughly 60% through their season, while they have played a bit better lately with Connor Bedard posting 28 points over his last 28 games heading into Saturday, it’s hard to think viewership will improve much over the remainder of the season.
Many eyes of Blackhawks fans will at least be directed at tankathon.com, again.
What is turning the masses away from the Chicago Blackhawks?
It does not take much in-depth research to see what is going on. While there is a general understanding that the Blackhawks are in the middle of a rebuild, it’s harder to sell the investment of time and money into the current team to the more casual fans. The winning of the 2023 NHL Draft lottery to land Bedard did give the city a hype boost, but to no fault to Bedard, the “honeymoon” faded as the team kept losing.
It’s worth noting that even the Winter Classic at Wrigley Field against the Blues drew under 1 million viewers per Josh Lewis of Sports Media Watch. The event was such a big deal in 2009 with a young Chicago Blackhawks team on the rise back to relevancy with Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane, while this past year’s match at The Friendly Confines just kind of came and went.
The other big part of the equation is Chicagoland viewers having access to the new CHSN, which also hosts the Bulls and White Sox. There is still no deal with Xfinity, the largest cable provider in the Chicagoland area. It circles back to the product on the ice as paying for a subscription, cutting the cord, or even buying an antenna (which is ridiculous in 2025) is less appealing to many when the team isn’t winning.
Have all fans abandoned the Chicago Blackhawks?
With everything said about the television ratings, the fan attendance at games has not been as bad. While they are not quite selling out, they are drawing decent for a bottom-feeder. Sun-Times reporter Ben Pope has been tracking the crowds at the United Center, and they regularly range between 17-19K a game with a few outliers such as NFL Sundays when they draw around 15K.
Blackhawks attendance: 18,701
Hockey Fights Cancer theme helped draw fans despite the NFL conflict. Crowd pic and updated graph: pic.twitter.com/T3NH50Kcmw
— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) January 27, 2025
The data collected by Hockey-Reference is slightly skewed because they held one game at Wrigley Field, but the Blackhawks are above the 95% capacity mark on the year in attendance. Consider what attendance once looked like in the mid-2000s when Bill Wirtz blacked-out home games on TV and the team was in the pits, it’s significantly better at the United Center now than in the days of Alexei Zhamnov wearing a Blackhawks sweater.
Casual fans and Blackhawks die-hards still seem to enjoy a night at the barn. Resale tickets are fairly cheap too, for people looking to take the family to a night at the United Center to watch a game with little meaning and can leave the game when they please.
As with every team, winning will bring fans back to the television screens. It certainly will help if the Xfinity deal with CHSN comes to fruition, but hockey fans in Chicago are significantly more fickle than Bears or Cubs fans when it comes to tuning in regardless. Hopefully next year there will be more of an incentive to watch with an improved Blackhawks team.
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