Is the NHL dying?

The National Hockey League this past week held its first all-star game in 3 years.

No game was held in 2005 due to a labor dispute. No game was held last year due to the number of players taking time to play in the Winter Olympics.

The all-star game in 2004 was aired on ABC. It aired on a Sunday afternoon and had approximately 2 million viewers.

This year the game aired on Versus, the network formerly known as the Outdoor Life Network. It garnered a 0.7 Nielsen rating, which translates to approximately 673,000 viewers.

There was definitely drop off due to the game airing on a cable network that is not carried by all cable service providers. The potential audience was much smaller than when it aired on ABC in 2004.

But did the long labor dispute in 2005 hurt the game? Is overall interest in the league waning?

The NHL better put a plan in action if they want to increase audience size in the short term, and hopefully survive as a professional sports league in the long term.