Utilizing the analytics site BrandWatch, and their social media analytics feature, I wanted to see the breakdown of where online chatter or social media mentions was coming from for the National Hockey League.

The NHL, widely regarded as the least diverse of the main sports organizations, is often given this designation largely due to the fact that the fans of the sport, hockey, as well as the players themselves, often hail from mostly white countries.

Knowing this I wanted to see where exactly the online chatter was coming from and if it backed this theory, as well as the extent. Here you will find the exact breakdown of all the NHL related mentions from January 1st 2020, through the end of the NHL season or September 30th 2020.

As you can see, the mentions are largely, as expected, dominated by the United States and Canada, given the cities where the teams are from are in these countries. The United States was responsible for 4,323,505 mentions and Canada had 2,052,171. While the United States dominated, it does speak to the sport’s relevance in Canada proportionally given only 6 of the 31 teams are located in Canada and yet Canada still had almost half the number of mentions.

The other countries with significant mentions were the United Kingdom, France, Finland, Germany, Brazil, Australia, India, and to a lesser extent the Philippines. The surprising omissions were Russia, Sweden and the Czech Republic given the number of players from those countries.

Overall, the big takeaway is that while Hockey might be extremely popular in countries with high white populations, the NHL is still dominated by the United States and Canada. With this information, meaning the fans, players and coaches mostly come from those two countries, it is clear that there is a need for improvement on the diversity front.