Hockey on TV

How many people were able to watch the Hockey at the Commenwealth Games?

Out of those people how many are not hockey players?

Out of those few that are left, how many could follow the game?

Lets face it, hockey is not a very good television event, and this is coming from a hockey player. So why aren't the authorities doing anything about this? Possibly because doing anything to make it better on TV might ruin the game for the players who are playing at all levels.

I only managed to watch a couple of games for a few reasons. One being the fact I work normal office hours and it's not repeated very regularly. Another being that its just not treated well by main stream broadcasters.

Out of the games I did see, the 2 Mens quarter finals and the most of the first half of the England vs India game on the BBC iPlayer, (only because this was shown on the main BBC coverage for about 20 minutes) the games were good to watch. OK I still think you have to understand hockey to get the most enjoyment out of it, but at least you could follow what was happening, you could admire the skill and most importantly for me, and I believe someone who doesn't play the sport, was that you could see the ball.

So why were these games better? I'm no expert, but the only difference I could see was that it was played under floodlights. Could this be the simple answer to Hockey on TV?

We hear its a challange to get Hockey on TV so if Hockey England want to get more coverage they have to try more things. Maybe a simple thing to try is to play a national league game under good floodlights and see if it improves it as a television event.

I know this isn't going to make it an instant success on TV, but if people cannot watch the game and see the basics so they can start to understand it, they are not going to tune back in and we will never get to see it on mainstream TV.