Sean Kilpatrick / AP file

Although stars like Sidney Crosby are important, a sport has to stand on its own merits over time, writes NBCSports.com contributor Michael Ventre.

I’m sure the thinking in many hockey quarters is that Sid the Kid will reign supreme for many years to come, and that his draw will translate into a steady rise in TV ratings and attendance. I’m a hockey fan, so I hope that happens. I just think it’s a long shot.

Stars shine and fade. Teams rule and then slip. That’s the natural order of things in sports. Next year, if it happens to be Alexander Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals against the Red Wings, will there be an equal desire on the part of average fans to watch?

The truth is that a sport’s fortunes rise and fall within a certain range — especially in the current clutter of the modern entertainment landscape — and that it’s very difficult to bust out of that box. The Kings and the NHL had it for a brief period when Gretzky was there, but as soon as he left, interest in the team fell off both locally and nationally.

The trick has always been to bring in a star who can create lasting interest. It rarely happens. Tiger Woods is doing it in golf, but that is a much more accessible sport for men and women than hockey. People who play golf watch golf, and a lot of people play golf, even casually. Not too many average folks lace up the skates for an afternoon or evening of mucking it up in the corners.

The experiment with David Beckham in Major League Soccer might put fannies in seats at the stadiums, but it’s not going to have any permanent or semi-permanent effect on TV ratings. Soccer people claimed way back in the ’70s, when Pele, Giorgio Chinaglia, Franz Beckenbauer and others were starring for the New York Cosmos, that the sport would someday be as big in the United States as it was in Europe and South America. Then those players slowly disappeared, and so did the hype about soccer in the United States.

Although stars like Crosby are important, a sport has to stand on its own merits over time. Hockey is a beautiful game, but it is trying to compete in an entertainment environment in which people are also attracted to baseball, football, basketball, golf, tennis, ultimate fighting, movies in the theater, movies on DVD, movies on demand on cable and satellite, television shows, video games, Internet sites, music downloads and other activities.

It isn’t that hockey is unworthy. It’s that the competition is fierce out there for the entertainment dollar, and there is only so much room for hockey to grow.

I wish it weren’t so. But it is.

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