guymez
The Seldom Seen Kid
- Mar 3, 2004
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- 13,730
I am not so sure that the NHL learned anything about bringing a team back to a Canadian market.The NHL is following the NFL, NBA, MLB, and Premiership League business model to foster a global brand through games in non-traditional markets whether Europe, Asia, or America in the latter case. The NHL is most reliant on gate admission of major North American sports trying to follow the big growth area of diversifying into national revenue. Gate admission will always have a ceiling on it though the NHL reported 97% capacity on 22.5 million fans through the turnstiles with a record $6.2 billion estimated revenue. The real money is in franchising, diversifying revenue through national broadcasting and sponsorships, etc. Decent breakdown here: How Sports Teams, Leagues and Owners Make Money
I don't see any relevance to your false comparison with the Asia league. It's a far inferior league and product so of course it will have sparse interest and attendance. Hockey is growing in participation in the States and we're seeing talent now coming out of non-traditional aka no winter markets as the game's exposure grows and in many cases inspiring youth in fringe NHL markets to pick up the sport.
You also make a good point about the success of the NHL's most recent expansion. Incredible what can happen when you don't knee cap the newbies like old school expansion teams like the Washington Capitals who were brutal forever. But the other salient point is those two franchises built and paid for their own rinks without the public dole. Absorb record expansion franchise fees and still have the financial resources and will to pay for their buildings. As did Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. Bettman's a good Simpson-esque monorail salesman to help bad cop drive the threat of relocation for owners (guys like Katz who tried the nuclear option publicly threatening to move to Seattle away from the cozy monopoly environment of a fanbase that filled its building (above league average ticket pricing) feasting on league historic level of sustained incompetence).
Arizona was an abject failure for a lot of reasons. One positive is the NHL actually learned a lesson and returned a franchise to cozy monopolistic conditions in Winnipeg. That helped drive league gate revenue at higher price points (thanks Canada!) and delivered another Canadian market to feed into securing a record Canadian television contract. Both important as the Canadian franchises have traditionally been backbone revenue drivers for the NHL. The league also finally learned hard lessons in the past with mobile home franchise relocations or merger like Colorado 1; Kansas City; Cleveland; Minnesota 1; Atlanta 1 and 2. Instability effects revenue and franchise value.
The team has moved on from Arizona. But it's also clear the League business partners haven't moved on from the Uber-size Arizona market. Less about the actual bums in seats but rather a big market to include in growing the national revenue pie for cartel owners. I'll keep a little empathy for its fans who lost their team. I still hold hard feelings for the Montreal Expos relocation. It's the emotional connect that's the secret sauce to the success of big business sports entertainment.
If that were true then this team would be going to Quebec City and not Salt Lake City.
Quebec City has an arena which was completed in 2015 which is bigger than half the arenas in the NHL right now. As I understand the siituation there...there is an ownership group waiting for a team. We pretty much know for sure that it would be completely supported by the fans and the entire community.
I would really like to know if QC was even on the radar?
I strongly suspect that it wasnt.
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