CNBC - NHL commissioner Gary Bettman on state of the league: The game has never been better

[Fenway]

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[edog37]

And he’s 1000% correct

 

[koyvoo]

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[Bixby Snyder]

And he’s 1000% correct

no he's not.

 

[dj4aces]

no he's not.

To be fair, Bettman is conveying to the public what the BoG believes to be true.

 

[MeHateHe]

The assertion that the result of the tarrifs is going to be a widening gap in the exchange rate is ... interesting. These tarrifs, as the bolsheviks at the Wall Street Journal have noted, are dumb, and the ongoing chaos isn't good for anyone who isn't in the chaos business. So, there will be implications to the that nonsense without question, but anyone who claims to know for certainty what those implications are - purely from a currency standpoint - is a bald-face liar.

I wonder about the impact of this discord on the league's suppliers, who will likely get hit at one point or another, by increased costs, and while I don't think those direct costs will significantly alter the business model of franchises whose primary costs are player salaries, I do wonder about the impact of those potential costs on minor league teams, where the margins are considerably smaller. And while I'm not prone to hyperbole or fear-mongering, political instability leads to social disruption as well, and if people are feeling nervous - as a lot of Canadians are - things like sports suddenly take a back seat.

 

[Peasy]

No shit.

I was extremely surprised the league was already announcing cap gains for this year and beyond. Were they not even paying attention to what was going on in the real world? Or were they just being completely ignorant and hoping it wouldn't affect them?

I hope the league takes a massive hit.

 

[joelef]

Getting your opening games beat out by the freaking wnba is not a good sign

 

[GKJ]

Getting your opening games beat out by the freaking wnba is not a good sign

That doesn’t not make your business good. It just means someone else is in a boom period.

 

[Takuto Maruki]

That doesn’t not make your business good. It just means someone else is in a boom period.

And also forgetting that professional women's sports, specifically the WNBA, was treated as a joke and suppressed by TV networks for years. The boom period is directly because people want to watch it, and it is treated as the equal to male sports that it is. But then again, when you are a moron who believes that losing out to the WNBA is an indictment of Bettman and make it a specific hobby horse...there isn't much hope for realizing that nuance in order to push the image that Bettman is a failure, just from the other way compared to the usual Canadian nationalism angle.

 

[joelef]

And also forgetting that professional women's sports, specifically the WNBA, was treated as a joke and suppressed by TV networks for years. The boom period is directly because people want to watch it, and it is treated as the equal to male sports that it is. But then again, when you are a moron who believes that losing out to the WNBA is an indictment of Bettman and make it a specific hobby horse...there isn't much hope for realizing that nuance in order to push the image that Bettman is a failure, just from the other way compared to the usual Canadian nationalism angle.

I been a very vocal critic of the Canadian nationalism and support southern teams so idk why your bringing that up.

 

[GKJ]

And also forgetting that professional women's sports, specifically the WNBA, was treated as a joke and suppressed by TV networks for years. The boom period is directly because people want to watch it, and it is treated as the equal to male sports that it is. But then again, when you are a moron who believes that losing out to the WNBA is an indictment of Bettman and make it a specific hobby horse...there isn't much hope for realizing that nuance in order to push the image that Bettman is a failure, just from the other way compared to the usual Canadian nationalism angle.

The salary cap is exploding so that’s the evidence needed and they’re all still getting paid more than WNBA players, it’s just that WNBA players are underpaid

 

[Reaser]

And also forgetting that professional women's sports, specifically the WNBA, was treated as a joke and suppressed by TV networks for years. The boom period is directly because people want to watch it, and it is treated as the equal to male sports that it is. But then again, when you are a moron who believes that losing out to the WNBA is an indictment of Bettman and make it a specific hobby horse...there isn't much hope for realizing that nuance in order to push the image that Bettman is a failure, just from the other way compared to the usual Canadian nationalism angle.

It was more perception caused by media (articles.) Parallel with MLS the media narratives became quite the dichotomy. They both were given chances by TV Networks -suppressed, if you will, came later- WNBA on NBC beat MLS on ABC. Even when WNBA was on Lifetime it beat MLS on ESPN/espn2. Yet, the newspaper-to-website articles in that span, some would try to spin MLS as 'growing' while same types almost unanimously were panning WNBA ratings/viewership. It never made sense.

FF to mid-2010s and on the same network and WNBA averaged 20k'ish more and yet again, would get stories of "MLS is catching/passing the NHL" (just as absurd of a premise then as it is now) while they would say, "no one is watching the WNBA." Again, made little sense.

Even final MLS season pre-moving to Apple, both were on ABC and were even in the same/similar time slot and WNBA easily beat MLS viewership numbers. But would still get WNBA downplayed as not that popular while at the same time getting even more aggressive [and absurd] "MLS is catching/passing the NHL!" stories and 'takes' from media on socials -- making it more hilarious is that NHL was in the same ABC day/time slot as both WNBA and MLS and easily, as in not particularly close, beat both leagues in viewership for that day/slot.

Finally, Clark arrived, WNBA #'s exploded for her games and non-Clark games numbers improved ... to where they used to be! Which is most hilarious in that the same or same-type of media that panned the WNBA for numbers they got two-plus decades ago now throw parades for getting similar numbers now. Disingenous. While, obviously MLS is out-of-sight, out-of-mind on Apple. Still have a few holdovers trying to push their catching the "Big 4" [leagues] narrative but many have dropped that.

*The above excludes attendance which was always a more-than-fair-point on the WNBA's struggles but on the broadcast/ratings/viewership side the parallel last three decades with MLS was interesting to follow. One was always "no one is watching" while the other, while getting a fair amount of criticism as well, but also got a frequent amount of false narrative of catching, about to pass, even a few insane "passed the NHL" comments from media/sports business types.

Nope. Have to exclude and/or put in a lot of qualifiers, or just use a random single night/event and try to expand that to equalling the whole pie, to have MLS and/or the WNBA as more popular (broadcast viewership, total attendance, business wise, etc..) than the NHL in the U.S. and Canada -- since of course all three are two-country leagues (or WNBA will be if you choose to wait until Toronto plays their first game in 2026.)