Expansion to 36, which city is number 36?

[dj4aces]

The NHL is the only sport that looks to markets where people aren't fans.

The NHL has the smallest US footprint of the four major sports. Also, one of the biggest objectives of the BoG when they hired Bettman was to grow the sport. While Bettman has done just that, the mission remains true today.

So, if you're the BoG, and you're looking to grow the sport, do you look to places that could support a second or third team in the market but has limited potential to attract new fans, or do you look to places where there's a lot of room to grow?

As far as kids go, I won't argue that it doesn't get expensive. But there's a difference between kids growing up with a local team to cheer for, and taking kids to lower bowl seats. I didn't get a chance to attend a hockey game until the Atlanta Knights were formed, but I was a Red Wings fan long before that because I would sometimes see a game on TV, or my late uncle sometimes sending VHS tapes with a game or two on them from Detroit. Had it not been for my extended family, I may have never learned about or cared about this amazing sport.

 

[Tawnos]

What the NHL would charge in indemnity fees for a second Toronto team is just a theoretical discussion. Maybe the number is more than someone is willing to pay maybe it isn't. However the NHL is even considering Southern Ontario so it hasn't gotten to that point. If say Tom Gaglardi was allowed to buy the Thrashers for relocation, who knows what he would have been willing to pay in indemnity fees. He paid $240M for the Stars who knows how high he would have gone if it was Hamilton. Again we can't say no one will pay when its clear that the NHL isn't entertaining the idea at all.

Regarding LA, there was less than zero enthusiasm for the Chargers in LA. They literally got booed when the Chargers logo was on the screen at a basketball game the day it was announced. When they were at the MLS stadium most of the fans were fans of the opponent. The reason they have a season ticket base in LA is because they are the cheap alternative to the Rams. You can get season tickets for $60 per game there. I doubt you can do that in any other NFL stadium. Even still they make money being behind 7 other major league teams (not counting MLS) and a couple of college programs in that market.

The NHL has had plenty of chances to go down to 2 teams in NY. The Devils were probably saved by the 1995 Cup and the Islanders in part because Bettman grew up a fan but he could have nudged them out if he wanted to.


The NHL is the only sport that looks to markets where people aren't fans. I was reading on The Athletic today about how international markets are picked for NFL games and part of the criteria is how many NFL fans are already in the market. They don't go "hey there are a lot of people there, lets put a game there and see if we can make them fans. You don't see Istanbul on the list of cities for a game even though its got more people than London. Lastly, the bringing kids to games becomes problematic when tickets are so astronomical. A family of 4 you're talking $800 easy for game. A second team would be a lot more affordable similar to the Clippers in LA.

Re: Devils and Islanders, totally different thing to remove an existing extra team in a market than it is to put a new one in there.

Obviously, yes those are hypothetical numbers... but it's not like the NHL says to Toronto and Buffalo, "this is what we're going to charge them." The question the NHL would ask Toronto and Buffalo is "how much would it take to get you to sign off." Toronto for sure has veto power here. Buffalo does too, but that's my opinion and not everyone shares it. It's going to take a *lot* to get them to consent to another team in their territory. It's just worth remembering that the indemnity would increase right alongside franchise values. Obviously, yes it's theoretical, but it's going to be a lot.

PS: The NHL is the only sport that looks to markets where people aren't fans because the sport didn't get to put down roots outside of Canada and the northern US until ice technology and air conditioning got efficient enough to make decent ice outside of cold weather locations. I'm not talking about 35 years ago when sotuhern expansion started, I'm talking about putting down roots 80-100 years ago. The other sports were able to do that earlier. The hockey's ability to grow like that is like 50 years behind any other sport because of nothing but climate.

 

[Yukon Joe]

PS: The NHL is the only sport that looks to markets where people aren't fans because the sport didn't get to put down roots outside of Canada and the US until ice technology and air conditioning got efficient enough to make decent ice outside of cold weather locations. I'm not talking about 35 years ago when sotuhern expansion started, I'm talking about putting down roots 80-100 years ago. The other sports were able to do that earlier. The hockey's ability to grow like that is like 50 years behind any other sport because of nothing but climate.

That's an interesting point, and not one I'd really thought of before.

Back in the early days of the NHL hockey arenas were indoors, but they relied on "natural" ice. The buildings were cold because it was cold outside. I remember from Stephen Harper's book on the history of hockey sometimes the ice could get pretty bad for late playoff games - the weather was getting too warm outside.

But I'm not sure just when NHL rinks transitioned to man-made ice. I know air-con itself started to become more popular mid-century (and I know the oldest indoor rinks around Edmonton all date back to the 60s or 70s), but presumably the NHL started using man-made ice earlier than that.

 

[tucker3434]

So think back to the Anaheim Ducks expansion.

Back then the expansion fee was $50 million - and that fee went 100% to LA Kings owner Bruce McNall. The rest of the league got nothing.

McNall agreed because he was a crook and needed the cash. I'm guessing the NHL agreed to it because they really wanted Disney to be on board (even though Disney sold 12 years later).

But now it 2024? MLSE might agree to a Toronto2 franchise - if they got the $1.2 billion (or whatever) expansion fee. But why would the rest of the league? Now you're just splitting revenue 33 ways instead of 32, and you're not getting anything up front.

I’d expect there to be an expansion fee of $1.25b to be split 32 ways then Toronto and Buffalo would need to be paid on top of that. So I think someone would need to be VERY invested in putting a team in Hamilton and Hamilton only to want to do that. It will not be good value.

 

[Tawnos]

That's an interesting point, and not one I'd really thought of before.

Back in the early days of the NHL hockey arenas were indoors, but they relied on "natural" ice. The buildings were cold because it was cold outside. I remember from Stephen Harper's book on the history of hockey sometimes the ice could get pretty bad for late playoff games - the weather was getting too warm outside.

But I'm not sure just when NHL rinks transitioned to man-made ice. I know air-con itself started to become more popular mid-century (and I know the oldest indoor rinks around Edmonton all date back to the 60s or 70s), but presumably the NHL started using man-made ice earlier than that.

And even then, there were still occasional problems with fog into the 80s. When was the last time anything like that happened in the NHL?

 

[ForumNamePending]

Rojac might not be trolling, but it may have been better if we was, because otherwise how he feels is poorly thought out for a number of reasons. Just off the top of my head...

1) While Winnipeg is certainly an outlier when it comes to a market that size having a "big league" team, Calgary, Ottawa and Edmonton really aren't. On the smaller side sure, but they are roughly the same size, or bigger than, Buffalo, Raleigh, Jacksonville, Memphis, New Orleans, Green Bay, Milwaukee, Oklahoma City and Salt Lake City... Are the NFL, NBA and MLB also bush league?

2) Better than a third of the league's national TV money is coming from the Canadian market... Why would the NHL want to gut that? The league getting rid of some of their top TV draws would seem kind of stupid.

3) Focusing on the Oilers specifically, per Forbes (ymmv), last year no franchise generated more revenue, so getting rid of them would probably be dumb.

 

[BKIslandersFan]

The NHL is the only sport that looks to markets where people aren't fans.

You can't be serious lol.

NHL looking to grow in country where hockey is already popular (USA) is such a crazy concept lol.

 

[aqib]

You can't be serious lol.

NHL looking to grow in country where hockey is already popular (USA) is such a crazy concept lol.

Because there was such a huge hockey community in Miami when the Panthers were created?

 

[dj4aces]

Because there was such a huge hockey community in Miami when the Panthers were created?

And after flopping around for a number of very dismal seasons with poor ownership, they now have a great owner and a great team of players. Florida is a healthy franchise, no matter how badly some folks want to move them. That doesn't mean the hockey community in Miami is on the same level as New York, Montreal, or Toronto, and I don't think anyone would seriously make that argument. But a good and stable franchise will draw fans and the interest in the team and the sport in general will grow beyond just the hardcore hockey fans.

 

[BKIslandersFan]

Because there was such a huge hockey community in Miami when the Panthers were created?

Because when NFL originally launched their expedition in to Europe there was so many fans there. Come on lad, NHL isn't the only league/sport, or hell, an industry, to try to grow in to new market.

And hockey isn't a foreign sport in Florida. Florida, last time I checked in part of good ol USA, and people from winter states move down to Florida.

MLB plays regular season games in London, and Australia. A lot of baseball fans there huh?

Hockey should not expand at the expense of their traditional market, fine, I can accept that argument. But they should never expand outside of those markets? Thats ludicrous to me.

 

[tucker3434]

Because there was such a huge hockey community in Miami when the Panthers were created?

Oh come on. If you can’t convince new people to buy your product, you die. That’s true of all businesses.

 

[joelef]

Ac

Because when NFL originally launched their expedition in to Europe there was so many fans there. Come on lad, NHL isn't the only league/sport, or hell, an industry, to try to grow in to new market.

And hockey isn't a foreign sport in Florida. Florida, last time I checked in part of good ol USA, and people from winter states move down to Florida.

MLB plays regular season games in London, and Australia. A lot of baseball fans there huh?

Hockey should not expand at the expense of their traditional market, fine, I can accept that argument. But they should never expand outside of those markets? Thats ludicrous to me.

Not allot of fans but they did develop a fan base when they first started showing games 1980s also Australia has a long history of baseball and has produced 30 major leaguers which is more then baseball loving Nicaragua

 

[joelef]

Because there was such a huge hockey community in Miami when the Panthers were created?

The nhl went south because of tv deals. You lr not going to get a national tv deal if you just confine yourself to the upper Midwest and New England.

 

[aqib]

The nhl went south because of tv deals. You lr not going to get a national tv deal if you just confine yourself to the upper Midwest and New England.

The Premier League has bigger TV deals in the US then the NHL does.

Because when NFL originally launched their expedition in to Europe there was so many fans there. Come on lad, NHL isn't the only league/sport, or hell, an industry, to try to grow in to new market.

And hockey isn't a foreign sport in Florida. Florida, last time I checked in part of good ol USA, and people from winter states move down to Florida.

MLB plays regular season games in London, and Australia. A lot of baseball fans there huh?

Hockey should not expand at the expense of their traditional market, fine, I can accept that argument. But they should never expand outside of those markets? Thats ludicrous to me.

The NFL hasn't moved franchises from American cities that live football the Europe. If the NHL wanted to do neutral site games in non-traditional markets have at it.

 

[CaptainUgly]

I'm not trolling - just stating how I feel. I think having those smaller Canadian cities in the league make it look bush league. Certainly, I think o the league would have been better off if they'd have let Les Alexander buy the Oilers and move them to Houston and never returned a team to Winnipeg.

If it hadn't been a way to get rid of the WHA, do ou think the NHL would have ever put teams in Edmonton, Winnipeg, Quebec City, or Hartford?

I personally think having Toronto in Major League Baseball is bush league.

 

[BKIslandersFan]

The Premier League has bigger TV deals in the US then the NHL does.



The NFL hasn't moved franchises from American cities that live football the Europe. If the NHL wanted to do neutral site games in non-traditional markets have at it.

Don’t think for a second the reason NFL doesn’t have a team in London is because of anything other than logistics. Once NFL figures it out they are going to put a team there.

it befuddles me how NHL trying to grow the sport personally bothers you so much. It’s almost as if you want the sport to die.

 

[dj4aces]

it befuddles me how NHL trying to grow the sport personally bothers you so much. It’s almost as if you want the sport to die.

Perhaps it's just being contrarian. After all, what better way is there to start a debate about something, even if there's a clear right and wrong view of it, than to pick the wrong hill and die on it?

 

[ForumNamePending]

The Premier League has bigger TV deals in the US then the NHL does.



The NFL hasn't moved franchises from American cities that live football the Europe. If the NHL wanted to do neutral site games in non-traditional markets have at it.

Regarding your first point... That doesn't appear to be true. A google search tells me the EPL/NBC deal is worth ~$450 million/year. The NHL is getting $600+ million/year. To what I assume your larger point is... Ya, I don't think any of these rumoured expansion locations are going to be game changer when it comes to the value of the NHL's next US media deal. It could help way down the line, but we could be talking a lifetime+. There are good reasons for the NHL to be interested in places like Atlanta and Houston, but "big national TV ratings" should not be one of those reasons.

Regarding your second point... Well it's not like the NHL is a puppet master single-handily controlling were teams move to, there are a lot of moving parts. But ya, if 1/4 of NFL teams relocated from the US to Europe, there would probably be a lot hurt feelings Stateside, especially so in the markets that saw their teams move to London, Berlin, etc... And a lot of those fans, even if it is misdirected, would blame the league, or the commish, or whatever, despite there likely being plenty of other factors involved.

 

[Salsero1]

Don’t think for a second the reason NFL doesn’t have a team in London is because of anything other than logistics. Once NFL figures it out they are going to put a team there.

it befuddles me how NHL trying to grow the sport personally bothers you so much. It’s almost as if you want the sport to die.

They gotta keep their little playpen pure.

I for one can't wait to welcome Atlanta back. I've missed them.

 

[adsfan]

I’d expect there to be an expansion fee of $1.25b to be split 32 ways then Toronto and Buffalo would need to be paid on top of that. So I think someone would need to be VERY invested in putting a team in Hamilton and Hamilton only to want to do that. It will not be good value.

I agree. Buffalo and Toronto might agree to a team in Hamilton if they get $50 million each or maybe $10 million a year each for 7 years.

The alternative would be that Buffalo and Toronto each get 2 shares of the $1B or $1.25B, so it would be split 34 ways instead of 32. That would be $29.411 million each for the $1.25B and about $59 million each for Buffalo and the Leafs.

For $1B, Buffalo and the Leafs would get about $47 million each.

 

[aqib]

Don’t think for a second the reason NFL doesn’t have a team in London is because of anything other than logistics. Once NFL figures it out they are going to put a team there.

it befuddles me how NHL trying to grow the sport personally bothers you so much. It’s almost as if you want the sport to die.

An NFL team in Europe (anywhere even London) is going to have issues attracting players. If NBA players have issues playing in Toronto and previously Vancouver how do you think London or Germany would go over. If Steve Francis balked at Vancouver how do you think a guy from Georgia is going to feel about going to London. The logistics are as figured out as they are ever going to be. The NFL can buy and customize an Airbus A380 or whatever the largest plane is these days if that was the issue. The London team can use the Falcons old training facility as their US base.

What bothers me is that they bend over backwards for markets that have shown no demonstrable interest in the sport at the expense of markets where it would strongly be supported. If there was a second southern Ontario team it would do well and for me personally I'd be able to go to more games. Yet the league went out of its way to keep the Coyotes in Arizona who clearly shows it doesn't want them.

 

[BMN]

Because when NFL originally launched their expedition in to Europe there was so many fans there. Come on lad, NHL isn't the only league/sport, or hell, an industry, to try to grow in to new market.

Hockey should not expand at the expense of their traditional market, fine, I can accept that argument. But they should never expand outside of those markets? Thats ludicrous to me.

That's a bit of a disingenuous analogy to me. The NFL's expeditions to Europe, in order, have been to a--- put a minor league there and then b--- have one-off games there. There's perfectly logistical reasons why they haven't put honest-to-goodness NFL teams there (as you pointed out in your followup post) but that makes it a sloppy analogy. No one in St. Louis blames the NFL's obsession with London for why they no longer have a team or are unlikely to get one soon. I do agree with @ForumNamePending that if any NFL teams in Europe were the result of relocating American teams, you could absolutely expect some nationalistic gnashing of teeth about it, esp. the moment there was an attendance downturn to instigate said teeth-gnashing.

If the NHL had decided, say, in 1985 to start arranging neutral-site regular season games in large southern markets, this would be more or a "like-to-like" analogy. And in fact, I'd be willing to bet that if the NHL had adopted that strategy, nary a fan would have complained about it...or at least certainly not to the degree that the staunchest "traditionalists" do on this board. But that doesn't mean that this would have been the better strategy.

The Premier League is indeed an e.g. that you don't need teams in the big American markets......or indeed America at all....to get a good TV contract. But that's not how the NHL sees it and I think that's probably due to that also not being the way American sports networks see it for hockey. Is it possible that having the Coyotes in Arizona didn't really create any more TV viewers for hockey than the NHL's national TV coverage would have created? I suppose, yes it is possible but the NHL needs to cater to what the ESPNs of the world think, not what we think. They're the entities that will sign the contracts.

A still-sloppy (because it's not a team sport and therefore not apples-to-apples) analogy that shows the north-south flow of "traditionalism" in complete reverse is NASCAR. And NASCAR demonstrates that contrary to @aqib 's initial statement, the growth-at-the-alleged-expense-of-where-the-strongest-fanbases-are instinct is hardly an instinct reserved for the NHL.

 

[BKIslandersFan]

What bothers me is that they bend over backwards for markets that have shown no demonstrable interest in the sport at the expense of markets where it would strongly be supported. If there was a second southern Ontario team it would do well and for me personally I'd be able to go to more games. Yet the league went out of its way to keep the Coyotes in Arizona who clearly shows it doesn't want them.

Aside from Arizona, who?

What Canadian market lost out because of NHL expanding south? I guess WInnipeg Jets moving to Arizona. Quebec Nordiques moved to Colorado, not exactly Texas. But every other southern team that was result of relocation came from other US cities.

The fact that there is no 2nd team in southern Ontario, I think, indicates NHL owners, who are very rich and very good at making money, clearly disagree with you on that.

No, I don't think poorly ran organization not being able to sell tickets clearly means Arizona will not support an NHL team, but I digress.

 

[Tawnos]

Regarding your first point... That doesn't appear to be true. A google search tells me the EPL/NBC deal is worth ~$450 million/year. The NHL is getting $600+ million/year. To what I assume your larger point is... Ya, I don't think any of these rumoured expansion locations are going to be game changer when it comes to the value of the NHL's next US media deal. It could help way down the line, but we could be talking a lifetime+. There are good reasons for the NHL to be interested in places like Atlanta and Houston, but "big national TV ratings" should not be one of those reasons.

Regarding your second point... Well it's not like the NHL is a puppet master single-handily controlling were teams move to, there are a lot of moving parts. But ya, if 1/4 of NFL teams relocated from the US to Europe, there would probably be a lot hurt feelings Stateside, especially so in the markets that saw their teams move to London, Berlin, etc... And a lot of those fans, even if it is misdirected, would blame the league, or the commish, or whatever, despite there likely being plenty of other factors involved.

The NHL’s *national* TV deal in the US is worth $600m+. EPL doesn’t have any local TV deals, so once you add those in the money the NHL brings in from TV is way beyond EPL. I know that makes it not an apples to apples comparison, but when you’re talking about the value of a TV audience, to me it’s important to look at the entirety of that audience.

 

[dj4aces]

What Canadian market lost out because of NHL expanding south? I guess WInnipeg Jets moving to Arizona. Quebec Nordiques moved to Colorado, not exactly Texas. But every other southern team that was result of relocation came from other US cities.

If I recall correctly, I believe Hamilton put in an expansion bid during the 1990s... so one could argue that a Canadian market lost out because of US expansion. But then again, Ottawa joined the league in 1992, so one could also argue that a Canadian market gained from expansion in the 1990s,