NHL Board of Governors to approve opening of expansion process; Atlanta and Houston believed to be leading candidates

[LeafGrief]

Sure, keep alienating the core fan bases with expansion and chasing the new dollars. Fans of the small market teams will applaud the addition of more small markets and the owners will bathe in expansion fees, but more teams doesn’t just dilute skill level, it dilutes the entertainment product. Most of the games on the schedule are already boring, fewer rivalries is boring, and boring sucks.

What does more teams actually do for the big markets? The Leafs, Habs, and Rangers have been keeping half the league in business for decades with equalization payments, so the league pays them back by making championships harder to win, top players harder to come by, and making decisions based on the fans who hate them.

By all means, milk the good will of the big clubs. Our owners have bought into the Ponzi Scheme of expansion whole hog, but at the end of the day the league wakes up and realizes the Leafs and Habs have lost two thirds of their fan bases, all that magical franchise value they’re getting from expansion fees will disappear like the mirage it is.

Canada loves hockey, you can see how much the country followed the Oilers run, but there’s 82 regular season games and the interest is dying among my friends and family. This wave of expansion isn’t the main thing to blame, but it is the clearest indicator that the league just does not give a single hoot about the clubs that paid the bills for the last 50 years, and the reality check will be fierce when it comes.

Anyone paying a billion dollars for a place at the NHL table is a sucker.

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

That's ... typically how things go. But it's fine.

I will freely admit that I'm not the smartest person in the room. However, I do tend to listen to those who are.

So, let's approach this from another direction, shall we? What makes you or some other posters think the talent pool is already too diluted to expand again? Are Bill Daly, Gary Bettman, and others wrong when they say the talent pool is fine and one could add a number of new teams and not see a problem? How so?

You guys wanna convince me that this isn't about gatekeeping and is about actual demonstrable talent dilution? Now's your chance.

Difficulty: Don't cite bad moves by bad GMs. That's already been tried, and it didn't work.

Are you using Gary Bettman and Bill Daly as a reputable source on anything?

"fans think the game has never been better" during the clutch and grab era
"There's no link between concussions and CTE"
"helmet ads are temporary"
"you'll have to drag me kicking and screaming to put ads on jerseys"
"We're not looking to expand to Seattle"
"fans love the digital ads"

Honestly I don't know how much talent dilution will be an issue but the fact that Bettman and Daly are saying it's not a problem is the biggest evidence it probably is.

My main issue is the season is already too long. With more teams there'll be ones that barely play one another. Rivalries will be watered down. Less chance for some markets to see star players.

 

[dj4aces]

Are you using Gary Bettman and Bill Daly as a reputable source on anything?

No, although I can see how you and others might have connected those dots. That was my mistake. Just because tweedle-dee and tweedle-dumbass are saying something doesn't necessarily make it true -- or false, for that matter -- but I digress.

The fact remains though, that people who actually pay attention to these things know what dilution of the talent pool would look like and what it'll take to actually dilute said pool.

So far, no one has provided anything to empirically prove said talent pool has yet to recover from Vegas and Seattle, much less that it will become worse with Atlanta and Houston. Just anecdotes, which only tells the story if the listener doesn't know better.

 

[tucker3434]

Sure, keep alienating the core fan bases with expansion and chasing the new dollars. Fans of the small market teams will applaud the addition of more small markets and the owners will bathe in expansion fees, but more teams doesn’t just dilute skill level, it dilutes the entertainment product. Most of the games on the schedule are already boring, fewer rivalries is boring, and boring sucks.

What does more teams actually do for the big markets? The Leafs, Habs, and Rangers have been keeping half the league in business for decades with equalization payments, so the league pays them back by making championships harder to win, top players harder to come by, and making decisions based on the fans who hate them.

By all means, milk the good will of the big clubs. Our owners have bought into the Ponzi Scheme of expansion whole hog, but at the end of the day the league wakes up and realizes the Leafs and Habs have lost two thirds of their fan bases, all that magical franchise value they’re getting from expansion fees will disappear like the mirage it is.

Canada loves hockey, you can see how much the country followed the Oilers run, but there’s 82 regular season games and the interest is dying among my friends and family. This wave of expansion isn’t the main thing to blame, but it is the clearest indicator that the league just does not give a single hoot about the clubs that paid the bills for the last 50 years, and the reality check will be fierce when it comes.

Anyone paying a billion dollars for a place at the NHL table is a sucker.

Expansion is the reason the Leafs are worth however many billion they were just valued in sale. How do people not understand this?

 

[VaporTrail]

Stop adding teams to the NHL...Create a second tier and implement relegation...This would also help teams from deliberately tanking.

 

[EMcx2]

Relegation is not happening in the NHL... If you think it's a possibility you really don't understand how the business of professional hockey works in the North America.