NHL Expansion back on agenda?

[dj4aces]

Nobody cares about a counter example from a time when folks were basically still dying of the Spanish Flu.

Those who live in the past never learn to advance into the future.

 

[Takuto Maruki]

Those who live in the past never learn to advance into the future.

How can this relate to getting the NHL on The CW, though?

 

[KevFu]

Plus, it’s all a moot point. It’s readily apparently that the NHL, both north and south of the border, isn’t interested in a permanent Canadian division.

I'm of the believe that making an alignment and schedule based off the map is really dumb because no one roots for maps. They root for teams and teams have rivals.

I'm also of the belief that creating divisions with predominantly "new" brands (relative to the ones who were in the NHL93 video games) is extremely bad for business...

Also, back in 2023 the final four playoff teams all ended up being from the Sun Belt, which served to impair the ratings of the Cup Final.

It's important to note that the reason for a TV ratings impairment isn't based on SOUTHERN, but based on the fact that the NEWEST TEAMS have less generations of people growing up rooting for a team.

There's no father in Las Vegas saying "My dad took me to Golden Knights games when I was your age and now I'm taking you."

And because generally the newer markets tend to be smaller than older markets, simply because you start in the biggest markets when forming a league, there's less people to hop on the bandwagon in the newer markets. I believe Vegas and Carolina are the 24th and 27th largest NHL markets?

It's also true in road attendance. The newer brands are just less of a draw, period. Regardless of North/South. We just have more Sun Belt teams than new northern brands like the Senators, Kraken and Wild.

 

[ponder719]

It's also true in road attendance. The newer brands are just less of a draw, period. Regardless of North/South. We just have more Sun Belt teams than new northern brands like the Senators, Kraken and Wild.

Say what you will about Sun Belt teams, the Kings are more of a draw than the Blue Jackets. Why? The Kings are older, more established, they have the cachet of being from LA, they've been successful at the highest level. The Blue Jackets have a cannon. (No hate to Columbus, but being real, they're better known for the cannon than anything else.)

 

[KevFu]

Say what you will about Sun Belt teams, the Kings are more of a draw than the Blue Jackets. Why? The Kings are older, more established, they have the cachet of being from LA, they've been successful at the highest level. The Blue Jackets have a cannon. (No hate to Columbus, but being real, they're better known for the cannon than anything else.)

Right. If you chart out the NHL teams on a 3x3 grid of "Old-Mid--New" and market size "Huge-Mid-Small" that's going to explain TV ratings better than the weather.

 

[Headshot77]

Say what you will about Sun Belt teams, the Kings are more of a draw than the Blue Jackets. Why? The Kings are older, more established, they have the cachet of being from LA, they've been successful at the highest level. The Blue Jackets have a cannon. (No hate to Columbus, but being real, they're better known for the cannon than anything else.)

I'd love if Columbus goes with their third jerseys as their primaries and rename themselves the "Columbus Cannons"

 

[No Fun Shogun]

The Blue Jackets have basically had one draft pick, two or three trades, one free agency signing, and one (two if you count a covid qualifying round) playoff series win to cheer over in the span of a quarter century. That's about it.

That's honestly a track record that'd be used as an excuse to explain away why a team floundered and relocated, and why we shouldn't hold that against them in future expansion conversations. You just can't realistically hold fans not being excited over that as a team's legacy against them. They're pretty inarguably the least successful team this century.

And yet Columbus still draws reasonably well in spite of all of that.

Real talk, give them an actually meaningfully competitive team with a window of at least a few years, and they're going to explode.

That all being said, I honestly think the Blue Jackets are in a dire need of a rebrand. Maybe a name change is too far, but they need to reinvent the wheel uniform-wise.

 

[aqib]

The Blue Jackets have basically had one draft pick, two or three trades, one free agency signing, and one (two if you count a covid qualifying round) playoff series win to cheer over in the span of a quarter century. That's about it.

That's honestly a track record that'd be used as an excuse to explain away why a team floundered and relocated, and why we shouldn't hold that against them in future expansion conversations. You just can't realistically hold fans not being excited over that as a team's legacy against them. They're pretty inarguably the least successful team this century.

And yet Columbus still draws reasonably well in spite of all of that.

Real talk, give them an actually meaningfully competitive team with a window of at least a few years, and they're going to explode.

That all being said, I honestly think the Blue Jackets are in a dire need of a rebrand. Maybe a name change is too far, but they need to reinvent the wheel uniform-wise.

Its possibly the dumbest name since "Devil Rays." Doug McLean said "there are 10K insects and we had to invent one"