NHL NOLA expansion?

[Tawnos]

I think it actually splits the difference. If they were looking for a carefree quick buck, they'd have a far lower asking price to entice more bidders. The increasingly large bid to entry is their weeding process to not let cruddy parties and disorganized knobs from trying to bid. If anyone drops a billion dollars on the table, barring them being the mad hatter it's a sign that a billion isn't a prohibitive amount to them, which makes them serious from the NHL's perspective.

I honestly think that it would have to be a fundamentally crazy situation for the NHL to turn down any party willing to offer them that much just for an expansion team, and in which case my hunch is that the NHL would try to still work with them albeit maybe steering them to a perceived better city.

After all, the NHL nonchalantly name dropped Omaha as an interested party a few years ago. Go back in time and propose Omaha as an expansion candidate on these boards, and us mods would be busy deleting incredulous flaming replies.

I agree that willingness to pay $1B+ makes someone serious, I just don't think they'll be interested unless that $1B+ is going to a market they want. What you're saying doesn't really split the difference. It's exactly what I was saying at the end of the post you were quoting. Steering them into a better market. Could be expansion. Could be existing, down the road. The point I was making remains the same. The NHL is going to expand where they want to expand. Throwing money at them to put a team in New Orleans isn't going to be successful.

And all of the same things I'm saying applied to Omaha back then. It's pretty much the same exact situation. The NHL confirms the interest for the reasons I laid out, not because they seriously consider Omaha a viable market.

 

[Takuto Maruki]

Hutch lives!

Death. Taxes. Hutch piping up whenever his pet project of Hartford or especially Portland AHL is mentioned.

 

[HisIceness]

Personally I'm still not sold on Salt Lake City being a sure thing long-term but that's the owners problem to figure out. His NBA team right now isn't very good and seeing them on TV recently playing a home game, there were a lot of empty seats.

I don't think small-market NBA towns are good locations for NHL teams. 82 combined home games across the same 6-month span plus playoffs. Markets like Houston, Atlanta, etc can better bear that burden, more population for corporate suite money and more people who don't have the sports dollar tied up in one sport.

New Orleans is fun, but I don't think it's feasible. It isnt big, there is money but its not swimming in cash either. And, its always and forever a Football town. I've been there, the Saints are beloved, LSU football is beloved, there's an appreciation for Tulane. The NBAs Pelicans, I got the feeling residents like them but don't love them, like they're something to cheer for because the Saints/LSU aren't playing.

I do think New Orleans would be a great ECHL town. The old Brass got screwed over by the NBAs Hornets relocating there. It can work, and any road to the NHL for this market IMO, should start with the ECHL.

 

[Rec T]

I saw Cincinnati mentioned a couple of times earlier in the thread. Why NHL level hockey won't work was covered, but a little more depth (I'm local to there). They already have NFL, MLB, MLS, & two relatively good college basketball teams (Univ Cincinnati & Xavier), so a NHL team would be somewhere between 4-6th in getting sponsorship money. The only arena in the area, Riverfront Coliseum/Heritage Bank Center is 50 years old this year and is already too small. The Bengals need a new lease on their stadium & there's big pushback on using public money to improve it, so a new arena (& where will it be located...?) is going to have to come from the owners for the most part. Then there's the NHL franchise fee. I can't see anyone/group of anyones willing to put up close to $2billion for something that at best would be the fourth most popular team in town, playing during the time frame that overlaps all the other teams seasons. There's only so much spectator dollars to be spread around. And with the ECHL Cyclones here for the last couple of decades, people are used to paying those prices for live hockey. They aren't going to want to pay NHL prices for the most part.

Would it be cool to have a team, sure...but I just don't see it being realistic