I missed a few things in the OP ...
It's kind of like gas prices ... as long as people are willing to shell out $3.xx or more for a gallon of gas, demand will drive the price. When people decide they're not willing to pay, demand will drop and prices will drop as well.
Right now? There's no sign prices are going to drop any time soon - for either gas in the U.S. or hockey tickets in some markets - because the demand is clearly there.
How exactly did you draw this conclusion? Ticket prices were lowered in many markets after the lockout, then they were raised again, maybe to what pre-lockout prices were. While we can debate what
will happen next year, I don't think you can say with absolute certainty where prices are relative to the maximum a given market will bear.
Elsewhere in this forum, the myth of "nearly all the league's revenues come from gate receipts" was largely debunked ... so while increasing ticket prices will have some effect, it won't have nearly the effect one might think. Also realize that if Detroit's economy continues to struggle, Joe Louis Arena may not be sold out every night and prices there will stop going up and up and up (and may - gasp! - actually come down some).
Hmmm. I thought the mythological part was what percent of NHL revenues were derived from
gate-driven sources. That includes gate receipts, but certainly
is not limited to just gate receipts. I have yet to see anything (including Levitt's stale data also based on a different interpretation of what constitutes HRR) that substantiates the claim that gate-driven sources don't constitute the majority of NHL revenues. Even the Levitt data would support this point. I await GC's breakdown on this matter, as it seems he owes me a few posts over the past few months.......
As for Joe Louis and the Detroit economy. This isn't too important if the NHL grows in other markets, but if there is no growth or even decline, and Detroit starts slipping... as one of the big donors in the revenue sharing program, it does bleaken the picture overall for the league, no?
However ... could revenues rise high enough that it pushes the cap to the point that teams can't afford the league minimum? Enter the concept of "averaged salary" - the item that determines whether or not a team is cap compliant. It appears the Rangers and Flyers are betting revenues will continue to go up and up and up (and the cap with it), and by front-loading contracts to FA's now they'll be cheaper down the road when they're less effective but still carrying the same cap hit - making them attractive to teams who need to get to the minimum.
There are two pressure points however. While rising revenues do indeed push the cap up, the further it rises the more real money the large market teams are spending. Not only do their costs increase IF they decide to spend to the cap.... they are still on the hook to help the bottom half who can meet the revenue sharing criteria. What I think is going to happen is:
1. The teams that have both low revenues and are exempt from sharing in the revenue redistribution program (Isles, Devils, Ducks?) will be in the most precarious position.
2. The smaller market teams that qualify for Revenue Sharing have some built-in protection as long as their growth exceeds the NHL average. A situation that has larger revenue generators fueling the growth (through higher ticket prices and other means) would indeed widen the revenue gap further and disqualify some teams for a portion of their revenue sharing allotment. If the real growth potential is greatest in the smaller markets, they should be able to keep up.
3. That said... in any scenario where there is revenue growth, the cap goes up. The better question may be in ascertaining what the full market potential is in the smaller markets and compare that to the more mature revenue in the larger markets. If those numbers are still to far apart, growth can be a double-edged sword where only perpetual revenue sharing solves the
problem.
4. Also, in our increasing revenues scenarios, the NHLPA share goes up at specific points until $2.7 billion is reached, where it then maxes out at 57%. I think I alluded to this before as both the pie growing in size and the size of the pie the players get increasing with it. This adds pressure to both the larger and small markets as I outlined in point #2.