How many teams can the NHL support in total?

[Butch 19]

Well, the Pelicans (Hornets) did return after Katrina, and the Flames' building survived a catastrophic flood (apparently the Rockets old building got flooded, although I've heard nothing about the new one), plus I don't think Houston would be ready until all this would have settled down anyway. May be too early to tell, but if HOU doesn't get in, it won't be because of Harvey.

Without Katrina, the L.A. Saints would be starting up their 10th or 11th season in Los Angeles right about now.

They had one foot out the door when the storm hit.

 

[Price is Wright]

Go 40 teams and split the league into two tiers. Add Seattle, Houston, Milwaukee, Quebec, Hamilton, Toronto 2, Portland, Kansas City, and Hartford.

 

[Beville]

I think once you start to go above 32 you need to have a two-tier league of sorts. Be it a specific East West set up or something.

 

[lifelonghockeyfan]

Really 24. Add that might be high. Too many empty arenas or non paying customer in present cities. And few cities have the business or people that can pay for tickets every game for years on end.

Certainly Quebec or Kansas City, two darlings apparently could not support a team long term,.

 

[Price is Wright]

Really 24. Add that might be high. Too many empty arenas or non paying customer in present cities. And few cities have the business or people that can pay for tickets every game for years on end.

Certainly Quebec or Kansas City, two darlings apparently could not support a team long term,.

Tickets don't matter as much as the luxury boxes.

 

[Gnashville]

Really 24. Add that might be high. Too many empty arenas or non paying customer in present cities. And few cities have the business or people that can pay for tickets every game for years on end.

Certainly Quebec or Kansas City, two darlings apparently could not support a team long term,.

You know it is like that in all pro sports and always has been no matter how many teams there are. St Louis Browns once drew 80,000 fans one season in a 16 team league.

 

[Bongo]

Tickets don't matter as much as the luxury boxes.

Counting on corporate support is a foolish roll of the dice. First time things get lean, those folks disappear.

 

[GindyDraws]

Counting on corporate support is a foolish roll of the dice. First time things get lean, those folks disappear.

Exactly. They aren't the panacea that they are proclaimed as. It's a much harder sell convincing corporations to spent tens of thousands of dollars for an evening if the team is putrid or irrelevant.

And that goes back to my 16 team argument. It's not as much about parity as it is about realism. Under the current TV deal, it's pretty obvious who matters & who doesn't, and the NHL agrees with this. I'm well aware that economical factors are the main reason to hype your Heavyweight division, but it does a poor job building up your league if you factor in that a good chunk of the fanbase is told they don't matter at all.

And that is one factor why some teams can't sell out to save their lives; if you don't matter, why support?

 

[KevFu]

The problem with this idea is not whether or not you can convince anyone here. It's getting the owners on board. And, as I have said, the issue there is short term vs. long term.

Absolutely agreed.

Some of your ideas here seem like they would work, but they have never been tested, and that's another problem with getting the owners on board.

Now here's where I disagree. It absolutely HAS been tested with the NBA and MLB sharing revenue like I propose. And that basically "saved" MLB when the talk was about contracting teams (totally disingenuous discussion by MLB. It didn't "save" anything. But it DID make it better).

One thing that comes to my mind....

If the BOG were inclined to do this, they don't really need to change the current definition of Cap floor/ceiling. Since the players will get 50% no matter what, the owners could simply institute a local revenue sharing program in and of themselves.

Right. You could keep the same stupid RS model if you switched to median - because then you'd have equal numbers paying in/taking out.
Or you could keep the same stupid average model if you switched RS to "Everyone puts in same pct, takes out an even share."

The goal of each system is to ensure that the rate of revenue growth by the top third of the league doesn't constantly put a strain on the lower two-thirds, where they have to slash their marketing budgets and not afford to try and create new hockey fans... just because they need that money to hit the rising salary floor.

The new CBA for 2006 was greeting with "Wow, that's an amazing CBA! That solves all the problems!" It was deemed brilliant because everyone was going to make more money! And they did. The problem was that when they made that CBA, the Islanders and Coyotes had to spend 58% of their revenue on payroll to hit the floor. And with "Cost-Certainty" the top third of the league racked up massive revenue increases and six years later, the Coyotes & Islanders had to spend 70-75% of their revenue just to hit the floor. You can't sustain a league that way.

isn't the nhl making money? why would anyone post less than the current amount of teams?

People tend to talk about "The NHL" as if it's a business, but it's really a collective term. There's TWO NHLs:
1. The league office.
2. The concept of all the franchise businesses discussed at once.

The league office makes no money. They acquire revenue by being the entity negotiating on behalf of all the member franchises; and all that revenue goes to the member franchises (after paying for the league office to negotiate/work on their behalf).

The concept of all the franchise businesses being discussed at once doesn't make the NHL one company. It's 31 separate corporate empires.

Some people would say it's less than 31 because we've got some franchises where the business loses money. (I disagree with all those people, because a number of teams have had DECADES of "Financial problems" and no sports franchise has folded since the Barons were merged with the North Stars).


Tying these two points together, I have previously proven that financial losses by the poorest clubs basically ARE the byproduct of the CBA's "Average Revenue" system. Let's say the NHL made a cutline where if you're too poor to keep up, you're contracted.

The NHL contracts the Coyotes and Islanders a few years ago to try and be healthier financially. The average revenues would rise without them, which SEEMS good. Except it's not, because that increase raises the salary floor. And then Florida and Carolina would be in the same position ARZ/NYI were in. So we axe them so none of the successful teams have to subsidize them anymore. Floor rises again, now St. Louis, Buffalo, Columbus and Winnipeg can't afford to keep up. So now we're down to 22 teams. But the floor just rose. Nashville, Anaheim, New Jersey, Tampa dip below the line. They're gone. Floor rises again, four more teams fall below the line.

"Poor teams" are a relative concept. Eliminating poor teams in the NHL's CBA model CREATES new poor teams. If you think the league isn't healthy now, the only way to create a "healthy"
League is to change the "average based" CBA or revenue sharing. Because in our current CBA, the NHL would make everyone more financially "healthy" by contracting the Canadiens, Leafs and Rangers than they would contracting the Coyotes, Hurricanes and Islanders. I don't need to tell you how crazy that is. That's bonkers.

 

[MNNumbers]

^^^^^^

A couple of points Kev,

We can argue for a long time, but the reality is that the kind of revenue redistribution you are discussing here, enough to make the Coyotes of the league solvent in the face of the massive disparity of revenue between them and the Leafs, is much larger than has been used in MLB or NBA. NFL is of course, another creature, because the broadcast revenue is already shared nationwide. There is no 'local TV' in NFL, so, in my mind, that doesn't enter the discussion.

Again, I say that the idea you propose comes down to this, essentially:
You want to convince the TOR, MTL, NYRs of the world that 'giving money' to the ARI, CAR, FLOs of the world will eventually result in more profits for the big guys.

You say that idea has been tested. I say it hasn't, not on the scale you want it done.

You say the rich owners are fools. I say, "I'm not sure."

There is no way to find out without doing it for 10 years. And, if I own the NYR, I am not interested in that experiment. It's going to take some BIG convincing to convince me.





2nd, in regard to the discussion. The revenue sharing is written into the CBA. So is the cap/floor structure. There is no way the players will sign off on lowering the cap/floor to the median income (rather than mean), even though the escrow system assures them of the same collective amount of money. We both know that.

However, I don't see any reason that the PA would object if, collectively, the owners decided tomorrow to institute a revenue redistribution plan that does exactly the same thing as changing the cap/floor and making the rich teams pay the payroll difference.

That's what I mean: The owners could do this tomorrow if the were convinced it would work. The fact that they are NOT doing it voluntarily means that there is little appetite to do it at all.

So, again, Good ideas. Maybe. Out of the box? Definitely. Will happen soon? Not realistic.

 

[Jeffrey93]

Ever? Or currently?

Assuming venues and ownership are there....
I'd say tomorrow the NHL could support teams in Seattle or Portland, Houston, Quebec City, Hamilton, Hartford and maybe Milwaukee and Cleveland.

So that's another 5 to 7 teams. Anywhere else would take work. But, I guess you'd need to rid the league of a couple current franchises. So +3 or +5 from current.....as things are now.

 

[boredmale]

Go 40 teams and split the league into two tiers. Add Seattle, Houston, Milwaukee, Quebec, Hamilton, Toronto 2, Portland, Kansas City, and Hartford.

Split the league into two 20 team leagues, bottom 4 from the top league get moved to the bottom league, top 4 from the bottom league get moved to the top league next season

 

[Gunnersaurus Rex]

100 - 5 tiers of 20 with a English football relegation/promotion system.

 

[Demon Eyes]

Split the league into two 20 team leagues, bottom 4 from the top league get moved to the bottom league, top 4 from the bottom league get moved to the top league next season

i'd rather just go 2 leagues, 16 teams each make playoffs, best of 5, with only the final best of 7. i mean if there was 40 teams. so 32 teams in the playoffs

 

[Butch 19]

Soccer's relegation/promotion system just needs to go away.

All NA sports systems aren't set up for it - it does not fit in to any type of their business models.

And realize this: as a fan (and certainly for the owners!) there is NOTHING appealing or interesting about relegation.

 

[Albatros]

Oh yes there is, you just haven't been culturally conditioned to love it unlike those soccer fans. While only the selected few can realistically win the title, almost every team has a rich history of promotions and relegations.

 

[alko]

Really 24. Add that might be high. Too many empty arenas or non paying customer in present cities. And few cities have the business or people that can pay for tickets every game for years on end.

Certainly Quebec or Kansas City, two darlings apparently could not support a team long term,.

There will be a problem. You can argue, that with few teams, the quality will be higher. You would say, when you concentrate very very good players in 24 teams, there will be great games to see.

I disagree. If you put All-Star teams together, there will be even less free space to create something. You will have good forwards, but you will have also very good defense, goalie stars in every game and the absolute best defensive forwards. Maybe for some games it will work, but not for all season.

 

[zetajerk]

Are there any MLB, NFL, NBA fans that want contraction like there is in NHL fandom? Everyone who wants contraction wants the same teams to go away. If there were 30 teams above the mason Dixon, no one would be complaining. It would be a lot less annoying if they quit hiding behind the quality of play argument and were honest about why they want it.

 

[542365]

Oh yes there is, you just haven't been culturally conditioned to love it unlike those soccer fans. While only the selected few can realistically win the title, almost every team has a rich history of promotions and relegations.

That is not appealing in any way. "Hey, we have no chance of ever winning the title, but we might get to play on the same ice as a team that does have a chance, but only if we beat these other ****** teams with no chance of winning the title!" That's an awful system.

 

[Daeni10]

Soccer's relegation/promotion system just needs to go away.

All NA sports systems aren't set up for it - it does not fit in to any type of their business models.
And realize this: as a fan (and certainly for the owners!) there is NOTHING appealing or interesting about relegation.

That is as long as you are a fan of a team in the first division. My heart got broken when Cologne got relegated from Bundesliga but trust me the season we got promoted to Bundesliga was really freaking awesome. So I would disagree with you, promotion/relegation can bring a lot to teams/fans/leagues. However I agree with you that the NA system wouldn't work with promotion/relegation and they shouldn't do that for sure

 

[MNNumbers]

That is as long as you are a fan of a team in the first division. My heart got broken when Cologne got relegated from Bundesliga but trust me the season we got promoted to Bundesliga was really freaking awesome. So I would disagree with you, promotion/relegation can bring a lot to teams/fans/leagues. However I agree with you that the NA system wouldn't work with promotion/relegation and they shouldn't do that for sure

This is exactly true.

Consider the countries in Europe where pro/rel works. How big is England? France? Spain? Now, how big is US?

It seems to me that the reason the lesser leagues can be viable is because there are short travel distances which lessen costs, and the local fans are serious about THEIR team, no matter what league they play in.

In No Amer, neither of those things are true. For example, let's say that Duluth, MN and Grand Forks, ND which are hockey hotbeds are playing in the 2nd tier. Who are the other teams? Charlotte, NC? Virginia Beach, VA? Providence, RI? San Diego, CA? That's a huge travel bill.

Then, if one of them gets promoted, does the CBA change so that they don't lose their shirt on player costs the next year? Their rinks are not nearly as large, with nearly as many $$ amenities as NHL teams.

And, if they are not relegated, do the people in Grand Forks continue to be crazy about their team, or do they root for Winnipeg?

That's why it won't work in NA.

 

[Gnashville]

This is exactly true.

Consider the countries in Europe where pro/rel works. How big is England? France? Spain? Now, how big is US?

It seems to me that the reason the lesser leagues can be viable is because there are short travel distances which lessen costs, and the local fans are serious about THEIR team, no matter what league they play in.

In No Amer, neither of those things are true. For example, let's say that Duluth, MN and Grand Forks, ND which are hockey hotbeds are playing in the 2nd tier. Who are the other teams? Charlotte, NC? Virginia Beach, VA? Providence, RI? San Diego, CA? That's a huge travel bill.

Then, if one of them gets promoted, does the CBA change so that they don't lose their shirt on player costs the next year? Their rinks are not nearly as large, with nearly as many $$ amenities as NHL teams.

And, if they are not relegated, do the people in Grand Forks continue to be crazy about their team, or do they root for Winnipeg?

That's why it won't work in NA.

Too much logic here my friend. Plus no one would care about the 2nd division. NBC already only shows the same 6 teams (DET, NYR, BOS, PHI, PIT, CHI) every game, now create a 2nd division for them not to care about. Only 1 of those teams is in the west and the rest of the west gets no coverage and is ignored. The only people pushing for relegation or contraction think that their team would never be contracted or relegated.

 

[Melrose Munch]

The last page has shown how lazy american sports fans are. These are the same people who complain when teams move.

And it's still 40

 

[Fugu]

Too much logic here my friend. Plus no one would care about the 2nd division. NBC already only shows the same 6 teams (DET, NYR, BOS, PHI, PIT, CHI) every game, now create a 2nd division for them not to care about. Only 1 of those teams is in the west and the rest of the west gets no coverage and is ignored. The only people pushing for relegation or contraction think that their team would never be contracted or relegated.

The Capitals are on 15 times as well.

 

[KevFu]

^^^^^^

A couple of points Kev,

We can argue for a long time, but the reality is that the kind of revenue redistribution you are discussing here, enough to make the Coyotes of the league solvent in the face of the massive disparity of revenue between them and the Leafs, is much larger than has been used in MLB or NBA.

Again, I say that the idea you propose comes down to this, essentially:
You want to convince the TOR, MTL, NYRs of the world that 'giving money' to the ARI, CAR, FLOs of the world will eventually result in more profits for the big guys.

You say that idea has been tested. I say it hasn't, not on the scale you want it done.
You say the rich owners are fools. I say, "I'm not sure."

There is no way to find out without doing it for 10 years. And, if I own the NYR, I am not interested in that experiment. It's going to take some BIG convincing to convince me.

Ok, that last part is extremely valid. But I think we're in the same ballpark of agreement:
X amount of increased revenue sharing for the betterment of the league to promote = good thing.
But Z amount of revenue sharing is too much for the rich owners to get enough return for it to be worth it to them.

Our disagreement is probably over the amount of money X and Z are, but not the principle.

How about this?
Does it make sense for the NHL to without a sliver of league revenues, distributing less to each team, and use that sliver to GROW THE FAN BASE OF HOCKEY to create new customers and increase TV demand?

That takes the"subsidizing / Robin Hood evilness" out of the mix, and put it where it belongs: The NHL needs to create more hockey fans in the footprint, period. I think everyone agrees on that.

The places with the lowest percentage of customers spending money on the NHL is clearly the places where NHL teams exist, but have low attendance/TV ratings. Now, if the NHL succeeds in growing fan bases there through initiatives... the current system really doesn't mean the rest of the league gets to share the increase. So you fix THAT next.

Counting on corporate support is a foolish roll of the dice. First time things get lean, those folks disappear.

Disagree completely. The percentages of revenues from high end tickets, suites, etc is far greater than the percentage of revenue from upper bowl seats.

Ever watch a game on TV, think it's a light crowd, and then see the announced attendance and think "LIARS!" Well guess what, if the suite is sold, those tickets are counted.

Rich companies will renew their premium suites when the team is terrible so that they still have them if the team is in the playoffs. Giving them up means someone else could take your suite and when the team's good again, you're in a less prestigious suite location and not impressing people during the playoffs.

That is not appealing in any way. "Hey, we have no chance of ever winning the title, but we might get to play on the same ice as a team that does have a chance, but only if we beat these other ****** teams with no chance of winning the title!" That's an awful system.

Sure, if you're one of the top 20 markets/teams. I'm pretty sure Hamilton would love to be able to PLAY their way into the NHL rather than be stuck waiting on expansion.

But forget PRO/REL, because THAT idealogical discussion could go one for eternity and we have a separate thread for it.



Every NA Big Four league has 30 to 32 teams right now. But they are not the same 30 markets in each.

The NHL could easily work and success in pretty much any of the Top 50 markets of the US/CAN. UNDER THE RIGHT CONDITIONS.

To me, the concept of "how many teams could the NHL support?" is a bit of a fool's errand. The NHL isn't carrying the franchises. The NHL has a collectively agreed to system/structure. But each team has to generate its own revenue from a fan base they have to cultivate.

If conditions were created in which more teams = more money (like Starbucks locations) then the NHL could "support" a freaking ton more teams. That would be incredibly hard to achieve for the NHL.

The real issue is more "How can you manage the configuration of the league that's grown really big that you're holding the interest of the majority of the fans?" This is a problem that plagued MLB for a while.

In the golden age of baseball, they had two 8-team leagues. Well, now they're two 15-team leagues. That's a lot of distance between first and 15th.

So they've added divisions and wild cards. The fifth playoff spot was the most recent addition because now you have 11 of 15 AL teams are within six games of the playoffs right now.


With future expansion and bigger and bigger leagues, you're going to need to behave more like two SEPARATE LEAGUES that have only occasional interleague play, and champions meeting in the playoffs.