I'd be interested to see a list which compiles the net worth's of all primary NHL team owners. Kind of like the list that comes out every year from Forbes that lists the value of each NHL team.
Viola's networth is $1.78 billion, as of December of 2016, according to Wikipedia.
Josh Harris has a networth of $3 billion as of May 2017.
Apparently James Dolan has a networth of only $1.5 billion.
I'm not trying to tell people how to run their business, but if you want a competitive product, you gotta pony up the money. We all know there's no profit in a great deal of sports franchises. There's the joke that these billionaires buy these teams as a trophy. ''Hey guys, I own the Panthers, I know they suck, but I own them!'' during luncheons or golf outings.
But a sports team is a drop in the bucket for guys worth billions.
That said, a sports team costs much more than the players out on the ice/field. The payrolls stretch for miles and miles. They're paying to fuel the plane, the pilots and flight staff, they're paying for hotels on the road, meals, per diem for road expenses, they're paying for other road transportation by team coach buses to and fro the arenas, airports, hotels, etc. They're paying support staff, coaches, medical staff, scouting staff. I gotta figure the average NHL team is probably operating annually at nearly or just over $500 million per? Is that too high of an estimate? I was first leaning towards one billion, but that's probably way too high of an estimate for the NHL. These teams are all (or mostly) owned by billionaires. And there’s no salary cap for anything beyond the players.
At the end of the year, if you lose money? It's a tax write off.
