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PWHPA, Billie Jean King & The Mark Walter Group working to create a new women's pro hockey league.

joelef

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Nov 22, 2011
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so will they sabotage this league to guilt trip bettman to subsidise them just like thye did with the NWHL?
 

gstommylee

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Jan 31, 2012
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joelef said:
so will they sabotage this league to guilt trip bettman to subsidise them just like thye did with the NWHL?
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NHL isn't interested in having 2 separate women's leagues competing against each other. They wanted a combined single league before i believe they would even consider helping out.
 
tarheelhockey

tarheelhockey

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BKIslandersFan said:
What exactly is their end game that is so different from PHF? Doesn't seem like its more money, yet.

PHF seems to have sustainable model.
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Bringing Deloitte and Scotiabank to the table sounds pretty legitimate. Perhaps there's something about the business approach which is superior to what has been put on the table so far, which AFAIK has always been dreamed up by non-businesspeople in the past.
 
KevFu

KevFu

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It's crazy. An independent women's league is going to get no where, just like the 3-5 others before them haven't gotten anywhere. The best bet for a sustainable women's hockey league is the NHL. Not for a "subsidy" but for investment insurance and cost reduction.

It's NO DIFFERENT than the 3 to 7 attempts at a second football league; or the WNBA. Or ANY start-up.

It's a simple ratio of revenue to costs... there's no way for the players to be full-time athletes for a start-up league. There's no reason for TV to invest in a league that operates at such low cost it could all go belly-up tomorrow. So what you have is a small-time operation with small-time risk that no one will back; and you can't make any inroads before all the best players have to quit and get a real job or be broke and homeless.


The NHL doesn't NEED to "subsidize" a women's league. The NHL doesn't need to GIVE one dime of money to a WNHL and it could aide the WNHL into being a success.

Because the NHL in a unique position of having in place everything a HOCKEY LEAGUE NEEDS already. Just let the WNHL use it. For free. In select NHL -- or AHL markets where the team is owned by the NHL team -- just treat a WNHL team like a college athletics department treats the women's basketball team.

That eliminates 75% of non-player costs for the WNHL. No arena rent, no cost for practice time, no athletic trainer expenses; make the players employees of the NHL club who's practice facility they train/play at and cover them under NHL teams' insurance. The players don't have to buy their own gym membership or pay to sharpen their own skates.

The WNHL would be on the hook for PAYROLL, equipment and travel, and that's it. That alone would allow the WNHL to pay salaries where the players can be HOCKEY PLAYERS as an occupation, and not have to also be something else to afford their lives.

With expenses at the bare minimum and players paid a full-time wage, and the NHL committing to THAT relationship, then investors have very limited risk. Teams won't suddenly find themselves with no where to play or go bankrupt mid-season. So now, it's a decent investment.

The marketing arm of the teams and league can support and aide the league as well. The only "subsidy" necessary would be staffing: NHL team employees serving roles for the WNHL team, like the marketing, equipment, athletic training/medical staffs would need to add an additional person or two to cover 2 teams instead of 1.


The WNBA started with NBA owners owning teams and treating them like college sports treat women's basketball teams. Same organization, just different set of standings. All of you "subsidy freaks" should look at the WNBA.

The WNBA now is looking toward (much needed) expansion. 58% of the league is owned by NON-NBA owners. The five NBA owners don't give up their teams because they don't WANT TO. They've been "Allowed" to divest their WNBA team for a decade or longer. The NBA owners hold on to their WNBA team because they're value-add or because it's worth it to them.

It's a successful, stand alone league now. It's smaller scale, and not without trials and tribulations; but it doesn't NEED an NBA subsidy to exist. It exists on merit now. It's a much smaller enterprise, of course. But that doesn't really matter. Dr. Pepper is never going to be as big as Coke, but Dr. Pepper is doing just fine.
 
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cowboy82nd

cowboy82nd

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Feb 19, 2012
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KevFu said:
It's crazy. An independent women's league is going to get no where, just like the 3-5 others before them haven't gotten anywhere. The best bet for a sustainable women's hockey league is the NHL. Not for a "subsidy" but for investment insurance and cost reduction.

It's NO DIFFERENT than the 3 to 7 attempts at a second football league; or the WNBA. Or ANY start-up.

It's a simple ratio of revenue to costs... there's no way for the players to be full-time athletes for a start-up league. There's no reason for TV to invest in a league that operates at such low cost it could all go belly-up tomorrow. So what you have is a small-time operation with small-time risk that no one will back; and you can't make any inroads before all the best players have to quit and get a real job or be broke and homeless.


The NHL doesn't NEED to "subsidize" a women's league. The NHL doesn't need to GIVE one dime of money to a WNHL and it could aide the WNHL into being a success.

Because the NHL in a unique position of having in place everything a HOCKEY LEAGUE NEEDS already. Just let the WNHL use it. For free. In select NHL -- or AHL markets where the team is owned by the NHL team -- just treat a WNHL team like a college athletics department treats the women's basketball team.

That eliminates 75% of non-player costs for the WNHL. No arena rent, no cost for practice time, no athletic trainer expenses; make the players employees of the NHL club who's practice facility they train/play at and cover them under NHL teams' insurance. The players don't have to buy their own gym membership or pay to sharpen their own skates.

The WNHL would be on the hook for PAYROLL, equipment and travel, and that's it. That alone would allow the WNHL to pay salaries where the players can be HOCKEY PLAYERS as an occupation, and not have to also be something else to afford their lives.

With expenses at the bare minimum and players paid a full-time wage, and the NHL committing to THAT relationship, then investors have very limited risk. Teams won't suddenly find themselves with no where to play or go bankrupt mid-season. So now, it's a decent investment.

The marketing arm of the teams and league can support and aide the league as well. The only "subsidy" necessary would be staffing: NHL team employees serving roles for the WNHL team, like the marketing, equipment, athletic training/medical staffs would need to add an additional person or two to cover 2 teams instead of 1.


The WNBA started with NBA owners owning teams and treating them like college sports treat women's basketball teams. Same organization, just different set of standings. All of you "subsidy freaks" should look at the WNBA.

The WNBA now is looking toward (much needed) expansion. 58% of the league is owned by NON-NBA owners. The five NBA owners don't give up their teams because they don't WANT TO. They've been "Allowed" to divest their WNBA team for a decade or longer. The NBA owners hold on to their WNBA team because they're value-add or because it's worth it to them.

It's a successful, stand alone league now. It's smaller scale, and not without trials and tribulations; but it doesn't NEED an NBA subsidy to exist. It exists on merit now. It's a much smaller enterprise, of course. But that doesn't really matter. Dr. Pepper is never going to be as big as Coke, but Dr. Pepper is doing just fine.
Click to expand...

So, you want MSG (just for an example) to let a team use Madison Square Garden as their home rink for 16 home games and get less revenue than say 16 dates of Beyoncé/Metallica/Imagine Dragons. Plus you want NHL team trainers and medical staff to be responsible for the WNHL players when they would be in two different cities. (Rangers playing at home and WNHL franchise playing on the road.) I don't see it.
 
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Rabid Ranger

Rabid Ranger

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KevFu

KevFu

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cowboy82nd said:
So, you want MSG (just for an example) to let a team use Madison Square Garden as their home rink for 16 home games and get less revenue than say 16 dates of Beyoncé/Metallica/Imagine Dragons. Plus you want NHL team trainers and medical staff to be responsible for the WNHL players when they would be in two different cities. (Rangers playing at home and WNHL franchise playing on the road.) I don't see it.
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No. The WNHL could play in NHL practice arenas. Four PHF teams do now: Boston, Buffalo, New York and Minnesota.
 
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BruinDust

BruinDust

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KevFu said:
No. The WNHL could play in NHL practice arenas. Four PHF teams do now: Boston, Buffalo, New York and Minnesota.
Click to expand...

Which is part of the problem.

How does the women's game grow and attract new fans and a new audience when they continue to broadcast and show their entertainment product in small, often dimly lit, arenas? It looks so amateur-hour/bush league it's not even funny. Production values matter. Especially if your trying to gain more/new fans.

And I don't understand why any women's league wants to go head-to-head with men's professional hockey. Which by having a January-April schedule, that's exactly what they are doing.

The pro hockey dollar is finite.

People's time is finite.

If I'm spending time/money watching the women's pro game, it's likely time/money I'm not spending on men's pro hockey, and vice versa.

I think they'd be far better off starting in mid-September and finishing up before Xmas. Take advantage when NHL interest is typically lower in the early months rather than the later months and going up against the height of playoff drives.

Personally I think the women's game needs to think outside of the box more. This concept of travelling teams based in cities where they have a set regular season schedule followed by a playoff to declare an annual champion is quite frankly tired and expensive. Were talking about something basically designed over a century ago when train-travel was prominent. Times change and maybe for the women's game there is a better way.

They need to get the best 200 women's players on the planet under the same umbrella. They depth of talent just isn't there yet to have the best players spread out among different umbrella's.

Why do the teams have to be based in a particular city? Why can't they just create 6-8 teams comprising the best 150-200 players, and put off events throughout the year? It's so easy now to reach fans outside of a particular geographic area. Why limit your growth to potential fans from one place? I would want to gain fans from all over North America and the entire world. Not just Montreal, Toronto, Boston, etc.

Maybe have 4 seasonal events and roll that up into a 5th main event to decide a champion.

Go to untraditional markets with your events. More focus on grassroots marketing. Stay out of small arenas and put your product in major-league style venues. The demand isn't there to fill large arenas 20-40 times a year, but with a more event-based set-up you could draw more people as the events should have a more special feel to them, not just another regular season game. Not to mention the sponsoring opportunities.

Market the teams but more importantly choose some of the top players and market them as stars. Use social media to promote the women star players and the good things they do off-ice. Make them into super heroes for young women. Marie Philip-Poulin could of been a household name had someone knew how to market her correctly. Same with others. Put more emphasis on promoting some particular players over the individual teams.

Build a model that crosses boundaries and is sustainable instead of trying to force the women's game down a path where it wants to be the women's version of the NHL without enough demand for that product to be sustainable without being subsidized and more importantly, grow over time.
 
KevFu

KevFu

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I agree with a lot of what you're saying. The best way to do it would be:

A) As the WNHL, so teams can utilize NHL/AHL franchise resources to drastically reduce costs (aka, practice facilities, team staff that already exist, etc). Maybe have WNHL expenses count as a deduction from an organization's HRR, so teams can add staffing to run a second team.

B) In CLUSTERS with small travel: Like 12 teams in three clusters of four: Buffalo, Toronto, Hamilton and Detroit (or Toronto2); Boston, NY, NJ, PHI; and Montreal, Laval, Ottawa and Bellevelle. Predominantly play in division.


The reason the WNBA can exist 25 years later with 7 of the 12 teams being totally independent from NBA franchises (and the league is looking to expand), is because the NBA sponsored it so heavily until it put down roots that sponsors were assured it wasn't going away, minimizing risk, so the corporate partners could invest. An NHL-backed WNHL playing in NHL/AHL Practice facilities provides that assurances.


The other aspect of it is that with the NHL "running" a WNHL, they can use their existing relationships with TV partners like college conferences do. All the streams can be included in the NHL contracts for streaming with 2-3 games and the playoffs on actual TV.
 

oknazevad

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Well, to define "single entity", we must first note it's actually a legal interpretation under antitrust law. Although legally a separately incorporated company, as opposed to a division within its parent company, a subsidiary company can be in practice considered part of the parent company as a single business entity when it comes to its position in a given market. This allows a company and a subsidiary company to cooperate without being considered unlawful collusion under antitrust law.

It should be noted that MLS isn't really a pure single-entity. The legal structure of the league does have each team leagally organized as a subsidiary company owned by the league as a parent company (the league is registered as a limited liability company), which would be single entity under the legal theory. However, the league LLC is in turn owned by a series of (currently 30 with the admission of the upcoming San Diego) investors that, in return for investing, are given full operational control over one of those team subsidiaries (hence the technical term "investor-operator"). Those investors are themselves legal companies allowed independence in operating their teams subject to the agreed upon MLS-wide rules. They're not, unlike a true single-entity business, wholly directed by the parent company, and they don't work for MLS Commissioner Don Garber as their ultimate boss. In fact, as he's responsible to the investors collectively, they are his boss, not the other way around.

In that regard, it's not significantly different from the other major sports leagues, which have long had necessary levels of cooperation between teams that would run afoul of antitrust if either a) the Supreme Court carved an exception out of thin air (MLB) b) Congress authorized it (the NFL, as part of the bill allowing the AFL/NFL merger c) other court rulings (the NBA and NHL in regards to their competition with the ABA and WHA respectively). In fact, MLS's own structure was described as only partially single entity in the Fraser v MLS court decision, but still gave MLS its own safe haven from antitrust law similar to that enjoyed by the other leagues.

Not to say there aren't some differences. Most notably is the way revenues and expenses are handled, with teams sending revenue to the league office which then covers most on-field operating expenses on behalf of the teams (including player paychecks) in an budget allocation, as one might expect in a large company where a single payroll department might cover all of the corporate empire. This contrasts with the other leagues where the teams run their own books and just pay a certain amount of league membership dues to fund the league office which runs many of the joint ventures (like the league's national media and internet infrastructure), and joint marketing and commerce (the profits from which are disbursed to the individual teams). Even with those aspects, though, MLS is still quite different from a pure single business entity.

It should be noted that the way the structure has worked out in MLS is not how it was originally proposed by Alan Rothenberg, the president of the US Soccer Federation who oversaw the 94 World Cup and the launch of MLS (and for whom the original MLS championship trophy was named). He proposed a pure single entity where the teams really would have been all run by and from the league office. His use of the "single entity" term comes from his background as a lawyer. But the initial investors felt that having particular links between investors and one team would be more accepted by the public (they were concerned that people would see the league as rigged) resulting in the current hybrid.
(Even with that there were still some league-office-run teams in the beginning because of insufficient number of original investors for the number of teams, but they quickly went to having those teams be operated by individual investors, even if it meant that some investors were running multiple teams for a while. They now have a pure one-to-one correlation, like all the other leagues. And there's still eurosnobs who call the league rigged because of the roster rules intended to keep a level of parity.)

As for the actual benefits, besides probably being more efficient and less expensive (don't need so many redundant office personnel), it also allows for teams to basically trade cash (as one sees in MLB) without having to actually move money. That's what is being talked about when you see "general allocation money" (GAM) and "targetted allocation money" (TAM) in MLS transactions. It means they traded cash that is either allowed to be used for any expenses, or is specific to certain player payroll expenses, respectively. (And that's an intentional oversimplification. MLS roster and salary budget rules are notoriously complex. Streamlining them is something that most stakeholders want to see happen sooner than later.)

Most of the more recent leagues with a single-entity structure actually are closer to Rothenberg's original idea than what MLS is in actual practice.
 
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No Fun Shogun

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Looks like Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, New York, Boston, and Minneapolis are getting teams.
 
jigglysquishy

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I've poured a ton of research into post 1990s women's hockey for the future History of Hockey women's project.

The multiple leagues has been a death sentence. Hayley Wickenheiser spent her prime facing off against only 33% of the top women.

I don't really care about the background structure. But a unified league with strong records management is a must.

Excited to see something actually happen.
 
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LadyStanley

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NHL **is** involved.

Teams will have home "rink", but lots of games played at neutral (future teams?) sites. Schedule being worked, hopefully out in October.

Season starts January.

Players are currently marking themselves "available" (IOW a free agent or have exit clause) to be drafted (by 9/3). Circa 9/10, teams can sign three free agents. 9/17 is draft - 15 rounds; held in Toronto. Teams will have to sign ten additional folks before training camps (open with 28 players on roster).

www.thepwhl.com

Home Page

www.thepwhl.com www.thepwhl.com

Website live too.

Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal; Boston, New York (area) and Minnesota are the teams.

Season is 24 games
 
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LadyStanley

LadyStanley

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NCAA - sounds like players won't be "drafted" and stay with college until end of their season.

November training camp

Venues not ready to announce. (Want all the ducks aligned. Soon)
 
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