Radical Idea: So Many Expansion Candidates...New League?

[True South]

With so many expansion candidates and even cities with empty NHL-ready stadiums (and fan bases) is it time to consider a rival league? With expansion fees being so high with so little in return, and TV ratings falling, a new league that does things the *right way* (three points for a win, for example) could have a future. You could even call it something like the World Hockey Association. For starters, these are all cities with stadiums or significant expansion interest:

WEST:
Houston, San Diego, Portland, Phoenix, Kansas City
EAST:
Atlanta, Cincinnati, Hamilton, Quebec City, Milwaukee

And then, you could possibly get Nashville to defect to the West, and Carolina to defect to the East. Perhaps Winnipeg and one other Canadian team (Ottawa? Edmonton?) could eventually defect too.

I'd rather see a new 12 team league doing things right than a bloated 36 team NHL with stale leadership and marketing.

Click to read more...

 

[GKJ]

Where are you getting people to participate in this league?

 

[Tawnos]

Few of the people willing to own an expansion team want it because they want a hockey team. They want it because they want the money they'll make for it, whether operationally or in franchise value when they eventually sell. The only place you're getting that is the NHL.

 

[Yukon Joe]

It's been proposed in the past:

World Hockey Association (proposed) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Global Hockey League - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Obviously, it's never happened.

The original WHA was able to succeed (for a time) because of a couple of factors. First the NHL was quite small. By 1972 the league was at 14 teams (and then 15, the Islands, specifically to block the WHA from New York). But there were still a lot of major cities without teams.

As well due to the reserve clause the NHL paid its players very little at the time.

So the WHA could succeed by putting teams in major cities and were able to lure out major stars like Bobby Hull by offering more money. But even then, the league only lasted a handful of years.

So it's hard to see what advantage any new league would have over the NHL. I mean maybe is Saudi Arabia came in and spent just unreal gobs of money to lure players they could do something (I'm thinking of LIV golf here), but otherwise you're going to have a bunch of second rate players playing in second rate arenas.

The only point of differentiation you mentioned is doing it the "right way". You mentioned 3 points for a win. Casual fans don't give a crap about that. Beyond that, what is there? What would cause someone to watch the new league over the NHL? I dunno - more fighting (but concussions)?

I'm just not seeing any point of differentiation. There have been NFL competitors in the past - USFL, XFL, and UFL - but at least their point of differentiation has been playing at a different time of year and not direct competition (except briefly with USFL 1.0, which quickly led to their demise).

So maybe you go "well what about just an independent but more affordable league"? Again that's been tried before as well.

International Hockey League (1945–2001) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

You can see that the IHL was an alternate farm team to the NHL, but in the 90s flirted with the idea of trying to compete directly - it didn't work.

 

[CHRDANHUTCH]

With so many expansion candidates and even cities with empty NHL-ready stadiums (and fan bases) is it time to consider a rival league? With expansion fees being so high with so little in return, and TV ratings falling, a new league that does things the *right way* (three points for a win, for example) could have a future. You could even call it something like the World Hockey Association. For starters, these are all cities with stadiums or significant expansion interest:

WEST:
Houston, San Diego, Portland, Phoenix, Kansas City
EAST:
Atlanta, Cincinnati, Hamilton, Quebec City, Milwaukee

And then, you could possibly get Nashville to defect to the West, and Carolina to defect to the East. Perhaps Winnipeg and one other Canadian team (Ottawa? Edmonton?) could eventually defect too.

I'd rather see a new 12 team league doing things right than a bloated 36 team NHL with stale leadership and marketing.

unlikely you'd see San Diego, Kansas City, Atlanta, Cincinnati, or Milwaukee abandon the existing franchises they currently have established since three of those have connections to NHL Markets like Anaheim, Seattle (Kraken have an affiliation w/ Kansas City); Cincinnati barely survived a 2 league incursion which almost cost that city the Cyclones; and Milwaukee has a great relationship w/ Nashville since the Predators aligned there..... QC and Hamilton are likely not options either if MLSE elects to go there w/ the Marlies and replaces them w/ an ECHL team after the termination of Newfoundland

 

[ForumNamePending]

The NHL is now a $6+ billion a year league... A upstart/startup is not going to be able to compete with that.

...and before anyone inevitably mentions it, dividing the NHL into tiers with promotion and relegation, like we see in Europe, isn't going to work either. It's sort of a fun "what if" to think about, but the NHL (and other NA pro leagues), with the way it evolved and is currently structured and operates, is completely incompatible with the concept.

 

[Yukon Joe]

The NHL is now a $6+ billion a year league... A upstart/startup is not going to be able to compete with that.

...and before anyone inevitably mentions it, dividing the NHL into tiers with promotion and relegation, like we see in Europe, isn't going to work either. It's sort of a fun "what if" to think about, but the NHL (and other NA pro leagues), with the way it evolved and is currently structured and operates, is completely incompatible with the concept.

The absolute #1 thing every owner worries about is franchise value. After all it seems like the going rate is now $1.2 billion (reported price plus relocation fee for Utah).

Since promotion / relegation comes from soccer, let's quickly look at English soccer franchise values. The average value of a team in the Premiership is about 1.2 billion pounds. Prices for teams in the Championship (the league directly below the Premiership) ranges from 200 million to 15 million.

I would assume that teams that are more likely to be promoted are worth more money, and teams more likely to be relegated are worth less money.

So anyways - the idea of dividing a 32 team NHL into a 16 team Tier 1 and a 16 team Tier 2 - it might increase the value of the Tier 1 teams, but would absolutely destroy the value of the Tier 2 teams. So there's no way those owners would ever go for it.

(which is what you said - I'm just elaborating)

 

[Tawnos]

Is there room for an independent North American league between the NHL and AHL? Basically, a KHL-level North American league? It wouldn't be trying to compete with the NHL, but fill in a gap. In terms of talent pool and available markets, there probably is room for that.

The real problem would be trying to get anyone to play there, I think. Like even if we were talking about a league where the max salaries were $5m. Why would a player worth the same in the NHL ever play there and not in the league they dreamed about as a kid?

 

[Yukon Joe]

Is there room for an independent North American league between the NHL and AHL? Basically, a KHL-level North American league? It wouldn't be trying to compete with the NHL, but fill in a gap. In terms of talent pool and available markets, there probably is room for that.

The real problem would be trying to get anyone to play there, I think. Like even if we were talking about a league where the max salaries were $5m. Why would a player worth the same in the NHL ever play there and not in the league they dreamed about as a kid?

What exactly is the gap? What players are you going to attract? NHL minimum salary is $775k, which is really not bad. If your idea is to try and pull away NHL 4th line players you're going to have to pay above that - and they're still 4th line players.

Top AHL prospects are going to be on 2-way deals, so they won't sign. Anyone on 1-way deals in the AHL I guess, plus whatever unsigned drafted players might be out there. Plus Europeans (or North Americans who play in Europe), but again only those who don't have any NHL interest.

With respect - you're going to get a bunch of has-beens and never-weres.

Another part is the AHL is subsidized by the NHL through affiliation agreements. Your independent league wouldn't have that, but would still have all the costs of a league with a national reach.

I mean there might be something there - the Chicago Wolves think there's value in being a completely independent AHL team trying to win every night, and not existing just to develop players. But it seems like an incredibly small needle to have to thread.

 

[ForumNamePending]

The absolute #1 thing every owner worries about is franchise value. After all it seems like the going rate is now $1.2 billion (reported price plus relocation fee for Utah).

Since promotion / relegation comes from soccer, let's quickly look at English soccer franchise values. The average value of a team in the Premiership is about 1.2 billion pounds. Prices for teams in the Championship (the league directly below the Premiership) ranges from 200 million to 15 million.

I would assume that teams that are more likely to be promoted are worth more money, and teams more likely to be relegated are worth less money.

So anyways - the idea of dividing a 32 team NHL into a 16 team Tier 1 and a 16 team Tier 2 - it might increase the value of the Tier 1 teams, but would absolutely destroy the value of the Tier 2 teams. So there's no way those owners would ever go for it.

(which is what you said - I'm just elaborating)

Ya, and it's not just the tanking of franchise values, although that is a big (biggest?) part of it.

How's the draft going to work... Is Bedard still going to the 2nd (or 3rd?) tier Blackhawks? Are the 2nd (or 3rd?) tier Canadiens still writing revenue sharing cheques to the top tier Jets? If a team gets relegated what happens to the player contracts... In Europe relegated teams can just start selling players in exchange for money... How's all that working with a hard salary cap?

 

[Tawnos]

What exactly is the gap? What players are you going to attract? NHL minimum salary is $775k, which is really not bad. If your idea is to try and pull away NHL 4th line players you're going to have to pay above that - and they're still 4th line players.

Top AHL prospects are going to be on 2-way deals, so they won't sign. Anyone on 1-way deals in the AHL I guess, plus whatever unsigned drafted players might be out there. Plus Europeans (or North Americans who play in Europe), but again only those who don't have any NHL interest.

With respect - you're going to get a bunch of has-beens and never-weres.

Another part is the AHL is subsidized by the NHL through affiliation agreements. Your independent league wouldn't have that, but would still have all the costs of a league with a national reach.

I mean there might be something there - the Chicago Wolves think there's value in being a completely independent AHL team trying to win every night, and not existing just to develop players. But it seems like an incredibly small needle to have to thread.

I really do think the hockey would be entertaining an a league led by guys equal caliber to current 3rd line, 4th line, and AAAA players playing top-6 type of roles. These guys are still in the top 5% in terms of talent, they just play in a league with guys who are even better than that. There are lots of has-beens and never-weres who have had good careers in the KHL.

Would a $2.5m player in the NHL be enticed by a $3-4m contract in the IHL/WHA/whatever if it meant they got to play a larger role there? Some would.

The question wasn't really about the players. The talent exists for something like this to work. The question was more about the demand. The gap is essentially whether or not a non-NHL city would still support a hockey team to the degree that they could have a $15-20m payroll if the product was more entertaining than the AHL (which is plenty entertaining) and it didn't carry the stigma of being the farm team for the major leagues.

 

[KevFu]

While there are "plenty" of expansion markets, the problem is that there aren't enough empty top markets like there were in the 1970s.

When the OG WHA formed, you had NHL teams in 12 cities. The people in those 12 cities added up (using today's population because I'm not going to research this point) was like 100m, while the markets the size of Winnipeg and larger WITHOUT the NHL had about 175m people.

It was easy to create a rival league when you could compete head-to-head in a couple major markets and then go to places without teams that rivaled the same populations the other league had.

For example, you take Hamilton, Quebec and the 19 biggest markets without an NHL team, you have about 65 million people in those cities. Add in a team in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto for 24 teams. Okay, that's not bad. But the NHL has 156 million fans in their markets.

Going toe-to-toe would be extremely difficult. Is there "room" to make money? Sure, but any player is going to want to sign with the NHL first even if it means playing in the AHL instead of the Rival League.


The real reason I don't think it could ever happen is arena availability. You'd need to have the AHL owners who control arenas be ringleaders. Like Cleveland, Charlotte, San Antonio, Orlando, Portland, San Antonio, Milwaukee, and Kansas City. But some markets would just be off the table because where would they play? You have AHL teams owned by NHL teams in San Diego, Riverside, Toronto. You have non-hockey arenas in some NBA markets.



And on the PRO/REL thing, the only way to pull off PRO/REL ever would be "Expand via promotion to a much, much, much larger size" first. For example, the 12-team WNBA has a boatload of investors interested in expansion teams. So sell 20 "WNBA-2" expansion teams and start that league. Then promote to the WNBA while expanding the WNBA-2. And then start relegating one per conference each year when both leagues are 36 teams.

 

[Smirnov2Chistov]

This sounds like the WHA all over again

 

[rsteen]

QC and Hamilton are likely not options either if MLSE elects to go there w/ the Marlies and replaces them w/ an ECHL team after the termination of Newfoundland

Why would the Leafs move the Marlies further away from them? Teams want the AHL team close so they can call guys up, they don't care where the ECHL team is.

 

[jkrdevil]

Where is the “with so little in return”? The last expansion team (prior Utah technically) paid about $650 million and two years later multiple teams have sold for $1 billion. Seems the returns are quite nice.

Being in the NHL is a huge part of the value. A startup league wouldn’t have that. It financially more efficient to just pay the $1.2 to $1.5 billion for an NHL expansion team that have to probably put double or triple the money in to make a startup league work.

 

[GindyDraws]

Where are you getting people to participate in this league?

Hutch.

 

[alko]

Only if this league will pay their stars like 20 - 30 mil. per season.

 

[MeHateHe]

You wanna get nuts? Let's get nuts.

Expand to 40 teams but then have a relegation system.

So, add Quebec, Atlanta, Phoenix, Houston, Milwaukee, Portland, Hamilton, and Kansas City, and put them in a league with the 12 lowest-finishing teams the previous season.

Then you have two tiers: Premier Tier and Championship Tier.

Each tier plays 64-game regular seasons, and then you have an in-season NBA-style tournament with all 40 teams.

Each tier would have their own playoffs. I'm thinking 12 teams from each tier make the playoffs, then the four division leaders would get byes to the second round. The top tier plays for the Stanley Cup, the second tier would play for their own trophy.

Bottom four teams in the top tier get relegated. The four teams that make the semifinals in the second tier get promoted.

Leave the entry draft in place. For seeding purposes, the lower-tiered league teams will always be seeded #21-40 so a team in the lower tier would always get the first overall pick. I'd have to game out how the Gold Plan would impact this scenario. Leave the salary cap in place and allow trades between the two tiers.

The result is a shorter season but more meaningful hockey.

 

[GindyDraws]

So, why Milwaukee and not Indianapolis?

 

[No Fun Shogun]

Nobody in their right mind would pay a billion dollars for a team that could be relegated to a lower league, and a lower league by itself isn't going to remotely have the money behind it to meaningfully attract players and revenues needed to compete with the NHL.

 

[MeHateHe]

in their right mind

So NHL owners should be all over this.

But seriously, a team joining a two-tiered league has nearly as high a chance of playing for a Stanley Cup within a few years as a team joining a single 36-team league. And at least with a two-tiered league, you're giving your fans some excitement no matter where you are. The more you expand, the less likely it is your team is going to have any championship expectations. Being champions of the second tier and moving up to join the top tier is a literal consolation prize, but it's still a prize.

I wouldn't advocate this in a 24-team league. But if we're going to continue to see the league get bigger, you're going to need to give fans a reason to believe they're going to win something some day.

 

[VaCaps Fan]

Alex Meruelo…

 

[edog37]

Is there room for an independent North American league between the NHL and AHL? Basically, a KHL-level North American league? It wouldn't be trying to compete with the NHL, but fill in a gap. In terms of talent pool and available markets, there probably is room for that.

The real problem would be trying to get anyone to play there, I think. Like even if we were talking about a league where the max salaries were $5m. Why would a player worth the same in the NHL ever play there and not in the league they dreamed about as a kid?

Yeah, it was called the IHL. Didn’t work out too well.

 

[GindyDraws]

Yeah, it was called the IHL. Didn’t work out too well.

I should know. The Indianapolis Ice were one of the teams that jumped before they were pushed, along with Kalamazoo and Fort Wayne.

 

[CHRDANHUTCH]

Yeah, it was called the IHL. Didn’t work out too well.

that's why the AHL Added 6 teams in 2001 when that league fell to that #, to make it non competitive...