This is a common trap sports fans fall into. Attendance is important but it is not nearly as important as TV market. The best expansion markets are the TV markets not tapped by the NHL. TV pays the bills in major sports. Attendance is a sizable piece, but it's second.
Agree but it's important and makes a market worth having even if it's a smaller market like a Salt Lake City in the NBA(or San Antonio, Portland, Sacramento, OKC) or in the NHL(Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg , Nashville, Vegas etc)...
Salt Lake city is not that big of a TV market.
The NHL is after huge TV markets like Seattle/Houston and smaller markets with no competition or only NFL competition, not the smaller 1 team NBA markets of the world.
Denver is the smallest NBA/NHL market. They rank 17th tv wise last I checked. They also have 21 fortune 1000 companies.
The NHL isn't going to go to a market around 30th TV wise that has only 3 fortune 1000 companies and no prospects of an NHL arena and face competition from the Jazz. Utah works for basketball because of the outstanding attendance and no other competition. A smaller market is going to have a lesser local tv deal so you have less leeway as far as attendance.
Utah would be a good market a couple decades from now after more growth/an NHL compatible arena.
Look at the markets the NHL has added the last 25-30 years or wanted to add.
TV market size
2. Anaheim
5. Dallas
7. Houston- exceptionally rich too
8. San Jose
11. Tampa Bay
12. Phoenix
13. Seattle -very rich too
16. Miami- This don't count no.37 West Palm Beach
17. Colorado- decent sized market, very rich, very fast growth rate, this don't count Colorado Springs
Smaller markets
25. Raleigh- small but fasting growing and no other pro teams
27. Nashville- smaller market but only competition is the once a week NFL
34. Columbus- small but no other pro competition
39. Las Vegas- smaller market but only competition is soon to be the NFL
The NHL has avoided smaller over-saturated markets ala the NBA. The biggest market they have picked tv wise with either NBA or MLB competition is Denver at 17th. The only small(er) markets(below 17th) they picked similar to Salt Lake City size have no competition or only the once a week NFL.
The only markets outside the top 19 that have 2 or more of NHL/NBA/MLB are
21. St. Louis
24. Pittsburgh
36. Milwaukee-This don't count 69. Green Bay-Appleton or 81 Madison.
The Cardinals-Blues, Penguins-Pirates and Brewers-Bucks have been around a long time and were grandfathered in. They never had to pay a modern day expansion fee. Could St. Louis afford a Seattle expansion price for NHL, or Milwaukee NBA or Pittsburgh for MLB?