And you think that a Stanley Cup run is not profitable ?? And that he make as much money that if his team was a contender ?
Not in the NHL. Its not like the NFL. People have their team and most don't just go buy stuff because a TEAM won. It has to be their team. If you know its near impossible to win the cup then just make sure your gate driven sport packs the arena and they continue to drink your piss beer. Save some cap space each year and you don't even need ot make the playoffs if the rubes still attend.The whole point of sectioning off the NHL so everyone keep market share. Habs fans won't all of the sudden double the merch sales from a cup. And to repeat: gate driven sport.
So much of the team revenue is from arena sales, if it selles out they don't care. The proof is what they did last time they owned the team.
Otherwise we would spend everything we could to get better scouts, better development, better trainers etc. But we don't. They just want to see a steady income. Once you win a cup you usually have your team fall apart a few years later and need to rebuild, or at least retool. Its too much work. Just give enough hope and empty platitudes and feed them something that makes fans warm and fuzzy "anything can happen" "expect the unexpected"(at least its sort of in your language!!) instead of working hard to win something.
Its the middle manager peter principle. Too incompetent to promote further but got there because they were so bad at their previous jobs you had to find somewhere in the company for them to go. So put them in a place they can do the least damage and hope their blathering keeps the crew working.
