ECHL Franchises
- Thread starter Atlantian
- Start date
royals119
Registered User
The ECHL generally doesn't allow "dormant" franchises to stick around anymore. If you have a current team and have to suspend operations temporarily, with a plan to resume, you can keep your franchise, but you have to pay league dues and update the BOG annually on your progress. This is a fairly recent change - in the past you could keep an inactive franchise for many years. Alaska was the last franchise to be sold for relocation after suspending operations, and they initially were considering options to resume play. In Elmira I don't believe there is any current ownership that would be paying league fees to keep the franchise. I'm pretty sure that franchise was folded/returned to the league/ceased to exist.
Cyclones Rock
Registered User
- Jun 12, 2008
- 10,590
- 6,501
I miss seeing Reno on the future market list. They were a fixture on that list for about a decade
Last edited:
210
Registered User
PCSPounder
Stadium Groupie
Logic would inform that, if someone wanted to send the league annual dues for 10 years on the hope of getting something done, the league would happily accept that. It's my understanding that this was happening in this case.
So (1) I doubt the league really changed policy, and (2) if you think Vegas is full of degenerate gamblers, check out Reno sometime.
royals119
Registered User
Believe or doubt whatever you like. A former team governor told me the league decided to be much less forgiving about teams taking a break from operations a few years ago. Used to be there was always a few inactive franchises hanging around, which was dragging down the value of the other teams. By reducing the "inventory" of available franchises, the active teams have a little more value, and the league can get an expansion fee instead of a former owner selling an inactive franchise at a discount. You can see that the league doesn't list Colorado, Elmira and Quad Cities as inactive teams on their website, which they used to do with inactive teams for many years.
I'm not saying there can't be any inactive teams - certainly the Icemen and Aces are recent examples. I'm just saying because a team stopped playing doesn't automatically mean there is an inactive franchise available to purchase. It is likely that franchise no longer exists.
