Are the European hockey teams as influenced by market size, etc, like NHL teams? Or does a city like Berlin have multiple teams and so they really don't have massive revenue discrepancies?
Is European hockey similar to soccer(football) where you can just start a club, and work up through the leagues, or is it more like the NHL where you need to buy an expansion team or an existing team?
Yes you can start a team and get promotoed like in soccer.
But I will give you an example under. In norways soccer league the teams are nicely spread out through the whole country lik in the NHL. In hockey almost all the teams are very strongly centralized around the capital Oslo.
The soccer teams in norway have an ok income, they can have full time proffesional players that earn more money than an average worker. Since the soccer teams are nicely spread out throughout the country like in the NHL it's easier for the teams to get sponsors as the local market will more easily sponsor the local team.
However in hockey in Norway where almost all the teams are gathered in a very small geographical area. The sponsor market and the fan market is very saturated because of that. It's to much competition for sponsors and fans in a small area. I will also say that the tv money in hockey are much less than in soccer, and one reason is that hockey isn't spread out through the whole country like soccer. A team like Stavanger oilers who are alone on the west coast and also have a good arena can raise a sponsor budget about 6 million $, others in the Oslo area about 1 million $ because of too much competions in the sponsor market and in the fan market.
The reason for this centralization in hockey is because other parts of the country dosen't have accesss to decent arenas. Without a decent arena it is impossible to start a financially sustainable club. That is a must have.
However I see only great potential for growth in norwegian hockey if we can build modern venues in other parts of the country as well, we will like in soccer in norway, or like the nhl get access to more tv money, more fans, and more local talent development if we do that. I also added the map of the swedish league where you can see that the team are nicely spread out through the whole country. So in Sweden they have local teams that get access to local sponsors, fans and tv wievers.
So having to many multiple teams in a small area without any spread is not a very good model because it will be to much competiton for fans, tv wievers and sponsors in a small area, the market will saturate. And you'll not have access to large parts of the potential tv market, fan market, sponsor market. People tend to follow their local team.
Soccer (temas nicely spread out throughout the country)
Hockey norway(extremely centralized)
Sweden SHL(Teams Nicely spread out)