In 2019 there are now a record of
607 billionaires in the U.S. That includes 14 of the world's 20 richest.
Canada is home to 41
billionaires. According to CEOWORLD Magazine's
Canada Rich List Index for 2019, this year's total wealth of the top 10
richest Canadian hit a new record high of $96.4 billion USD.
It is a finite number, and of the roughly 650 billionaires exactly how many are motivated hockey fans? Well facts are not that many. In recent years a number of clubs have looked for new ownership Arizona being the most public example. Look at that team as the poster boy of organization progression established in 1972 in Winnipeg the franchise was rife with finical issues resulting it the team moving to Phoenix is 1996 it has had 8 owners or ownership groups and from 2009 to 2013 was owned by the league until another owner was found. In 2009 even the Great one gave up on the franchise.
Now consider the Habs who have had 12 owners or groups with only one over 20 years and that was Molson Brewing all of this despite winning the Cup 24 times thru the history of the league.
Now there are a few people willing to stick with ownership but that number is small, the pain threshold for owners losing money is real. And a case can be made that the league has more teams than potential owners. That is not to say there are not enough fans to support the current number of teams or more but that does not pay the bills. The league is filled with team relocations for economic reasons, cities failing some mutiple times to support a team.
Currently the bottom line is the government especially in the US is propping up the economy thru deficit spending. This is the reason the stock market has held up. Normally the market flexes on profits by individual stocks. The current reality even with Trillions of dollars spent there are millions of jobs that have just gone up in smoke and when the deficit spending ceases it will become apparent. There are segments of the economy that have all but been eliminated hospitality, travel being the biggest two.
Two-Thirds of Restaurant Employees Have Lost Their Jobs Due to COVID-19 | Food & Wine
(foodandwine.com)
50 Million Travel Industry Jobs May Be Lost, 50 Percent Of Travel Cut — Due To Coronavirus
(forbes.com)
These jobs are not coming back soon it is projected it will take up to 20 years. Now why is this important well this trickles thru the economy and while most of these people are receiving unemployment or have changed direction in there line of work these impact other areas of the economy. How many new planes is Boeing building now? How about the suppliers of material for the aircraft and auto industry?
How does this impact hockey? well there are only so many corporations willing to lay out the dollars that the owners depend on to keep there head above water. Corporate sponsorship is the difference in teams showing a profit. Contrary to popular belief no team can survive on Ticket sales and TV Revenue, it takes all three.
Now if your skeptical then just ask season ticket holders about the price increases that have been put out for next season. The Market i know most about is Nashville the season ticket prices published for this year have increased from 18 to 25%. And the number of renewals has tanked due to price and economic uncertainty.
We are fans and want the games to go on, but economically it is getting hard to see how they can. Teams can not lose from 15 to 60 million dollars for a 20-21 season. The 3 to 5 teams indicating possible bankruptcy is a drop in the bucket currently there are 18 members of the BOG in favor of canceling the season that came from Bettman on 12-5 and he is trying to sway them. If the vaccine is not available to 160 million until June or July as is being reported there is probably not going to be any hockey until Oct.