Why do we *NEED* to have home/away inter-conference in the schedule? People keep claiming ticket holders want to see McDavid or something but there was a very interesting thread about this last year here where KevFu did a lot of research on attendance and resale prices and it turns out the numbers are noticeably worse for inter-conference compared to divisional rival games.
Kinda. Glad I won you as a convert.
The math of KevFu is not as true as it looks initially, because the reality is that certain teams are NOT road draws no matter where they play, and there is insufficient data to really prove his supposition.
Nevertheless, if the league were to go to a 1 game versus opposite conference schedule, I maintain that the East and West STILL have different needs, and that the schedule you proposed is perfect for the West: 6-3-1.
Nah. Over the seven years I’ve checked on it, the math holds up. Just because a handful of teams in any given year are outliers to the trend by a few dozen fans (when there’s a variety of circumstances not included, like day of the week, promo nights, team success, etc) doesn’t mean that the overall principle isn’t totally true.
For example, compare the standings to SPENDING over a seven year stretch. 20+ of 31 teams are going to be where you’d expect. But some young, cheap teams will be out of the basement unexpectedly and some older expensive teams will be at the bottom as they’ve peaked and are regressing. It won’t be the SAME teams in those categories each year, but about the same number. Everyone still believes you’re more likely to win if you’re spending to the cap on talent; even though there’s a few outliers. Obviously, spending SMART helps you win and spending DUMB just wastes money; and drafting SMART and being good BEFORE you have to pay all your guys what they’re worth is the goal of everyone who rebuilds.
It’s the same thing with the H/A being bad for business. The outliers don’t negate the principle in the least.
You’re right that CERTAIN teams don’t draw well no matter who they play. Certain teams also draw well at home no matter whom they’re playing; and certain teams draw great on the road wherever they go.
The problem is that when you compare the “Draw Great” group and the “Draw Poorly” group, there’s simply more “poorly” than “Great” (aka, more teams DON’T have McDavid/Crosby/Ovechkin than HAVE McDavid/Crosby/Oveckin). By a sizable margin.
The ideal schedule would get the road teams that don’t draw well playing a lot of their road games at cities that draw well no matter who comes to town, or make as many of these matches MEAN MORE in the standings (aka conference or division games. (FLA/TB in the Adams division is the prime example of this).
Besides the point the NHL will never go away from having 32 games vs the other conference at all period. That is too much divisional games. It will get boring. Fans want to see the all the super stars from all teams during home games
Plus season schedule has nothing to do with the topic of playoffs.
That would be true if we were going to like “EIGHT games vs your division (54), ONE vs everyone else (24)”
But playing SIX vs division is only going to make fans say “Geez, THEM again?” if it’s one of three lackluster division opponents and not one of the four marquee division opponents.
If FLA, TB, OTT, BUF, NYI, NJD, CBJ, CAR don’t draw well on the road, and DAL, ARZ, NASH, STL, MIN, ANA, LA, CAL, VAN don’t draw well on the road, you’re better off playing the DIVISION non-draws more and the non-conference non-draws LESS, because the opponents are lackluster, but the GAME means more in the standings.