NHL Season cancellation costs 400 million in ad revenue

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Greschner4

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Jan 21, 2005
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Icey said:
Tell me again how the owners are losing nothing in this lockout? Tell me again how the owners can afford to sit out indefinetly?

The owners need corporate sponsorship more than they need the casual fan who won't pay $30 for a ticket.

They could fill the arena everynight with the casual fan, but if they lose the corporate sponsorship, they will be forced to close their doors and that is reality.

They're losing REVENUES, not profits. They can be profitable with lower revenues if the salaries go down by more.
 

Strangelove

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gc2005 said:
The owners voluntarily doing this to themselves is just as stupid as the players' stance to allow this season to go down the toilet.

You base your conclusion on assumptions.

Yes, no doubt revenues will take a hit at first.

But also, no doubt they will grow again.




Besides, for all we know, the owners will yet attain 'linkage'....




All I know is that the players will never re-coup the $1.2bil they lost, while the owners might re-coup the $400mil they lost.


Long-term?

I would always bet on the billionaire in any financial struggle.

But a conglomeration of billionaires?

Fuggetaboutit.....
 

CarlRacki

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Greschner4 said:
But at the same time he put teams in ridiculous markets and didn't adapt to the stifling (and previously illegal) defense that turned a formerly fast-paced and exciting game played in front of passionate fans in charming arenas into a boring game played in too big cookie-cutter arenas in front of people who didn't know a puck from a ****.

All of which eroded practically all of the league's TV value you cite.

Once again, Bettman is not responsible for five of the nine expansion clubs of the 1990s. Anaheim, San Jose, Ottawa, Tampa and Florida were either playing or admitted to the league when he became commissioner.

Cookie-cutter arenas? Didn't know it was within Bettman's authority to stop cities and/or franchises from building arenas. He's obviously much more powerful than I ever realized.

As for the pace of the game, he certainly deserves a share of the blame for that, but so do the GMs who've allowed it (it is they who ultimately votes on rules changes) and the coaches who teach it.
 

Greschner4

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CarlRacki said:
Once again, Bettman is not responsible for five of the nine expansion clubs of the 1990s. Anaheim, San Jose, Ottawa, Tampa and Florida were either playing or admitted to the league when he became commissioner.

Cookie-cutter arenas? Didn't know it was within Bettman's authority to stop cities and/or franchises from building arenas. He's obviously much more powerful than I ever realized.

As for the pace of the game, he certainly deserves a share of the blame for that, but so do the GMs who've allowed it (it is they who ultimately votes on rules changes) and the coaches who teach it.

Fair enough. Quite frankly, other than Anaheim, I'm not as quick as others here or in the media to want to give up on the five pre-Bettman markets.

But Bettman should have stopped there. But what did he do? He beat the drums for teams to move out of Quebec, Winnipeg, and Hartford and into Denver (which should have had a team all along), Raleigh (!!!!), and Phoenix (!!!!). Unforgiveable.

Then he expanded EVEN MORE. Minnesota worked, but they never should have been without a team except Bettman allowed the North Stars to move to Dallas -- still a question mark market to me. Columbus I suppose you can defend; college hockey plays there and the Jackets seem to be doing pretty well. Nashville and Atlanta are abject disasters.

Put it all together and I can't see how Bettman's record on franchise location and league size can remotely be defended. And those bungles led in great measure to the low-scoring and boring games between boring teams that has killed the TV value that you rightfully credit Bettman with building.
 

CGG

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ToeBlake said:
You base your conclusion on assumptions.

Yes, no doubt revenues will take a hit at first.

But also, no doubt they will grow again.

Even if revenues do recover, and I seriously doubt they ever will in some markets, it might take 5 or 10 years. And at that point, owners will still be 5 or 10 years behind where they should be in terms of revenue. So no, they will never recover the money they pissed away either.

Without a shutdown, the league could have built on $2.1 billion starting now. Because it's been cancelled it'll take years to even get back to that $2.1 billion, by which time they might have been at $3 billion if not for destroying the season.
 

Shadder

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Greschner4 said:
Nashville and Atlanta are abject disasters.

Ok, I'm curious. Care to explain how Atlanta is an "abject disaster"? Because from where I sit I sure do not see it that way at all.
 

Strangelove

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gc2005 said:
Even if revenues do recover, and I seriously doubt they ever will in some markets, it might take 5 or 10 years. And at that point, owners will still be 5 or 10 years behind where they should be in terms of revenue. So no, they will never recover the money they pissed away either.

Without a shutdown, the league could have built on $2.1 billion starting now. Because it's been cancelled it'll take years to even get back to that $2.1 billion, by which time they might have been at $3 billion if not for destroying the season.


More assumptions....
 

Strangelove

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gerbilanium said:
The players lose $300 million dollars of that (75%) and the owners $100 million.

The players lost 700 players times ~$1.8mil each.

If the season was played under the old CBA.....
 

Greschner4

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gc2005 said:
Even if revenues do recover, and I seriously doubt they ever will in some markets, it might take 5 or 10 years. And at that point, owners will still be 5 or 10 years behind where they should be in terms of revenue. So no, they will never recover the money they pissed away either.

Without a shutdown, the league could have built on $2.1 billion starting now. Because it's been cancelled it'll take years to even get back to that $2.1 billion, by which time they might have been at $3 billion if not for destroying the season.

Would you rather have revenues of $3 billion and expenses of $3.5 billion .. or revenues of $1.5 billion and expenses of $1 billion?

What is so hard to understand about this? The owners don't care if their revenues go down if their expenses go down even more.
 

CGG

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ToeBlake said:
More assumptions....

Of course they're assumptions, my crystal ball is broken. Are you saying that everything will be rosy for all 30 teams? We have to make certain assumptions, and the widespread one shared by everyone is that revenues will go down. How much, nobody knows for sure, but I submit that they will decrease more than they would have if there was a season this year.

Any way you slice it, the league as a whole is setting themselves back a few, if not more, years in terms of revenue, with the lack of an actual TV deal, the possibility that ESPN bails, probable decrease in ticket revenue, and loss of sponsorships. Instead of trying to increase a $2.1 billion enterprise, they will now spend years trying to get back to a $2.1 billion enterprise. Some teams won't notice. Other teams might die in the process. Why is this good for the NHL?
 

Greschner4

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Shadder said:
Ok, I'm curious. Care to explain how Atlanta is an "abject disaster"? Because from where I sit I sure do not see it that way at all.

Atlanta's a mediocre sports town to begin with and they've already had and lost hockey. In the first go-round their ownership saw -- correctly -- that it's wiser to operate a hockey franchise in Calgary than in Atlanta.

Atlanta had three pro sports teams before the Thrash that they didn't support very well. Including another winter sport that they support horribly.

The Thrash revenues and attendance are near the bottom of the league.

And, as an aside, their uniforms are brutal. Like all the newer teams they have the cookie-cutter abstract logo with about ten different things going on in the uniform -- the huge font, the huge stripe over the shoulders, etc.
 

Strangelove

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gc2005 said:
Of course they're assumptions, my crystal ball is broken.

Hmmmm.... you made it sound like fact:

gc2005 said:
So no, (the owners) will never recover the money they pissed away either.

gc2005 said:
We have to make certain assumptions, and the widespread one shared by everyone is that revenues will go down. How much, nobody knows for sure, but I submit that they will decrease more than they would have if there was a season this year.

I doubt "everyone" is making the drastic assumptions that *you* are.

As for myself, I simply stated that the players have lost money that they will never get back.

The owners might come out ahead in the long run. That's my assumption, but I don't state it as fact.

gc2005 said:
Any way you slice it, the league as a whole is setting themselves back a few, if not more, years in terms of revenue, with the lack of an actual TV deal, the possibility that ESPN bails, probable decrease in ticket revenue, and loss of sponsorships. Instead of trying to increase a $2.1 billion enterprise, they will now spend years trying to get back to a $2.1 billion enterprise. Some teams won't notice. Other teams might die in the process. Why is this good for the NHL?

Why might it be good for the owners ?


Here:


Greschner4 said:
Would you rather have revenues of $3 billion and expenses of $3.5 billion .. or revenues of $1.5 billion and expenses of $1 billion?

What is so hard to understand about this? The owners don't care if their revenues go down if their expenses go down even more.
 

ColoradoHockeyFan

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Chuck Shick said:
The NLRB won't , I repeat won't, even touch it.
For those of us not familiar with the impasse process, what is the consequence of this? If the NLRB won't touch it, does that mean the league can simply declare impasse and go on about their business? Or does it mean that the league cannot declare impasse? In other words, where is the burden before the NLRB... is it on the league to get the NLRB to "grant" an impasse, or is it on the PA to get the NLRB to "revoke" (for lack of a better term) impasse?
 

mackdogs*

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gc2005 said:
Even if revenues do recover, and I seriously doubt they ever will in some markets, it might take 5 or 10 years. And at that point, owners will still be 5 or 10 years behind where they should be in terms of revenue. So no, they will never recover the money they pissed away either.
Good thing owners are independently wealthy and don't rely on hockey in the slightest to make a living. Kinda makes your point moot tho, oh well.
 

Luigi Lemieux

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go kim johnsson said:
How did he do with seasons WITH hockey?



This is money the owners will never see again. People can say what they want, with a season, the NHL would not have lost $400M. Anyone who thinks they would, please save your time.
the NHL did not lose 400 million dollars.
 

Digger12

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ColoradoHockeyFan said:
For those of us not familiar with the impasse process, what is the consequence of this? If the NLRB won't touch it, does that mean the league can simply declare impasse and go on about their business? Or does it mean that the league cannot declare impasse? In other words, where is the burden before the NLRB... is it on the league to get the NLRB to "grant" an impasse, or is it on the PA to get the NLRB to "revoke" (for lack of a better term) impasse?

In previous interviews on the Fan 590, it was indicated (to Bob McCowan's surprise I might add) that the NHL are well within their rights to declare an impasse with zero involvement from the NLRB, I believe they could do so tomorrow if they wanted.

It's then on the NHLPA to lodge a complaint with the NLRB, and then the 'fun' begins. At that point, who knows where this goes or how long it takes to resolve. You'd have to think that IF the NHL went this route, they would have their lawyers investigate every avenue to make sure they have a winnable case.
 

CGG

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Greschner4 said:
Would you rather have revenues of $3 billion and expenses of $3.5 billion .. or revenues of $1.5 billion and expenses of $1 billion?

What is so hard to understand about this? The owners don't care if their revenues go down if their expenses go down even more.

I'd far rather have $3 billion in revenues and a brain in my head to prevent me from spending $3.5 billion.

There's a flaw in your reasoning. The sacred Levitt report states non-player costs at $775 million for 2003. Add to that the $2.5 million per team in insurance and benefits that Levitt conveniently put under player costs, and we're up to $850 million. Those costs are fixed, and aren't likely to go down. So, good move for the owners to risk losing a good chunk of their revenues.

For your favored scenario, you have to get 750 players under contract for a total of $150 million, or 10% of revenues. Good luck with that. Even if players play for free, that's a max potential profit of $650 million. The sky's the limit if you choose to increase revenues instead of flushing the season away.
 

GKJ

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CarlRacki said:
He got the NHL its first ever national broadcast contract in the U.S. and the two largest TV contracts in league history, bringing in more than $755 million to owners since 1995. In fact, the 1999 deal with ABC represented a 386 percent increase over the previous deal's value. How many leagues have seen comparable growth?
Those darn facts.


And the one he just got from NBC is by far the worst of them all.


He should fix the game on the ice before he wants deals like those again.
 

kdb209

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Digger12 said:
In previous interviews on the Fan 590, it was indicated (to Bob McCowan's surprise I might add) that the NHL are well within their rights to declare an impasse with zero involvement from the NLRB, I believe they could do so tomorrow if they wanted.

It's then on the NHLPA to lodge a complaint with the NLRB, and then the 'fun' begins. At that point, who knows where this goes or how long it takes to resolve. You'd have to think that IF the NHL went this route, they would have their lawyers investigate every avenue to make sure they have a winnable case.

I think that the owners are doing other things to stack the deck in any NRLB proceeding. A lot of people here have been focussing on the question of whether there has been movement on both sides and whether the league has been negotiating in good faith, but what about the PA - heve they?

I think Melnyk's offer to open the books on the Sens and the Corel center play into this. Goodenow's refusal as well as his refusal to examine any of the financials offered by the league could very well be argued as the PA refusing to negotiate in good faith, which would be a strong argument for the NLRB to uphold an impasse.
 

nyr7andcounting

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CarlRacki said:
The economy grew 386 percent between 1994 and 1999? :shakehead

Are you so anti-Bettman that you can't face facts and give a little credit for what he's done right? The fact, whether you like it or not, is that Bettman helped put $755 million dollars into the league by landing the NHL its first national television contracts in the U.S. this benefited players most of all because it allowed for their skyrocketing salaries. Spin it all you want, but a fact is a fact.

Do I think Bettman's done a good job? Not really. But he hasn't done as poorly as some around here want to claim. He gets all the blame for expansion, but the fact is that five of the nine teams added in the 1990s were admitted to the league before he became commissioner. Two of the Bettman expansions were no-brainers. Minnesota is obviously a hockey town and Atlanta is a top 10 market (and the only one the NHL was not in previously). Columbus may be questionable, but has done very well in building a fan base. Nashville is the only real question mark.

Where Bettman's failed, IMO, is in labor relations (duh) and in marketing the game. In these areas he deserves an F. But in terms of growing the sport and its revenues, he's done a fine job.

Did I say the economy grew 386% in the 90's? No. But there's no doubt that the economy did grow and there was more money avalible to be invested in pro sports. Hockey is one of the 4 major sports and by the time Bettman became commissioner it was pretty obvious they were going to be on national television, it was just a matter of when and where. To me, any other commish could have gotten the same result as far as TV goes, so I don't credit Bettman for doing an awsome job with it.

But I'll ask again, where is the NHL's deal today? Whatever Bettman did in the 90's, where is the TV deal now? Is it not pretty much back to where it was when Bettman started? And now they're at risk of losing ESPN as well. You can't give Bettman that much credit for growth when most of that growth has regressed over time.

And I understand that 5 of the teams were in before Bettman started, but since he became commissioner I would say 2 of his 4 expansion teams are in shaky markets for an NHL team. 50% is not a very good success rate when you are talking about a multi-billion dollar industry and franchises that cost millions of dollars. If you are going to expand, you need to do it right all the time otherwise it isn't worth it. On top of that, Bettman brought teams from hockey markets to Carolina and Phoenix.
 

ColoradoHockeyFan

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Digger12 said:
In previous interviews on the Fan 590, it was indicated (to Bob McCowan's surprise I might add) that the NHL are well within their rights to declare an impasse with zero involvement from the NLRB, I believe they could do so tomorrow if they wanted.

It's then on the NHLPA to lodge a complaint with the NLRB, and then the 'fun' begins. At that point, who knows where this goes or how long it takes to resolve. You'd have to think that IF the NHL went this route, they would have their lawyers investigate every avenue to make sure they have a winnable case.
Ok, so if the previous poster is correct in his assertion that the NLRB will never even touch it, that would imply that the PA could basically do nothing about it, and the league could declare impasse unhindered.

A followup question. If the NLRB did decide to hear the PA's complaint, and there is a lengthy resolution period, would the league be allowed to continue to operate during that period?
 

Digger12

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ColoradoHockeyFan said:
A followup question. If the NLRB did decide to hear the PA's complaint, and there is a lengthy resolution period, would the league be allowed to continue to operate during that period?

I can't say for sure, but I've read at least one article that indicated that it's entirely possible that the NHL could play an entire 82 game season before the NLRB even renders a decision. I doubt they'd wait that long in this particular case, but who knows? It's not exactly a simple case, I can't imagine it being a quick and clean investigation into the last 5 months and change of collective bargaining.
 

nyr7andcounting

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Feb 24, 2004
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ColoradoHockeyFan said:
Ok, so if the previous poster is correct in his assertion that the NLRB will never even touch it, that would imply that the PA could basically do nothing about it, and the league could declare impasse unhindered.

A followup question. If the NLRB did decide to hear the PA's complaint, and there is a lengthy resolution period, would the league be allowed to continue to operate during that period?

I think that poster ment the NLRB wouldn't touch it in the sense that they wouldn't allow an impasse. It is not up to the NLRB to decide which problems to deal with and which not to. If the PA brings it to them, which they would do if the league declared an impasse, the NLRB would have to make a decision to uphold it or not.

And to your question, yes. The point of the impasse itself is so that the league can operate. However impasse is a temporary solution to CBA negotiations. It is there so that the company can still operate if they have come to a stalemate with the union and the two sides have to go to court. So the second the NHL declares an impasse they are operational and play with replacement players, hold the draft etc. But that would only continue until either the union folds or the NLRB makes their decision.
 

Greschner4

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Jan 21, 2005
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gc2005 said:
Of course they're assumptions, my crystal ball is broken. Are you saying that everything will be rosy for all 30 teams? We have to make certain assumptions, and the widespread one shared by everyone is that revenues will go down. How much, nobody knows for sure, but I submit that they will decrease more than they would have if there was a season this year.

Any way you slice it, the league as a whole is setting themselves back a few, if not more, years in terms of revenue, with the lack of an actual TV deal, the possibility that ESPN bails, probable decrease in ticket revenue, and loss of sponsorships. Instead of trying to increase a $2.1 billion enterprise, they will now spend years trying to get back to a $2.1 billion enterprise. Some teams won't notice. Other teams might die in the process. Why is this good for the NHL?

Because you'll sell more tickets in a lot of cities if a ticket plan isn't chock full of lame franchises.

Because the money making teams and the teams that can sell on TV won't have to share their money with the teams that don't make money and don't sell on TV>
 
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