Aeroforce
Registered User
From the business side, things have never been better for the NHL
Vegas was a rich man's toy (Bill Foley) who agreed happily to pay 500 million out of his petty cash to get the secret handshake that owners have even though half of the teams in the NHL were worth less at the time. Now the NHL will get $650 million from Seattle and they sold 10.000 season tickets in 12 minutes on March 1. Sooner or later the Coyotes are headed for Houston unless the BOG really gets greedy and expands to 34 and Quebec finally gets their team back,
South Florida is also a fragile market and when you look at demographics it is not a good fit for hockey as 72% of the population is not inclined to follow hockey.
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Throw in the fact that the arena in Sunrise is not easy to get to for most of the people who do care and 1 mile west of the arena is a swamp called the Everglades.
What scares me going into the playoffs is the NHL really needs Toronto to win a round or two to keep Rogers Sportsnet happy. Winnipeg will be the other Canadian team in the playoffs but their TV market is the same size as Providence. Francophones have stopped watching hockey in big numbers with Montreal's bad season so the Maple Leafs are it.
Lord Bettman really is in most cases 'the smartest guy in the room'. As far as the owners are concerned he has only made one major mistake in 25 years and that was not vetting John Spano who wound up buying the Islanders when he had about $300 bucks in his checking account.
With the recent calls against the Bruins, I'm certainly on board with the idea that the league favors certain teams. However, should the B's fall to the Leafs, depending on how it plays out, the fix may not necessarily be in. In recent times the B's have struggled mightily against Toronto. I didn't even get too upset on the questionable goalie interference non-call the last time the teams met, for Toronto was clearly the better team and deserved to win.
My belief is the league wants Nashville to win the Cup this year. Not that they aren't a legit contender as is; but I think the league suits know there was some truth in that SNL skit and they'd love PK Subban to be the face of the league. I also believe the league loved the attention all the country music 'stars' brought during the Final last year. Judging by recent All-Star games and other events, the league desperately wants to have the pop culture relevance other sports have (my $.02 is Alan Jackson and Tim McGraw don't come anywhere close to achieving that). And with the ongoing debacles in Arizona and Florida, Bettman desperately wants one of his non-traditional markets to be a success story. Throw in the cap recapture should Shea Weber retire, and it's almost now or never.
I know Bettman is the 'Smartest guy in the room' to the owners, and that's all that matters. But I do question the long term ramifications of some of his moves, both on the ice and off.