PWHPA, Billie Jean King & The Mark Walter Group working to create a new women's pro hockey league.

[PlayersLtd]

My point is it's worth trying for a few years.

But could you say that so freely if it was your money?

Salaries are about $1M
A jr arena costs about $50k to rent per event and that doesn't always include concessions.
Add team personnel, travel, insurance, marketing etc.. and you are looking at about $ 2.5-$3.0M in operating costs. That's a lot to recover through 12 home games of gate revenue and merch. They won't get a TV contract because playing in winter sees them compete against the NHL, NBA, NFL and NCAA which means their sponsorships will be limited.

This is a serious uphill battle.

 

[K1984]

But could you say that so freely if it was your money?

Salaries are about $1M
A jr arena costs about $50k to rent per event and that doesn't always include concessions.
Add team personnel, travel, insurance, marketing etc.. and you are looking at about $ 2.5-$3.0M in operating costs. That's a lot to recover through 12 home games of gate revenue and merch. They won't get a TV contract because playing in winter sees them compete against the NHL, NBA, NFL and NCAA which means their sponsorships will be limited.

This is a serious uphill battle.

Their issue in the end is the value proposition is purely gender based. They have a limited market to sell to when the comparable products are simply better.

For the same dollar you can see Junior hockey (CHL, NCAA in the USA, USHL, Provincial Junior B, etc) or minor pro hockey that is a higher quality product. Or even go see local AAA Bantam and Midget teams, which are also at minimum equal, but usually higher quality hockey as well.

I've yet to hear a coherent plan for how this could possibly work. It's usually built upon the assumption of "if you build it they will come," but I just don't see it when the competing alternatives are worlds better.

 

[KevFu]

Yes it is.

There's remnants of it -- player salaries, that's it -- but they split off from an investor model to individual ownership model a long time ago.

 

[Tom ServoMST3K]

But could you say that so freely if it was your money?

What a baffling question to ask to an underpaid guy on an internet forum.

Obviously they have the money, and rich people willing to invest in the league, considering the league exists, and is signing players and coaches.

 

[KevFu]

But could you say that so freely if it was your money?

Salaries are about $1M
A jr arena costs about $50k to rent per event and that doesn't always include concessions.
Add team personnel, travel, insurance, marketing etc.. and you are looking at about $ 2.5-$3.0M in operating costs. That's a lot to recover through 12 home games of gate revenue and merch. They won't get a TV contract because playing in winter sees them compete against the NHL, NBA, NFL and NCAA which means their sponsorships will be limited.

This is a serious uphill battle.

A lot of this to me is an argument IN FAVOR of the NHL doing it and doing it right.

A WNHL with teams run by half or less of the NHL organizations drastically reduces operation expenses. The teams HAVE practice arenas, most with seats. The teams HAVE equipment guys, athletic trainers; media guys, PR guys, and skate sharpers and palates of hockey and ankle tape.

EVERY support staff thinks they're understaffed. Hire an entry level person to each department staff; and give everyone else a modest raise (the #2 gets a title bump to the "head" for the women's team). That's cheaper and easier for an NHL organization to do than for an independent organization to find a good experienced person to be understaffed doing a department's job alone.

You wonder why an independent league run out Dani Rylan's garage isn't at the same level as the WNBA? That's why.

This kind of thing works REALLY WELL in college athletics departments and in European soccer.

 

[Voight]

There's remnants of it -- player salaries, that's it -- but they split off from an investor model to individual ownership model a long time ago.

No they didn't. "Owners" are still called team operators for a reason.

Each team’s ownership group is actually an investor-operator of a franchise in a specific location, and is also a shareholder of the league itself, which centrally controls all player contracts in the league

 

[Tom ServoMST3K]

Player's Association executives announced.

 

[KevFu]

No they didn't. "Owners" are still called team operators for a reason.

So all the talk of doing it, and they never actually did it?

 

[Voight]

So all the talk of doing it, and they never actually did it?

Nope, even tho at this point MLS would be fine if they went the typical NA route of sports ownership. It made sense 20 years ago when teams were folding/running into money problems left right and centre but given they're now accepting expansion fees worth half a billion dollars, they'll survive just fine.

 

[PlayersLtd]

A lot of this to me is an argument IN FAVOR of the NHL doing it and doing it right.

A WNHL with teams run by half or less of the NHL organizations drastically reduces operation expenses. The teams HAVE practice arenas, most with seats. The teams HAVE equipment guys, athletic trainers; media guys, PR guys, and skate sharpers and palates of hockey and ankle tape.

EVERY support staff thinks they're understaffed. Hire an entry level person to each department staff; and give everyone else a modest raise (the #2 gets a title bump to the "head" for the women's team). That's cheaper and easier for an NHL organization to do than for an independent organization to find a good experienced person to be understaffed doing a department's job alone.

You wonder why an independent league run out Dani Rylan's garage isn't at the same level as the WNBA? That's why.

This kind of thing works REALLY WELL in college athletics departments and in European soccer.

Precisely. Without NHL support the odds are so very long. And it is very suspicious to me that the NHL isn't on board at this point...

I suspect that the PWHPA's antics, which flew in the face of the Pegula commitment to the Buffalo Beauts, didn't sit well and is still fresh in the minds of the NHL BOG. The chance to build a league with NHL support was when they had an NHL owner actively ready to commit resources to it and one league left standing (NWHL).

What happened? A small group of the best female hockey players in the world went on 'strike' and dragged half of the female hockey world with them and the Pegulas support evaporated over night.

It wasn't a very smart move, one could say it was selfish.

 

[PlayersLtd]

What a baffling question to ask to an underpaid guy on an internet forum.

Obviously they have the money, and rich people willing to invest in the league, considering the league exists, and is signing players and coaches.

Yes, but what isn't obvious is how much money they are willing to lose. Your original point of it being something 'worth trying' ignores that even the wealthiest of people have a threshold for how much they're willing to throw away or how challenging it is to work within a group environment when money is hemorrhaging.

 

[oknazevad]

Nope, even tho at this point MLS would be fine if they went the typical NA route of sports ownership. It made sense 20 years ago when teams were folding/running into money problems left right and centre but given they're now accepting expansion fees worth half a billion dollars, they'll survive just fine.

Thing is the differences between the typical NA sports ownership and MLS's hybrid structure (described as such by the courts, even) isn't really that different. See my post (#18) earlier in the thread.

 

[K1984]

Precisely. Without NHL support the odds are so very long. And it is very suspicious to me that the NHL isn't on board at this point...

I suspect that the PWHPA's antics, which flew in the face of the Pegula commitment to the Buffalo Beauts, didn't sit well and is still fresh in the minds of the NHL BOG. The chance to build a league with NHL support was when they had an NHL owner actively ready to commit resources to it and one league left standing (NWHL).

What happened? A small group of the best female hockey players in the world went on 'strike' and dragged half of the female hockey world with them and the Pegulas support evaporated over night.

It wasn't a very smart move, one could say it was selfish.

The demands for "living wages" to play in a league that produced limited revenue (and that's putting it kindly) are purely emotional/ideologically based and not at all grounded in reality. As you mentioned, completely counter productive to the goal. Nobody wakes up making good money in any start up enterprise.

I feel like there could be interested investors if there was a more collaborative, ground up approach that had buy in from players understanding that as long as there is no money to support living wages playing hockey full time that it can't just magically happen. To be constantly under the threat of walkout when the league isn't at all stable isn't attractive to any investor.

 

[PlayersLtd]

The demands for "living wages" to play in a league that produced limited revenue (and that's putting it kindly) are purely emotional/ideologically based and not at all grounded in reality. As you mentioned, completely counter productive to the goal. Nobody wakes up making good money in any start up enterprise.

I feel like there could be interested investors if there was a more collaborative, ground up approach that had buy in from players understanding that as long as there is no money to support living wages playing hockey full time that it can't just magically happen. To be constantly under the threat of walkout when the league isn't at all stable isn't attractive to any investor.

Excatly. And this is why I'm a little rattled with this iteration of women's professional hockey. The NWHL was doing it from the ground up (so to speak) and got the support of an NHL owner, a massive stepping stone and in turn access to the NHL b.o.g.

This was literally the watershed moment that women's hockey was waiting for and it was exactly then that the PWHPA formed as a rival faction and decided it was time for living wages and other things to 'magically happen' and they waged war on the NWHL. From the point of view of women's professional hockey in general it was the ultimate bite your nose off to spite your face move.

And for anyone who might claim that their hard work has paid off in the form of the new PWHL-no, no it hasn't. Bettman and the b.o.g have notoriously long memories and by offending the Pegula's and the traction the NWHL had I'm willing to bet they don't want to be involved with this iteration of women's hockey. And we all know that without the NHL (or NHL owners) professional women's hockey isn't going to work to the standard that the PWHPA and the Dream Tour called for.

Hence why I think the PWHL is in fact a step backward from where women's hockey was 4 years ago.

 

[Ernie]

It's funny to see a bunch of dudes here talk about how much of a failure the WNBA is and yet the Seattle Storm are worth $151m.

Last year the league raised $75m at a $1bn valuation.

Perhaps let's just wait and see how things shake out.

 

[joelef]

The demands for "living wages" to play in a league that produced limited revenue (and that's putting it kindly) are purely emotional/ideologically based and not at all grounded in reality. As you mentioned, completely counter productive to the goal. Nobody wakes up making good money in any start up enterprise.

I feel like there could be interested investors if there was a more collaborative, ground up approach that had buy in from players understanding that as long as there is no money to support living wages playing hockey full time that it can't just magically happen. To be constantly under the threat of walkout when the league isn't at all stable isn't attractive to any investor.

This is my problem with western feminism they want only equality with the top 1 % . I mean do they really want to be equal to th nll? Men sports have to follow the rules of economics women think they should be immune . That’s not equality

 

[KevFu]

It's funny to see a bunch of dudes here talk about how much of a failure the WNBA is and yet the Seattle Storm are worth $151m.

Last year the league raised $75m at a $1bn valuation.

Perhaps let's just wait and see how things shake out.

I think it's because so many people have this weird mindset about self-sufficiency and can't reconcile the fact short term losing a little bit of money to grow and gain popularity is totally expected and fine. Like, Netflix does it, no one cares. The WNBA does it, and it "only exists because it's subsidized."

The dude who bought a women's soccer expansion team for Los Angeles did so because he saw that Megan Rapinoe's net worth as a spokesperson was larger than the franchise value of HER TEAM, and thought "There's a lot of money not being earned due to lack of investment."

Since streamers are looking for live content, and women's sports are far cheaper than men's sports in terms of media rights, women's sports are absolutely ripe for investment and growth.

Just like MLS was: The main draw of MLS investors was that you had a MAJOR LEAGUE in terms of status within the sport, but the EXPENSES (payroll) were like Minor League levels.

The people on this site want to compare TV contracts and revenue in terms of success, but it's the ROI that matters to those making decisions. THEY view it as "George Steinbrenner bought the Yankees for $8.8 million in 1973... what's soccer or women's sports going to be like as a business in 2073?"

 

[KevFu]

Precisely. Without NHL support the odds are so very long. And it is very suspicious to me that the NHL isn't on board at this point...

I suspect that the PWHPA's antics, which flew in the face of the Pegula commitment to the Buffalo Beauts, didn't sit well and is still fresh in the minds of the NHL BOG. The chance to build a league with NHL support was when they had an NHL owner actively ready to commit resources to it and one league left standing (NWHL).

What happened? A small group of the best female hockey players in the world went on 'strike' and dragged half of the female hockey world with them and the Pegulas support evaporated over night.

It wasn't a very smart move, one could say it was selfish.

It all makes sense from the context of "The NHL knows there needs to be a league, but isn't going to COMPETE in that market place." Which is what they said publicly. If there wasn't a league, they'd start one. If there is a league, they're going to let them sink or swim and not be seen as trying to take it over.

The players strike was designed to kill the independent attempt, and force the NHL to start the WNHL.

The players knew the best chance of a GOOD LEAGUE is "the WNHL, using existing NHL infrastructure to drastically reduce costs and piggy-backing on opporunities" -- which is what was happening with the Pegulas in Buffalo and they could see it.

When the players did that, the NHL took a giant step back: because NHL OWNERS were propping up individual teams, which isn't sink or swim.

 

[KevFu]

The demands for "living wages" to play in a league that produced limited revenue (and that's putting it kindly) are purely emotional/ideologically based and not at all grounded in reality. As you mentioned, completely counter productive to the goal. Nobody wakes up making good money in any start up enterprise.

I feel like there could be interested investors if there was a more collaborative, ground up approach that had buy in from players understanding that as long as there is no money to support living wages playing hockey full time that it can't just magically happen. To be constantly under the threat of walkout when the league isn't at all stable isn't attractive to any investor.

The demands for living wages are because that's the investment required to make a league work as a business enterprise. A league of part-time players with day jobs is going to be too low quality for anyone to pay to see it. You can't take a league seriously if the best player has to quit the team because they got a job offer in another city.

You're totally right about the revenues not being there to pay full-time living wage players, but THAT is the investment required to try and build something that's successful.


It's no different than the US women's hockey team saying before the Olympics: If you want us to win gold, we need enough money to take a leave of absence from our jobs and be Full Time Hockey Players.

Tampa's owner said "use our facilities, support staff and equipment free of charge, so the US hockey budget can be devoted to the players stipend." The players moved to Tampa, trained and won gold.

And that's the exact model a pro league needs, where 8 to 16 NHL franchises have WNHL franchises in their facilities that their owner also owns. (maybe make X dollars of WNHL expenses exempt from NHL HRR).

It needs to be like European soccer, but with different branding. Not "New York Rangers Women's Hockey Club" but your first instinct when turning on a game should be "Why do the Rangers/Sabres look so small? Oh, that's Riveters and Beauts."

 

[PlayersLtd]

It all makes sense from the context of "The NHL knows there needs to be a league, but isn't going to COMPETE in that market place." Which is what they said publicly. If there wasn't a league, they'd start one. If there is a league, they're going to let them sink or swim and not be seen as trying to take it over.

The players strike was designed to kill the independent attempt, and force the NHL to start the WNHL.

The players knew the best chance of a GOOD LEAGUE is "the WNHL, using existing NHL infrastructure to drastically reduce costs and piggy-backing on opporunities" -- which is what was happening with the Pegulas in Buffalo and they could see it.

When the players did that, the NHL took a giant step back: because NHL OWNERS were propping up individual teams, which isn't sink or swim.

Finally, someone who remembers how the PWHPA cannibalized women's hockey!

 

[KevFu]

Finally, someone who remembers how the PWHPA cannibalized women's hockey!

You can't really blame any of the parties for how it's played out. So everything about what happened is both totally logical, even though it's all counter-productive or counter-intuitive.

The NHL, the NHL owners and the women's pro players have to publicly support the thing they need to die in order for a more-successful version of it to take it's place.

The NHL can't initiate any kind of competing league, or absorption/merger situation because Bettman and Daly are bald/white-haired men, twice the age of Dani Rylan. It's a PR nightmare. The NHL would appear to be saying "step aside, sweetie, let the men handle women's hockey."

 

[PlayersLtd]

You can't really blame any of the parties for how it's played out. So everything about what happened is both totally logical, even though it's all counter-productive or counter-intuitive.

The NHL, the NHL owners and the women's pro players have to publicly support the thing they need to die in order for a more-successful version of it to take it's place.

The NHL can't initiate any kind of competing league, or absorption/merger situation because Bettman and Daly are bald/white-haired men, twice the age of Dani Rylan. It's a PR nightmare. The NHL would appear to be saying "step aside, sweetie, let the men handle women's hockey."

I disagree, the PR would be a softball for the NHL if they wanted to do it. All Bettman would need to do is appoint a female and voila.

And in terms of blaming no, I suppose you can't but I wouldn't say it was logical. It wasn't logical for Jenner, Coyne et al. to say they were doing something for the good of the game when that very thing existed in the rival league. If it was truly for the good of women's hockey they would have let bygone's be bygone's and hitched their trailer to what the NWHL had in 2019. Instead they waged war and burned a bridge with the NHL in the process.

If you, like me, are convinced that the NHL needs to be involved for a women's league to 'thrive' than torpedoing the NWHL and souring the NHL along the way was not only illogical but it was bad business and counter productive to the ultimate goal that the PWHPA was fighting for. I have a bad feeling that this league won't end well and women's pro hockey will find itself back at square 1 in a few years.

Imagine if the CWHL players had simply merged with the NWHL back in 2019 when the Pegula's were involved? You'd be way further ahead than they are now.

It was selfish, ego driven BS and women's hockey suffered tremendously for it and continues to.

 

[KevFu]

I disagree, the PR would be a softball for the NHL if they wanted to do it. All Bettman would need to do is appoint a female and voila.

And in terms of blaming no, I suppose you can't but I wouldn't say it was logical. It wasn't logical for Jenner, Coyne et al. to say they were doing something for the good of the game when that very thing existed in the rival league. If it was truly for the good of women's hockey they would have let bygone's be bygone's and hitched their trailer to what the NWHL had in 2019. Instead they waged war and burned a bridge with the NHL in the process.

If you, like me, are convinced that the NHL needs to be involved for a women's league to 'thrive' than torpedoing the NWHL and souring the NHL along the way was not only illogical but it was bad business and counter productive to the ultimate goal that the PWHPA was fighting for. I have a bad feeling that this league won't end well and women's pro hockey will find itself back at square 1 in a few years.

Imagine if the CWHL players had simply merged with the NWHL back in 2019 when the Pegula's were involved? You'd be way further ahead than they are now.

It was selfish, ego driven BS and women's hockey suffered tremendously for it and continues to.

I think the only way a women's pro hockey league can be "big time" is if it's the WNHL with NHL backing and using NHL facilities, staff, and partnered sponsorship/opportunities.... Which I'd encourage.

So I don't think your post is very far off at all from my beliefs, even if we see how events transpired differently. I think we believe the exact same "behind the scenes" stuff was necessary...

The only way it "worked publicly" is if the NHL were to hire Dani Rylan as 'NHL VP/Director of Women's Hockey' and totally deflect every question to... "we don't know. We only know we want to be a part of women's hockey, so we hired Dani to be it's leader" and then the NHL can let its VP of Women's Hockey announce everything that needs to be announced, and make a WNHL backed by the NHL start and work.

The NHL and its owners could have flooded the independent league with support and exposure. But the Pegula's support was counter-intuitive: They were the best organization and an example of what women's hockey SHOULD BE, but without 7 or 11 organizations doing the exact same thing, it exposed the flaws of independent women's hockey. The best organization was going to be an NHL organization that had men's and women's teams; and an independent women's league was going to suck without that.

The Pegulas got that. Their commitment to women's hockey was awesome, and a "collegiate" kind of thing, which should be applauded. But it totally threw off the dynamics of Dani Rylan's independent league. You need to find a way to replicate the Pegulas another 7 to 11 times to make women's hockey work as a legit pro league. And that's the WNHL.

 

[TJL48]

So the only way for women's hockey to become successful is for men's hockey to absord much of the cost? Doesn't seem like a success to me.

 

[masa2009]

I think it's because so many people have this weird mindset about self-sufficiency and can't reconcile the fact short term losing a little bit of money to grow and gain popularity is totally expected and fine. Like, Netflix does it, no one cares. The WNBA does it, and it "only exists because it's subsidized."

The dude who bought a women's soccer expansion team for Los Angeles did so because he saw that Megan Rapinoe's net worth as a spokesperson was larger than the franchise value of HER TEAM, and thought "There's a lot of money not being earned due to lack of investment."

Since streamers are looking for live content, and women's sports are far cheaper than men's sports in terms of media rights, women's sports are absolutely ripe for investment and growth.

Just like MLS was: The main draw of MLS investors was that you had a MAJOR LEAGUE in terms of status within the sport, but the EXPENSES (payroll) were like Minor League levels.

The people on this site want to compare TV contracts and revenue in terms of success, but it's the ROI that matters to those making decisions. THEY view it as "George Steinbrenner bought the Yankees for $8.8 million in 1973... what's soccer or women's sports going to be like as a business in 2073?"

You are conveniently looking past the biological determinism that some women's sports face when it comes to producing entertainment that people deem competitive.
For example, tennis has been one of the women's sports, if not the women's sport, that has enjoyed the most frequent exposure and lucrative avenues thanks to the joint slams. Who knows where they would be without them? The WTA still has to subsidize the women's brackets of many tournaments because the organizers can't make money . A few years ago, there was a report on Wimbledon where an insider explained how the executive suites were always far less attended when women were in action, and she could hear derogatory comments all the time about their standard of play, suggesting that the bundling of the women's bracket with the men's one was the only thing giving it any major event value. How long is too long when it comes to making a women's sport viable? Probably never too long for most women's sports enthusiasts, when an agenda based on humanistic beliefs is the impetus for most discussions on the topic.

I suspect that the PWHPA's antics, which flew in the face of the Pegula commitment to the Buffalo Beauts, didn't sit well and is still fresh in the minds of the NHL BOG. The chance to build a league with NHL support was when they had an NHL owner actively ready to commit resources to it and one league left standing (NWHL).

What happened? A small group of the best female hockey players in the world went on 'strike' and dragged half of the female hockey world with them and the Pegulas support evaporated over night.

It wasn't a very smart move, one could say it was selfish.

I do agree that the PWHPA stabbed Dani Rylan in the back, but I strongly doubt that they incensed the NHL by doing that.

To me, it seems like the NHL never liked Dani, with her overt piggybacking on the their brands like the Lady Isobel Cup, and outright saying she had chosen team colors and themes to get them purchased by the NHL. When they had the women's game at the Winter Classic, originally they blackballed her entirely in favor of the CWHL, and it's only after Dani complained that they made the NWHL a part of it. They couldn't bash her publicly due to the initial goodwill behind her venture and women's sports in general. She started it all but she was too reckless and the presentation of the product was always a bit off even taking into account the limited resources. Without her, none of this would have happened, but it could not really happen with her either. I think they wanted her to go away, and her departure of PHF may partly have been a nudge to the NHL.