Radical Idea: So Many Expansion Candidates...New League?

[KevFu]

You wanna get nuts? Let's get nuts.

Expand to 40 teams but then have a relegation system.

I say 66 teams, but a three-tier system (Stanley Conference, Campbell Conference, Wales Conference, each with a trophy). 22 teams per tier, 4 games vs everyone for 84 games.

Each team gets a JV squad who plays like the night before. The Draft is 66-to-1 and you allow the sale of draft picks.

 

[Iron Mike Sharpe]

I mean, it makes for great fantasy hockey or a fun thought experiment, but the reality of it just wouldn't fly, especially financially. The NHL-AHL system has expanded, stabilized and now completely monopolizes the marketplace. This is where most of the elite talent goes.

For an independent league made up of outsider markets not part of the NHL matrix, what is the ultimate goal of the franchises joining this league? Is it to simply bring competitive professional hockey to a market that doesn't have it, is it to try to compete with the NHL, is it try to showcase certain markets as viable to the NHL so they can jump ship/merge? What is the goal in terms of revenues, attendance, arena size? Would there be enough interest or money from broadcasting or streaming services? How do you market the league? What makes it unique or special or different from the NHL? What is the payroll? What kind of players are targeted? What kinds of players actually make the jump? Would all of the teams in this league be able to pony up to overpay for NHL free agents? Is there a salary floor that at least ensures franchises aren't wildly variable in competitiveness? How does an independent league even manage to get to an AHL level of competitiveness? Who are the owners with deep pockets and vision who would want to go forward with something like this?

Canadian fans only want to support NHL or CHL teams, minor pro teams have a very rocky history here. The only way an independent league succeeds at a higher level than the AHL or tries to be competitive with the NHL is if it is driven by an eccentric billionaire who really wants a big league hockey franchise, but is denied by the NHL or balks at the entry tag. Right now, nobody like that exists. And he'd have to recruit others to willingly participate in his mad experiment.

 

[Headshot77]

The only way I could see it happen is if the NHL got hit with some antitrust law and was forced to split into two leagues.

 

[joelef]

The nhl is getting bumped for the wnba… I doubt a second league would go much better

 

[edog37]

The only way I could see it happen is if the NHL got hit with some antitrust law and was forced to split into two leagues.

Which won’t happen

 

[Chet Manley]

The NHL basically has complete control of the venues they play in and all of the revenue associated with the buildings. No startup being just a tenant in a rink can complete with that.

 

[KevFu]

It's fun the fantasize about and draw up on a bar napkin, but it's chance of happening is about the same as the bar napkin ending up hanging in the l'Ouvre.

 

[TheGreenTBer]

Alex Meruelo…

He should get relegated to office janitor

 

[jetsmooseice]

This plan for a competitor league could work, but realistically it would be more like the IHL of the 90s than the WHA. That is to say it would be a somewhat pumped up farm league as opposed to a full-on competitor to the NHL.

That's not to say it's not worth doing. But it would be tough to get it off the ground. Pay would likely be peanuts so teams would be raiding the AHL, ECHL and Euro leagues for talent, not the NHL.

Best case scenario a league might look something like this:

GTHA (probably Hamilton since there'd be nowhere to play in Toronto)
NYC (Brooklyn)
Milwaukee
Phoenix
Atlanta
Houston
Kansas City
Indianapolis
Quebec City
LA (assuming they could find somewhere to play, they'd need a foothold in that market)
Chicago (one of the secondary arenas like NOW Arena)
Minneapolis (Target Center)

That's a dozen. Throw in a few wild cards (Saskatoon? Montreal? Detroit? Boston? Portland?) and that could form the core of a decent league. But again, even turning into a 90s IHL copycat will take an awful lot of things to go right.

 

[Poppy Whoa Sonnet]

Expansion leagues have traditionally only worked cause they took advantage of how underpaid the players were in the main league. I don't think NHL players are underpaid and a rival league would have poor/mediocre talent as a result and would fail.

The current attempt at an expansion pro football league is based on the assumption that the thirst for more football games is so massive people will watch inferior talent play, and it's very much unclear if the economics of the UFL make sense. I don't think the thirst for more hockey games is close to large enough, if anything there are too many hockey games being played by the NHL imo.

 

[KevFu]

Expansion leagues have traditionally only worked cause they took advantage of how underpaid the players were in the main league. I don't think NHL players are underpaid and a rival league would have poor/mediocre talent as a result and would fail.

The current attempt at an expansion pro football league is based on the assumption that the thirst for more football games is so massive people will watch inferior talent play, and it's very much unclear if the economics of the UFL make sense. I don't think the thirst for more hockey games is close to large enough, if anything there are too many hockey games being played by the NHL imo.

Your point on spring football is excellent: The main revenue creation is more focused on TV dollars than on building fan bases paying high ticket prices, because there's no competition on the TV front with the NFL. And by putting a third of the teams in markets that don't have NFL teams, they can do both.

An independent competing league wouldn't have that in hockey. You'd be the second or third best hockey team in Toronto; and you could put teams in Hamilton or Quebec City, but AHL teams have tried and not stuck around long...

The massive issue is arena availability.


If anyone could pull off building a competing league, I'd think it would be soccer.

 

[GKJ]

Your point on spring football is excellent: The main revenue creation is more focused on TV dollars than on building fan bases paying high ticket prices, because there's no competition on the TV front with the NFL. And by putting a third of the teams in markets that don't have NFL teams, they can do both.

An independent competing league wouldn't have that in hockey. You'd be the second or third best hockey team in Toronto; and you could put teams in Hamilton or Quebec City, but AHL teams have tried and not stuck around long...

The massive issue is arena availability.


If anyone could pull off building a competing league, I'd think it would be soccer.

No they couldn’t. Look at NWSL. They’re only theoretically a direct competitor, and while obviously not the same talent, is a second soccer league. And MLS isn’t even a top-tier league.

The best example was in golf, which has forced a merger. And they did what was said, which was pay stupid amounts of money.

 

[KevFu]

No they couldn’t. Look at NWSL. They’re only theoretically a direct competitor, and while obviously not the same talent, is a second soccer league. And MLS isn’t even a top-tier league.

The best example was in golf, which has forced a merger. And they did what was said, which was pay stupid amounts of money.

I would consider the women's leagues "separate sports."


What I mean is that BECAUSE MLS isn't the top league in the world, that a rival soccer league could have a better chance than any other attempted competing league...

MLS is like spring football, where it's on a different schedule than the top league in the world, and that was because they wanted to compete with baseball instead of "all the rest of sports."

They kind of HAD to do that because of the perception of overall lack of interest in soccer in the US in 1996. MLS had to start small and slowly build as it gained a foothold and most importantly, SOCCER ITSELF became part of US sporting culture.

NOW that soccer is part of the sports culture here, investors could start a rival league that steers into what MLS lacks: world calendar, promotion/relegation, open entry, a European model.

The quality of the league would be worse than MLS, but it could be built into something that usurps MLS based on MLS being run counter to the culture of world soccer.

 

[GKJ]

I would consider the women's leagues "separate sports."


What I mean is that BECAUSE MLS isn't the top league in the world, that a rival soccer league could have a better chance than any other attempted competing league...

MLS is like spring football, where it's on a different schedule than the top league in the world, and that was because they wanted to compete with baseball instead of "all the rest of sports."

They kind of HAD to do that because of the perception of overall lack of interest in soccer in the US in 1996. MLS had to start small and slowly build as it gained a foothold and most importantly, SOCCER ITSELF became part of US sporting culture.

NOW that soccer is part of the sports culture here, investors could start a rival league that steers into what MLS lacks: world calendar, promotion/relegation, open entry, a European model.

The quality of the league would be worse than MLS, but it could be built into something that usurps MLS based on MLS being run counter to the culture of world soccer.

FIFA is in with MLS though, no one's going to do business with a rival league, especially since they won't get the talent either.

 

[KevFu]

FIFA is in with MLS though, no one's going to do business with a rival league, especially since they won't get the talent either.

I strongly suspected that FIFA would sit idly by (like the NHL with dueling women's hockey leagues), because a rival league on the world calendar could either (a) "win" or (b) Force MLS onto the World Calendar. Both of which benefit FIFA immensely.

That's really what "winning" would look like. MLS would win over the rival league, but it would win by becoming MORE like the rival league and more like world soccer.

 

[varsaku]

I strongly suspected that FIFA would sit idly by (like the NHL with dueling women's hockey leagues), because a rival league on the world calendar could either (a) "win" or (b) Force MLS onto the World Calendar. Both of which benefit FIFA immensely.

That's really what "winning" would look like. MLS would win over the rival league, but it would win by becoming MORE like the rival league and more like world soccer.

Attendance would be abysmal for winter games. There isn’t that much a die hard following to keep stadiums full during winter.

 

[KevFu]

Attendance would be abysmal for winter games. There isn’t that much a die hard following to keep stadiums full during winter.

True, but there'd be no like... FA Cup or Champions League, etc, etc. So they wouldn't need as much time and could take a winter break.

 

[JMCx4]

So, why Milwaukee and not Indianapolis?

Milwaukee makes better beer than Indy? Not to mention their Bloody Marys.

 

[JMCx4]

It's fun the fantasize about and draw up on a bar napkin, but it's chance of happening is about the same as the bar napkin ending up hanging in the l'Ouvre.

HFBoards is the bar napkin of social media. Slightly soiled, but still clean enough to scribble on.

 

[KevFu]

HFBoards is the bar napkin of social media. Slightly soiled, but still clean enough to scribble on.

Yeah, but no one's been offering me another Old Fashioned.

 

[JMCx4]

Yeah, but no one's been offering me another Old Fashioned.

Check The History of Hockey forum. Cheers.

 

[Yukon Joe]

I strongly suspected that FIFA would sit idly by (like the NHL with dueling women's hockey leagues), because a rival league on the world calendar could either (a) "win" or (b) Force MLS onto the World Calendar. Both of which benefit FIFA immensely.

That's really what "winning" would look like. MLS would win over the rival league, but it would win by becoming MORE like the rival league and more like world soccer.

'sitting idly by' isn't FIFA's style at all. They like complete control.

This is my favourite anecdote, because it shows how petty FIFA can be. Edmonton hosted a game in the Women's World Cup in 2015. My oldest kid was 5 at the time. His U6 soccer game had to be cancelled one day - because there was a Women's World Cup game being played in town. Because apparently all us parents of 5 year olds were going to either spend big money on a WWC game, or else go see our kindergarteners kick a ball around in the local school yard.

MLS is a part of the FIFA structure. You can look up the history of the NASL (the more recent version, not the 60s-80s version). It was sanctioned through US Soccer, but then US Soccer denied it's sanctioning in 2018. The league then folded.

I'm not a soccer guy, but no remotely serious player would want to go play for an unsanctioned league and thus risk being able to play in FIA-sanctioned soccer, whether it be MLA, lower level Europe, or wherever.

The situation with the NHL/IIHF is different, just because the NHL is the 800lb gorilla in the world of hockey. They mostly don't care what the IIHF does. That's how the NHL can get away with putting on its own "World Cup of Hockey" without bothering to get IIHF sanctioning. Soccer is quite different - no single league dominates world soccer the way the NHL dominates world hockey.

 

[aqib]

a few years ago when Markham was looking at an NHL arena, there was an announcement of a press conference. I made a joke post that the KHL was going to start a North American division with teams in Markham, Hamilton, QC, Kansas City, San Diego, Brooklyn, Cleveland, Portland, and a few others.

 

[Yukon Joe]

a few years ago when Markham was looking at an NHL arena, there was an announcement of a press conference. I made a joke post that the KHL was going to start a North American division with teams in Markham, Hamilton, QC, Kansas City, San Diego, Brooklyn, Cleveland, Portland, and a few others.

Just because I'm bored...

So such an idea would still have been pretty unlikely 10 years ago, but still remotely plausible - the KHL was still getting lots of Russian oligarch money. The league did have teams in several eastern european countries, like Slovakia, Czechia, Poland, Finland and Ukraine. Of course now with sanctions and the lack of general Russian foreign currency it'd be impossible.

But here'd be the problem (and not just for the KHL, but any competitor). Lets start with arenas. Many of those cities either don't have arenas, or if they do they are controlled by some other organization. Nobody is going to give the KHL a sweetheart deal for an arena lease - so they're stuck paying rent.

Ownership - I have no idea what a KHL franchise would be "worth" - Russian corporate governance is pretty opaque. But nobody is writing a billion dollar cheque.

And fan interest? I get that a North American division would mostly play each other, but a bunch of new teams nobody has heard of doesn't draw much excitement. And Lokomotiv Yaroslavl coming to town isn't going to draw any excitement.

I know it was a joke. I said I was bored, so I just went with it.

 

[patnyrnyg]

With so many expansion candidates and even cities with empty NHL-ready stadiums (and fan bases) is it time to consider a rival league? With expansion fees being so high with so little in return, and TV ratings falling, a new league that does things the *right way* (three points for a win, for example) could have a future. You could even call it something like the World Hockey Association. For starters, these are all cities with stadiums or significant expansion interest:

WEST:
Houston, San Diego, Portland, Phoenix, Kansas City
EAST:
Atlanta, Cincinnati, Hamilton, Quebec City, Milwaukee

And then, you could possibly get Nashville to defect to the West, and Carolina to defect to the East. Perhaps Winnipeg and one other Canadian team (Ottawa? Edmonton?) could eventually defect too.

I'd rather see a new 12 team league doing things right than a bloated 36 team NHL with stale leadership and marketing.

no

a few years ago when Markham was looking at an NHL arena, there was an announcement of a press conference. I made a joke post that the KHL was going to start a North American division with teams in Markham, Hamilton, QC, Kansas City, San Diego, Brooklyn, Cleveland, Portland, and a few others.

If the CFL could expand to the US, then why not this?