me2 said:
None at all. Tickets would be priced to get the rinks at least 50% full. Numbers of fans are more important than total revenue.
There would be changes in the schedules to reduce travel expenses ie less if any East v West games until the playoffs.
They can run AHL teams on shoe string budgets and many of the scabs would be AHLers used to cheapness. They could save millions off the running costs compared to normal.
The clincher will be watching AHLers and scrubs pulling in $375K/y while many NHLPA holdouts are barely covering costs in lesser leagues or doing nothing at all. That'll eat away them pretty quick.
Not to throw a wet blanket on this, but you're assuming that these future "prospective" replacements will just eat up the chance to:
Most likely alienate themselves from the majority of professional hockey players, (and all professional athletes in general), so that they can play in front of NHL crowds for the absolute minimum amount of money the owners are forced to offer, travelling by bus to away games and staying in the local Motel 6, in order for the owners to sell just enough tickets to make the NHLPA "jealous", so that the REAL players cross the picket line, and the owners can get rid of the replacement players.
And for this, they get to be labelled, (for the rest of their careers), as "scabs", and are most likely prohibited from joining any union which ultimately DOES end up signing the next CBA with the League, whether it's the NHLPA in it's current incarnation, or otherwise......
All for maybe $375,000, (and less than HALF of that after taxes), and the privelege of telling their kids & grandkids that while they never made it into the REAL NHL, they DID cross the picket line and play as a "scab" during the infamous '05-'06 Season.
Sounds like a cherry of a deal for these replacement players, doesn't it?