Would the PWHL benefit more expanding into some non-NHL markets?

[End on a Hinote]

I know it's a bit early (XFL 1.0 was experiencing similar early success over 20 years ago, hopefully it won't suffer the same fate), but with the early success of the PWHL in the current markets, could that profitability be pushed even further by putting teams in non-NHL (or AHL) markets?

Obviously they would want to put teams in larger cities like Chicago, LA, Calgary and Vancouver. But would they include empty markets like Milwaukie, Quebec City, Regina and Houston/Austin?

The MLS did something similar by putting expansion teams in generally underserved markets like Portland, SLC, Vancouver and Montreal and were the first pro league in Columbus and Austin.

Click to read more...

 

[Spydey629]

A better example is the WNBA. The Connecticut Sun exist due to the success of the UConn's women's basketball team.

For women's hockey, a team could be placed somewhere in Wisconsin, thanks to the success the Badgers' women's program has had over the years.

That said, I think there is going to be far more markets wanting teams than franchises available. I expect Buffalo to get a Beauts 2.0, I expect Pittsburgh to get a franchise due to their support of the game over the years. I would think the league will want more teams in Canada and in the Western U.S.

Time will tell. I'm just hoping that this third time is the charm for a Women's Pro league.

 

[Chan790]

I think so, yes...but I think they possibly blew it already. There are large hockey-mad markets (Connecticut, Quebec, possibly Upstate NY, a few others) where the NHL has no desire to be, primarily because they're: a.) too small. b.) too poor c.) too close to a large NHL market.

Going to those markets essentially allows PWHL to "own" the town and they're well-suited to those markets because of the smaller economics of professional women's sports while still being a draw in a large region. But, they chose the larger NHL markets where they're going to have a harder time establishing a foothold.

I do think, if they run into trouble drawing fans and making money in large cities, they might be well advised to ditch Boston for Hartford, Montreal for QC, and NYC for...Syracuse, Rochester?...if they want to remain accessible for the NYC Market, Binghamton or Albany or even somewhere a bit out on the Island.

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

I know it's a bit early (XFL 1.0 was experiencing similar early success over 20 years ago, hopefully it won't suffer the same fate), but with the early success of the PWHL in the current markets, could that profitability be pushed even further by putting teams in non-NHL (or AHL) markets?

Obviously they would want to put teams in larger cities like Chicago, LA, Calgary and Vancouver. But would they include empty markets like Milwaukie, Quebec City, Regina and Houston/Austin?

The MLS did something similar by putting expansion teams in generally underserved markets like Portland, SLC, Vancouver and Montreal and were the first pro league in Columbus and Austin.

I think it should be a 50/50 split

 

[LadyStanley]

Check out this Podcast: Ep. 30 Jayna Hefford Ep. 30 Jayna Hefford

From late December interview (I'm finally listening to).

Heard warning from WNBA about not expanding too fast. League has interest from a number of expansion markets.

 

[KevFu]

Check out this Podcast: Ep. 30 Jayna Hefford Ep. 30 Jayna Hefford

From late December interview (I'm finally listening to).

Heard warning from WNBA about not expanding too fast. League has interest from a number of expansion markets.

I absolutely get the warning from the WNBA and you can't go ham with expansion. But at the same time, marketplace dynamics have changed drastically since the WNBA launch.

TV has a vested interest in promoting women's sports -- it's cheaper rights fees. The WNBA is cheaper than Big East men's basketball. The college conference contracts just include WBB and always have, so ESPN/FOX can drop a more expensive property and just but Power 5 women's basketball on instead for zero dollars.

Expanding to expand and trying to get more markets for TV purposes is definitely something you have to be very careful about. It's really more about OWNERS and who has the same level of commitment, vision and desire.

 

[Yukon Joe]

I absolutely get the warning from the WNBA and you can't go ham with expansion. But at the same time, marketplace dynamics have changed drastically since the WNBA launch.

TV has a vested interest in promoting women's sports -- it's cheaper rights fees. The WNBA is cheaper than Big East men's basketball. The college conference contracts just include WBB and always have, so ESPN/FOX can drop a more expensive property and just but Power 5 women's basketball on instead for zero dollars.

Expanding to expand and trying to get more markets for TV purposes is definitely something you have to be very careful about. It's really more about OWNERS and who has the same level of commitment, vision and desire.

Live sports though is a relatively expensive form of content just to produce. So there has to be a certain level of viewership to even make it worthwhile, no matter how much or little you pay in rights fees.

 

[KevFu]

Live sports though is a relatively expensive form of content just to produce. So there has to be a certain level of viewership to even make it worthwhile, no matter how much or little you pay in rights fees.

The cost of production is nothing compared to "Big League" rights fees in men's sports. ESPN and Fox have set an expectation level for the amount of live sports they have. They're not replacing a cheap show of people yelling at each other with "more expensive to produce women's sports" just producing a game with a cheaper rights fees.

The college example is the best one. ESPN just cut the rights fee they gave the Pac-12 to zero, and instead of showing Pac-12 MBB, they just fill that time slot on a Sunday with SEC women's basketball, which costs zero additional dollars in rights fees, and production costs is the same -- actually less since they were producing the games for SEC Network already.


It's no different than roster construction in a cap era. A $4.5 million player giving you 35 points, or a $750,000 ELC giving you 15-20 points. The juice isn't worth the squeeze. Women's sports are the ELC's of TV rights fees. The audience isn't as big, but the audience PER MILLION SPENT is a better ROI.

 

[GKJ]

I don’t see a very aggressive expansion until the NHL signs on. Hopefully they’ve made enough waves to convince them. There’s non-NHL markets they could do, especially in Canada, not unlike the NHL 100 years ago.

WNBA had the advantage of playing in the summer and not competing in the same space, so the PWHL has that headwind.

 

[No Fun Shogun]

The thing is that the NHL is already in the biggest markets for the most part, and that's where the money is and where the media focus is centralized. A small piece of a huge pie is bigger than a small piece of a smaller pie, after all.

If the league was looking into a Midwestern expansion, it's probably a safe bet that moving into Chicago would be both a higher ceiling and higher floor option that smaller AHL/ECHL markets like Milwaukee and Indianapolis, for instance.

 

[KevFu]

It's definitely a hybrid of the two. You need to have mostly the big places (your cornerstone cities with a ton of people, so a small niche audience is bigger, and for TV) but also places where "This could be their thing."

I mean, if you were starting the NHL from scratch today, your first 8 cities would NOT include Buffalo or Ottawa, But for women's hockey, that's a great pick because you know they like hockey and there's no NBA teams so they COULD be the second or third most popular pro team there.

The other aspect is that adding two non-NHL markets could work if you want to go from 8 teams to 12 and have three clustered divisions to reduce travel costs. Places like Milwaukee or Madison, or Hamilton could make a ton of sense:

Eight teams, 6 games vs each, only one close opponent = 17 far away games, 4 close to home.

WIN-MIN-CHI-Wisconsin
DET-TOR-BUF-Hamilton
MON-OTT-BOS-NY
Play 8 vs division, 2 vs rest of league = 12 road games close to home, only 8 far away games.

 

[GKJ]

In terms of non-NHL markets, there is familiarity in Hartford, the New York team is already playing some of their games in Bridgeport. And of course there’s Quebec and Hamilton.

 

[Yukon Joe]

In terms of non-NHL markets, there is familiarity in Hartford, the New York team is already playing some of their games in Bridgeport. And of course there’s Quebec and Hamilton.

I really don't think the PWHL is straight-up competing with the NHL though.

Nobody is going "well this week we could go to a PWHL game, or an NHL game - what do you want to see"?

You're either a women-hockey fan, an NHL-only fan, or a hockey-hockey-fan who will go to see either.

Which is why I think chasing secondary markets (all of which have AHL or other competition anyways) is worthwhile.

 

[Headshot77]

Honestly, no. The PWHL isn't an alternative to the NHL like spring football is to the NFL. The reason the WNBA is so successful is partially because they got a lot of NBA franchises to buy-in. I think the play is to have the PWHL have close ties with NHL franchises and play in NHL venues.

The PWHL needs to make sure they don't expand too rapidly and fail. Slow sustained growth as they market themselves as being just as big as the men's game in their respective markets. I think you could go from 6 to 10 and add:

Buffalo
Pittsburgh
Chicago
Detroit

And probably cap the league at 10 for a good while while you focus on the quality of the product.

 

[CANADIENSFAN90]

Hartford should get a team

 

[GindyDraws]

Hartford should get a team

They're not going to bring a team back to the Connecticut martket unless they play in Bridgeport.

 

[adsfan]

The thing is that the NHL is already in the biggest markets for the most part, and that's where the money is and where the media focus is centralized. A small piece of a huge pie is bigger than a small piece of a smaller pie, after all.

If the league was looking into a Midwestern expansion, it's probably a safe bet that moving into Chicago would be both a higher ceiling and higher floor option that smaller AHL/ECHL markets like Milwaukee and Indianapolis, for instance.

Chicago has 2 or 3 pro hockey teams, Milwaukee has one. The Admirals arena seats almost 10,000. Last night, they had 8,660 fans. Which one is the better market?
Maybe you should think again. MSOE has an arena that seats 1,500, which might be the right size to start.

 

[Chan790]

They're not going to bring a team back to the Connecticut martket unless they play in Bridgeport.

As a Connecticut resident by birth and on-and-off over the last 40 years, that may be the most confident statement I've ever heard for an opinion completely without merit.

I'm not saying Hartford is a great choice. I'm saying choosing Bridgeport would be like deciding you were going to expand to Indiana and then choosing Gary.

 

[GindyDraws]

As a Connecticut resident by birth and on-and-off over the last 40 years, that may be the most confident statement I've ever heard for an opinion completely without merit.

I'm not saying Hartford is a great choice. I'm saying choosing Bridgeport would be like deciding you were going to expand to Indiana and then choosing Gary.

I'm not saying it out of confidence but rather out of how they're doing it currently with the New York team playing games in Bridgeport and Queens.

The situation would be ideal to put a team in Hartford after the last league bounced around Danbury but I'm not trying to hold my breath.

 

[Ernie]

I would be surprised if the PWHL expands. I would expect they will let it ride out for a while then look to relocate any underperforming teams. There aren't a ton of female hockey players that play at that high of a level and it would be a mistake to dilute the sport.

 

[JMCx4]

I would be surprised if the PWHL expands. I would expect they will let it ride out for a while then look to relocate any underperforming teams. There aren't a ton of female hockey players that play at that high of a level and it would be a mistake to dilute the sport.

There are a number of very talented female hockey players in Europe who will be at the end of their player contracts this year. There are also 5 conferences worth of NCAA DI women's teams who will be graduating this season & next, without considering some number of college undergrads who could leave school to turn pro. So there will be a player talent pipeline available for at least the next few years, which the PWHL can leverage for strategic growth. As for "underperforming teams" in the PWHL, the attendance #s so far haven't identified any and the League showed in their first season roster building that they are proactive in spreading the talent to maintain competitive play.

 

[Ernie]

There are a number of very talented female hockey players in Europe who will be at the end of their player contracts this year. There are also 5 conferences worth of NCAA DI women's teams who will be graduating this season & next, without considering some number of college undergrads who could leave school to turn pro. So there will be a player talent pipeline available for at least the next few years, which the PWHL can leverage for strategic growth. As for "underperforming teams" in the PWHL, the attendance #s so far haven't identified any and the League showed in their first season roster building that they are proactive in spreading the talent to maintain competitive play.

New York has pretty low attendance. They may want to consider an alternate location in the city.

I agree that the pool of available players will increase over time. The PWHL has had a fantastic debut but we will see where they land when the novelty wears off a bit. They also need to figure out their ownership structure etc.

 

[JMCx4]

New York has pretty low attendance. They may want to consider an alternate location in the city.

I agree that the pool of available players will increase over time. The PWHL has had a fantastic debut but we will see where they land when the novelty wears off a bit. They also need to figure out their ownership structure etc.

PWHL New York is no doubt already looking at next season's venue options, after they scrambled to secure game dates wherever they could with a late start this season. The League's ownership structure can be dealt with after a few years of learning & refining the on-ice business; before that, Mark Walter & his wife have committed the funding to keep the PWHL vital.

There are some very business-smart & fully committed people driving the PWHL Zamboni, clearing the ice so pro women's hockey has a smooth playing surface on which to show they have a unique contribution to offer in the admittedly crowded North American sports market. Speed & physicality excite the crowds, but intelligent long-term strategies win the game.