How would you improve the NHL's finances?

Question

While the league continues to make more and more money in other ways, the increasing player salaries are taking their toll. 60% of teams are losing money for their owners, there seems to always be talk of relocating teams, and it's clear that the league isn't stable enough.

So. What would you do? Teams like the Sharks have been incredibly successful (regular season) over the past 10 years, but they're losing millions per year. The Leafs have little success, yet top the list, making about as much money as the number 2 and 3 teams combined.

1) How do you reduce or prevent teams from needing relocation? How do you convince a city to love their team?
2) How do you increase the profitability of teams?
3) If you see some success in these areas, do you expand the NHL?

Answer 1

Bettmans little southern experiment has failed and failed miserably, putting teams in markets where Hockey takes a backseat to other sports like Basketball, Baseball and Football. Im talking about Phoenix, the late Atlanta, Dallas, Nashville, Anaheim, San Jose, Florida.



The league is going to make more money this year alone because of the Thrashers picking up and moving to Winnipeg where the game is loved and people attend, not like Atlanta where 300 people show up for a rally to save the team. When in reality the people of Atlanta have already forgotten about the Thrashers.



You cannot ``convince`` a city to love their team is a natural thing, fact is the further north you go the more the people care about hockey.



The NHL should have never expanded to 30 teams, it has become watered down of talent, if anything reduce the number of teams to 24, 12 in the west, 12 in the east.





@Russ what proof do you have that the Jets are bleeding money lmao, do you normally just say random things to try and look and sound intelligent. They sell out every game, they are surplus right now, nice try though.

Answer 2

Where do you get this idea about San Jose losing money, and where do you have documented (not some estimate) evidence of teams losing money (an income statement, a P&L statement)? Not that it matters but Forbes does NOT have access to any NHL financials and their team valuations is slightly more accurate than sitting around at a bar over a few scotches writing franchise values on a cocktail napkin (the value of something is what someone is willing to pay for it).



Understand that, for salary cap purposes the Sharks make money. However, for San Jose Sharks, LP there are dozens of things you can do to make the business appear to lose money for purposes of taxes (this is common) because you can deduct losses while the hockey team is actually profitable. Without a look at their financials I won't go into specifics, but through depreciation of tangible assets, "other" expenses, travel costs, and other line items, it's possible (hell, ideally) for a team to be profitable for purposes of the salary cap (which the Sharks are) but then deduct items which makes the club appear to be losing money for purposes of taxes.



The NBA lost $400mm last year. The NHL grew revenue (meaning they made more money than they did the prior year).



The Leafs top this mythical list because MLSE is highly diversified into such things as condos, retail, restaurants, and charging some of the highest ticket prices of any North American sports franchise (because demand outweighs supply by tonnes; this is what happens when your STH renewal rate after a lockout year is over 99.6%).



1) The list of teams in trouble is Phoenix (no owner) and NYI (need a new building). Florida is stable, Tampa is stable, Nashville is stable. Ottawa is bleeding money but Eugene Melnyk seems happy to bleed money, write the losses off, and make promises about winning. Atlanta relocated to Winnipeg and has a 3-5 year window where they will be fine. Carolina ebbs and flows but has stable ownership. Dallas has a new owner so they should be fine. NJD will be fine if they start playing better (ticket sales will improve).

2) The most obvious answer is charge more for tickets, or at least stop giving tickets away. Increased tv rights fees (which for US teams kicked in at the start of this season with the new NBC deal which more than doubled what NBC/Versus was paying last year), improved local tv ratings (which drives what advertisers pay for ads during games), and of course cost controls.

3) Expansion is probably years away. You need to cure Phoenix and NYI and then you can start to look at expansion (assuming you have a market, an owner, and an arena either existing or that is ready to be built).

Answer 3

The Sharks sellout virtually every single game and charge an arm and a leg per ticket. Apparel sales are also strong, so you know something is wrong when they are still losing money. Their executives need to be a bit more clever if they want to operate as a successful business.

Answer 4

Player salaries need to brought down, first off. Either a 50/50 split, or even something like 47/53 would be much better to make teams be a little more profitable.

Second off, two teams need to go. The Coyotes are the first choice, since the NHL owns them and it would be fairly easy to just fold them. The issue comes with the second franchise, as the NHL would probably have to buy the least valuable team and fold them as well. This would increase the remaining 28 teams' values by a whole lot though. I won't speculate what team this would be, there are a number of candidates out there.



1. You can't. If the love and support isn't there, it isn't there

2. Reduce player salaries, fold the bleeding franchises

3. No. Expansion would be financial suicide, it would bankrupt a number of borderline franchises which could put at least 4-5 more teams into the Coyotes' and Devils' situation



@Canada Bruins: Funny, cause the Jets are bleeding money right now. They way overpaid for the team to begin with, they obviously don't know how to handle money, and they need a new building if they're going to make money

LAWL "sell out every game" yeah, sell out a 15,000 person barn. They are NOT making money, according to Forbes they're losing over $5 million already, and they overpaid $7 million for the team. They are in a hole, they won't even break even without a new building. There you go, tough guy. Feel smart now?

Answer 5

to answer all three questions its simply win the stanley cup

Answer 6

no idea sorry bud.