Bonus links for a Friday afternoon

That Bettman was as elusive as ever. Bud Selig, as slimy as he is, didn’t skirt issues and was open about Minnesota and Montreal’s troubles less than a decade ago.
I remember in the fall of 06 and the fall of 08, Bettman was singing everything was rosy about Nashville and Pheonix….only to find out in the spring he was being dishonest about the whole shebang.

I do understand Canadian fans POV, though, Dirk. It seems that revenue sharing was supposed to be a short-term prop, where the rich teams supporting the poor small-market (big market teams aren’t ever eligible, i don’t think, sorry ‘bout that economy detroit!) teams through a tough stage. Like with Ottawa, Edmonton, and Carolina. Now, its become an afterthough that certain nontraditional markets (likely Atlanta, Glendale, Sunrise and probably ours) will always need that 10-15 M handout just to make a ’reported profit’ of 2 million (in our case…can’t imagine Atlanta, Florida, Phoenix, even doing that).

It seems to make sense, in the eyes of most fans from canada (and likely a share of americans, too) to move the 1-2 biggest $$$ losers to places where they can be top 10 $$$ makers. US ratings, ad revenues, whatev, aren’t gonna be affected whether there is hockey in Glendale or Atlanta.

It makes sense for everybody, players, owners, ….every one except for 10,000 odd diehard arizona hockey fans…sad, but it didn’t stop the Whalers, North Stars, Jets, and Nords from moving shop, despite arguably more local love for their teams.

I guess that’s what canadians get for socialized medicine: socialized hockey.

It is INTENDED to be short-term, Dirk, for individual teams. When they handed out franchises, you think the intention was for teams like Nashville and Atlanta to be career welfare checks? Or to be like Edmonton “the NHL Green Bay”, a short-term fix, until they ‘graduate’ from the bottom half and stand on their own two feet (and possibly, pay into revenue sharing)?

The big revenue generators (the 6 canadian teams, and largely the northeast US teams) generate a disproportionately high amount of revenue. going by articles like sportsbusinessdaily and Forbes. May be only their best guess, and Bettman may discredit them when he sees fit (but, imagine that, the NHL owners swore by those reports before and during the lockout, when it claimed huge league-wide losses).

Remind me how ‘little to do with reality’ it is to think the league would be better off with one more money maker and one less welfare case?
Take the 30th team in revenue generation and take them to a place that they make money enough to put into the program, say, 10th in revenue.
More league revenues, more league profits, more sources of help for the weaker teams from the strong teams (the strong teams get relatively stronger with another partner, the weak teams get less weak, if you remove the weakest link), a higher salary cap and floor, more money for players.

Or keep it they way it is: have the top teams, on their own merits, increase their profits and revenue,
raise the cap floor, forcing the poor teams to spend more money that they don’t have, which they have to borrow from the rich teams.

I understand that, as a Nashville fan, I should be happy to have a team here, and grateful for Montreal and Chicago and the Rangers’ cash, that allows that to happen.
But I certainly would prefered it when, pre-lockout, the Preds were self-sufficient for a short while, even though it was on a 24 M budget. The current setup,
they will never make money, and the team will always be dependent on a handout.

The ‘overly simplistic’ notion of the North, I guess, makes sense to me. More sense that that other ‘overly simplistic notion’, the thinking was sunbelt expansion would=TV money.

My thinking: if the NBA moves teams when they don’t work, and the MLB moves teams when they don’t work, I don’t see why the NHL can’t admit it when certain experiments don’t work for them. In the 70s, the Atlanta Flames, Kansas City, Colorado, the flippin Golden Seals, etc…..were bad ideas for the time. Now, the league is too proud to admit mistakes. They want you to believe all 30 teams are healthy just because the league as a whole is making ‘record’ profits.
If you buy their Kool-Aid, Dirk, I bet you would be impressed when they tell you that Esposito brothers averaged 350 goals each. On average, they were the most prolific goal scoring brother tandem in history….of course, one of the boys had to borrow some goals from the other, but why quibble?

The initial comment you posted from the article was
“Do you think it might have something to do with the fact that Canadian fans are paying through the nose to prop up American franchises that cannot succeed without the substantial subsidies from those Canadian fans?”

Which you think is off-base, and I clearly don’t.
As the rich teams get richer, they cap ceiling and floor goes up proportionally. That 56% you mentioned.
Nashville, Atlanta and probably a good third of the league could have been sustainable and maybe even profitable (and Nashville was, I think, for at least one year before the lockout) with lower player payrolls, but like you said,
many hockey markets simply can’t afford to spend to the floor. And that was in 2005-06, when the floor was. what. 25 million?
The smaller markets were welfare cases back then, and even more so now as the floor is ~40 M. They just need more money from the high revenue teams. And all six canadian teams have paid into that system, to help keep the welfare teams afloat.

So, by design, the canadian fans money is propping up teams that couldn’t survive without it.
The system has taken the floor to a high enough level where teams, including ours,
have to depend on that welfare check to survive.

Because Nashville goes from 13,2 to 15 K in paid attendance, justifies not calling their ten million dollar welfare check a welfare check?
The size of the check hasn’t gotten any smaller, nor will it in the current system.

You mention that
Small market teams will always rely on revenue sharing under this system, unless you got to the point where the 30 NHL teams all generated very similar revenue figures (which ain’t gonna happen, no matter where you place the teams).
,
which is factually incorrect. I’m not sure if this an honest mistake, or intentional deceit….you may have a little Gary Bettman in you!
Edmonton, for example, is a small market team that does not pull from the welfare pool, and for at least a few years, have put in. That’s right, the NHL’s Packers are paying into revenue sharing.

Furthermore, if you put a few of the worst money losers in places where they become top 15 breadwinners,
that moves lower-middle teams like Edmonton into the lower 15 revenue teams,
and they could then benefit from the pool. They wouldn’t, of course, need to pull out anything like 10 M a year.

Plus, the disparity in revenue between the top 15 and lower 15 decreases,
and the size of the handout becomes less. Its not that hard to understand.

From an article a couple years ago
http://communities.canada.com/edmontonjournal/blogs/hockey/archive/2008/01/20/canadian-nhl-teams-are-hot-commodities.aspx
As Washington Capitals owner Ted Leonsis recently groused on his blog: “I remember having to pay corporate welfare to help Canadian clubs in the NHL under the banner of an assistance program”

I am not sure why the term welfare bugs you, Dirk. It helps us keep our team in town.
Its not fair that Edmonton prop up Atlanta with a similar arrangement, under a different banner, indefinitely. And Canadian fans have to pay through the nose, about ~150 on average for tickets for the lower bowl, where here we get to see hockey in the lower bowl for 35 dollars in the playoffs. On Military Monday, groups of 20 of us could be 5 rows of the glass at center ice for 20 bucks a ticket.

The disparity isn’t just with the clubs’ revenue-sharing, Dirk. It clearly trickles down to the fans.