Enough Already: Fixing the NHL in 5 easy steps
 

http://www.sportsnet.ca/magazine/201...ve_easy_steps/
Pretty solid article, with some good ideas and interesting facts/figures. I really like number 4, where 10% of league revenue goes to playoff bonuses.
Think in these dog days of summer, this is fun stuff to read.
Agree with the points, disagree?
Anything youd like to be added?

It would be so crazy if the Isles and Panthers were folded. Think of the dispersal draft with the amount of offensive talent that both teams have in their system. Any one of Tavares, Strome, Moulson, Niederreiter, Nelson, Huberdeau, Markstrom, Bjugstad, Kulikov, etc, etc? YES PLEASE.

Bias aside, this was a good article that had valid points. Too bad the NHL and NHLPA would never think objectively enough to get something like this done.

Fix it in one. Scrap the players union, problem solved.

Personally, I think the Fans should 'unify' and boycott the NHL. When they return from lockout ... whenever that might be. Fans should stay away from everything NHL related. Games, Merchandise, televised games etc. for at least 2 months. Let the owners and players know who actually pays for their ridiculously high salaries and pampered lives.

There's no perfect solution but i'll throw out what i feel is fair .

I'm not in favor of contracting teams because that sends out the wrong message . I am in favor of relocating a few teams . I'd put another team in the GTA , one in Q City and maybe one in Sask and the US north west if possible ( seattle/portland) .

A 50/50 split of revenue or close to it sounds resonable .

Revenue sharing is a little tricky because i don't want to reward inept owners but you need to take into account the differences in markets . Also building a strong compettive league where everyone has a chance to compete benefits all teams financially in the long run . The NFL has proven this .

The buyout system and arbitration seem to work well .

I'd allow one amnesty per team but the player gets his full salary if amnested .

5 year max on contracts and every one way deal counts against the cap regardless of where they play .

3 year rookie deals seem to work well and i'd make free agency at 28 or 8 years in the league .

I'd max out contracts at 8 mil or 15 % of the cap , whichever was higher .

This is off topic but i would get rid of the loser point and the shootout , imo it's bushleague . I'd go back to 2 pts for a win and one for a tie with 0 pts awarded for a loss and 10 min o/t .

You could try what soccer does and award 3 pts for a win and 1 pt for a tie , this would encourage and reward teams that actually try to win instead of playing to get into overtime and gaurentee themselves at least the loser point .

I'd also love to bump the age of the draft up a year with no b/day cutoff .

Is this the NHL's "shape up or ship out" year?

Lmao. :handclap:

I like the idea of cash prizes if you go deep in the playoffs. Teams like Tampa and Phoenix would actually get nice bonuses for making it so far in the playoffs instead of the let down on the amount of giveaway tickets they needed to give away to fill their buildings.

Folding and moving teams as a go-to solution is such a dumbass move. Seriously you're robbing 4 fanbases of their teams just to give the NHL 6M more, enough for a player or two. Seriously it's ridiculous. But its Sportsnet who is surprised.

It also completely goes against Bettman's agenda of expanding and growing the game. Hockey will never succeed in America if you just move the teams up to Canada and he's right. Like it or not the money is in America. Look at how much the Cowboys and Yankees make, then look at the Leafs. If hockey can catch on and succeed in America and make a big enough footprint that's billions in the NHLs pocket.

Alternative view: The NHL is having the lockout because of each wanting more money, when if you move teams going in debt to Canada, that adds so much to the pot, and it prevents having a lockout, thus not losing popularity to the US fanbase, unlike how if there is one, the US teams will need bail outs, when they aren't making money

Canadian NHL revenue >>> American NHL revenue. Growing the league just means diluting the talent. Keep hockey where it belongs, and out of the desert.

profit sharing for playoff performance is a great idea.

That doesn't matter. The NHL revenue as a whole is growing. That means interest is growing. At the end of the day American markets have the power to put significantly more money into their teams then Canadian teams. Seriously look at Torontos revenue. Then look at the Yankees, Cowboys, etc.

Even if it means earning less its about growing the game because no sane commissioner would be happy with having the game succeeding outside of the biggest market, the US.

I agree that some places are just plain wrong. Arizona and Ohio are bad hockey states. That said, there isnt many good hockey states but then again very few hockey states exsist. Wisconsin might be able to support one, maybe Washington (state) but not many other places.

Maybe the fact that the NHL is played in an arena, while MLB and NFL are played in massive stadiums has something to do with it. Yankees have 81 home games in a 50,000 seat stadium. The Dallas Cowboys play in a 100,000+ seat stadium. The Leafs play in a 19,000 seat arena. That makes a difference in total gate revenue. Plus, the TV rights... TSN, CBC, and Sportsnet pay MUCH less to broadcast TV games than American networks pay to broadcast the Yankees or Cowboys. That is not a USA/Canada issue, its an NHL/NFL issue. The NHL will never have the TV money that the NFL has. The Stanley Cup finals will never get half the American viewers that the superbowl gets. That's just a fact.

Bettman's mission to "grow the game" in places that clearly couldn't care less about the game is a futile one. You could keep the Stars in Dallas for 1000 years and they will never come close to the Cowboys in terms of interest and money. Same goes for Phoenix, Florida and Columbus. The Islanders actually have history and a hardcore following, its just a terrible ownership group holding them back. So even though Quebec City may be a much smaller market than Phoenix, Miami, Long Island, or even Columbus... You will capture a MUCH larger share of Quebec City than you ever would in those aforementioned cities. Its like fishing in a small lake and catching much more fish than just casting off in the middle of Lake Superior just because its bigger.

You seem to be forgetting that you're comparing baseball and football to hockey. Why not just start up a national cricket league in the States, since that's where all the money is? How about waterpolo, or handball? I don't believe you can popularize the game that much just by forcing it down people's throats. How are the MLS (the most popular sport on the world) revenues doing when compared to baseball or football?

So even if Nashville or Phoenix business owners may have tons of cash, and the city could support one more sports team, it doesn't mean that their populations will actually buy the tickets. Heck, even in LA, they have to offer "family deals" (4 drinks + hot dogs + parking + tickets for $99) in order to sell their tickets.

If the NHL wants to expand, Europe would be the most logical destination financially, not the States.

From what I have heard on the subject in baseball the big number at the gate is 2 million fans a year. If you get that you are doing really well. If the leafs sold out every game for an entire season that would be roughly 780,000 fans. The yankees have an average ticket price of $63, and in a good year the yankees draw more than 4 million fans (3.6 million last year), so last year the yankees made roughly $227,000,000 in gate revenue. The average ticket price for a leafs game is about $124, so assuming they sell out every game that is a total of $97,000,000 in gate revenue. The dallas cowboys have an average ticket price of $110 and average attendance of 85,000 fans, so 684,000 total fans over the 8 home games, so thats $75 million in gate revenue.

So, it looks like size of venue does make a difference but volume of games makes a difference too. I never would have thought there was any possible way for the Leafs to make more at the gate than the cowboys but there it is!

Im not sure what the point of all this was, but it was fun to do. :laugh:

Good to know the numbers, but still don't know why someone would compare this to baseball and football. Those are two sports that are proven to be successful in the US, with basketball being the third. By simply putting the game in cities like Columbus, Florida and Phoenix, it isn't expanding anything. All your doing is giving fans another option which they clearly aren't jumping on with the lack of revenues from these small hockey markets. Id say if the support isn't there then you have to move them to a place where there is.

Hamilton and Quebec city are both in close proximity to two established hockey markets that have proven support. Why they don't have teams and these small market teams that don't have fan support with ticket prices starting at $10 is mind blasting. Its BS that the NHL has to go through this and have to accommodate for these teams who are in the wrong place.

No one criticized:

I guess I'll wait for it.

They laugh at hockey in the desert, southerners think its like figure skating. Instead of moving to Hamilton and QC, Bettman's gonna try and put teams in Las Vegas and New Mexico. Ice among sand dunes? The atmospheres just not right...

You're joking, right?

If they had an actual fan base then they wouldn't need to move so really you're not robbing people not nearly enough people that is

And if I'm not mistaken, even the MLS is reluctant to expand to Florida (and yet the NHL has two franchises in there that aren't exactly selling out each game).

Have you forgotten what happened to the game-play when this system was in place? ... Perhaps you aren't old enough to remember the NJ Devils of old. When you put point value on a tie (or heaven forbid the immense extra value of 3 points on a win), teams fall back into defensive systems that avoid losing rather than trying to win. I for one don't want to go back to 60/82 games being 0-0, 1-0, 1-1, 2-1 decisions. Even less so the prospect of longer overtimes in defensive shells.

Disagree with the part about moving two more teams to Canada. Quebec City should be a shoe-in when you look at how successful the Remparts are in every off-ice aspect; especially when you consider that their fans never gave up on the Nordiques like Winnipeg did to the old Jets. But it's this idea that Canadian teams are guaranteed money. Really? Ottawa? If we're talking about moving and folding teams like the Islanders, Coyotes and Panthers who can't sell out in the regular season despite embarassingly low ticket prices, why aren't the Senators in this relocation/folding discussion? Who else in Canada deserves a team anyways? Saskatoon? Portland > Ottawa/Saskatoon, imo.

Relocating the Panthers is a great idea. Phoenix im iffy on. They draw well when they win.

We definitely could use another Canadian team.