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| Tribune media |
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'Las Vegas expansion underscores grim reality for the NHL: Some of its teams just can’t draw fans'
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'Carolina’s attendance, lowest in the NHL, is only a shade higher than the average crowds of just under 12,500 that have paid for tickets to see the New York Islanders at Barclays Center. In their second season in Brooklyn, the move from Long Island appears to be a full-on disaster, with the Isles’ suburban fans not terribly interested into the trek into the city (and back) and not enough bearded Brooklyn hipsters willing to pay for hockey tickets.'
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'The Islanders’ owners have reportedly been in discussions with the owners of the New York Mets about building a new arena in Queens, next to Citi Field. Perhaps the Islanders could play a few games a year at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan, just to continue the tour of New York City’s boroughs.
And in Arizona, the Glendale experiment seems to mercifully be grinding toward an end, with Coyotes ownership having announced plans last week for a new arena, shared with Arizona State University, to be built in Tempe. That would be the third different location for the Coyotes, who began life in downtown Phoenix before the amazingly ill-fated move to Glendale, which led to a bankruptcy and made the team a ward of the league for several seasons. The move to Tempe — which still has many hurdles related to arena financing because, surprise, it would involves hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money — makes a lot more sense than did the move to Glendale, but that the Coyotes are even trying to do it speaks to how terrible the team has done in the suburbs.'
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'There are still many reasons to be skeptical of Las Vegas as an NHL site, but the biggest question remains this: with so much uncertainty around the bottom end of its 30 markets, why add a 31st?'
Quote from the public by Adam Richardson
'Canadian/Northern US teams don't have that problem. But Bettman doesn't get it. If I wanted to sell cricket, I'd be going to India, not Antarctica.'
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Las Vegas (Vegas) will likely survive because the related arena business will do well in an entertainment center, even if the hockey business (Vegas Golden Knights) is a bad gamble.
Again, a real question is why more clubs are not in markets where there would be more franchise value (see Forbes' lists of franchise values). This is how all the other major sports do business.
Growing the sport by bringing in more paying National Hockey League fans in larger hockey markets, as opposed to trying to make new paying fans by growing the sport wishfully and hopefully in markets where hockey is not the most popular sport or even close. This works somewhat for a time with successful clubs. When mediocrity occurs a larger hockey market makes financial success more likely.
My theory is a unpopular one and non-politically correct, in the media and online. In general, United States owners, as the majority, prefer more domestic teams. Not clubs in a foreign country like Canada, besides the classic teams from Toronto and Montreal.
In Canada, the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens do not want competition in their markets. They wish to maintain monopoly and this prevents second clubs in Toronto/Hamilton or Montreal, even though both the Leafs and Habs, according to Forbes are worth over 1 billion dollars US each. Second clubs not likely to effect their profits, although it may put social and media pressure on them to be more successful on the ice.
Warning:
This You Tube has very bad 'hockey' language. I share this because there is little NHL affiliated media that will discuss the topic in these terms. This is from National Hockey insiders that are I would reason, no longer on the League payroll and are not, in the context, employed by NHL affiliated media. This recent video from October 26 provides an insider take on League politics. I need to see more evidence before I believe Markham (no arena) will ever be in the League, but Quebec City seems reasonable.
