Quoting: MisstheWhalers
This was the first season that they didn't sellout every home game.
The arena does suck, too small.
The economics of Winnipeg make me doubt the team can survive long term, didn't know they were losing money already though.
yeah I think there are just issues with keeping teams in small market areas.
You can get away with being in a small market....as long as there are other close by small markets around you.
Like WSH has the baltimore area and virginia around it, so it has a population well ove 1 million.
Boston has a large are of the NE around it, so it's population is over 1 million even if boston itself is only 7-600k or so.
There isn't really anything around WPG. I mean you have CGY but they have their own team.
In general I think you need two things to make it work. One is a large population of over 1 million people.
That helps in so many ways from TV to gate.
Which is really the next key for the NHL. To realize they need to get their TV contracts in line to the point that fan attendance doesn't matter.
Much like MLB, NFL and the NBA have done. They make so much off thet tv deals that gate sales don't mean ****.
The NBA average attendance is 17,875. The NHL is 17,456.
400 poeple per game isn't what is making or breaking the league.
It's the TV deals. They need to get their **** together and demand a lot more.
Their ratings are 313,000 average per game slowly raising. Where the NBA has been falling to 885,000 average per game.
Yet the NHL isn't taking in 1/3 of what the NBA is making and that needs to change.200 million a year vs 2.5 billion per year isn't working out.
They are owed a lot more. So that needs to get into the 800 million per year mark at the least.
Which means they need the 2nd thing with is to divirsify their contracts more and spead outwards more.
They can put games on atleast 2 networks. That's two big money deals on each.
**** these little local contracts. Yes they are important. But they should be going after more nationally aired games on bigger networks like ESPN. Which can hype the game.
They should also change game times more often to get an international market. People in europe like hockey. Early afternoon games on the weekend means Weekend hockey in Europe.
You get in two games a weekend for weeks on end. You will get paid.
They haven't really figured this out yet.