Quoting: Skyraider112
If Hamilton gets a team you can say goodbye to the Buffalo Sabres. Since 50% or more of ticket holders are people from Toronto, we won't get any of them anymore if Hamilton gets a team. I'd say the best places to expand if the league wants success are Quebec City, Regina, and a team in Wisconsin or another in Minnesota. They gotta expand to hockey markets, so Houston, Salt Lake, San Diego, New Orleans, Atlanta, etc are not good options imo. Quebec City is a no brainer. The rivarly between Montreal and Quebec City would trump all other rivalries in the NHL. If 70k fans show up to Saskatchewan Roughriders games consistently, Regina would have 0 problem filling up a NHL arena night in and night out. Most passionate sports fans in Canada are people from Saskatchewan if you ask me.
If the tiny amount of ppl in Saskatchewan can supposedly support an NHL team (idk that they can),
Then Southern Ontario / Western New York has WAY more than enough ppl to support 3 teams
Why do they need to focus on “hockey markets” exactly?
They’re doing well in Dallas, the closest city to Houston. And they had a successful minor league team there for years, with a currently successful one in the Austin area. Houston is the 3rd largest city in the US- it would be foolish NOT to expand there.
Also, there’s MANY more teams that are working in non-traditional markets then are failing.
Look how good Vegas & Tampa & Nashville are doing.
There’s a bunch of AHL teams doing well in Cali right now- including San Diego & the Bay Area. LA, Anaheim & San Jose have been very successful for years in Cali as well.
U don’t JUST need to fill the seats- u also need corporate sponsorships- and Cali, Texas & S.Ontario have so much more of that then small populations in Saskatchewan & Quebec City that u seem so sure about
And idk why KC wouldn’t work out as well, since hockey has been thriving in the Midwest now for decades- from Minnesota to Columbus to St.Louis (pretty close to KC) and down into Nashville & Texas.
The biggest issue with non traditional markets that haven’t worked tend to do with a lack of good ownership imo.
That’s a bigger obstacle than not having snow on the ground.
And so many northern hockey fans have moved down south, that there is a good base of fans in these bigger cities.
All those Sabres fans u see in Florida & Carolina & Nashville, etc etc at the games aren’t traveling from Buffalo, they live there already. And expansion into these markets has gone right many more times than it hasn’t.