The NHL, one season removed from it's 3rd work stoppage in under 20 years, has allegedly decided to add four teams. Howard Bloom of Sports Business News reported last week that the four alleged expansion cities are Quebec City, Toronto, Seattle and Las Vegas. Four expansion teams would have to pony up $1.4 billion in expansion fees. One. Point. Four. Billion. Dollars! Do you know how much of that ungodly sum would have to be split with the players union? ZERO. The owners carve it up amongst themselves like a Thanksgiving turkey. Would the NHL as a whole benefit? Doubtful. Will the owners pocket tens of millions of dollars? Absolutely! That's why it is going to happen. Make no mistake. Money is the only reason why there may be expansion.
Sweet cold cash.
Now, there are a couple of articles on this subject that are written by professionals and use actual statistics to make their point. I encourage people to read them. Now the NHL denies this but think about it for second, the NHL has labor peace until 2017-18 and the league is flourishing right now. Two main reasons why they are allegedly thinking about it.
Here's why I think NHL expansion is a dumb idea. There are currently 30 teams with 16 teams in the Eastern Conference and 14 teams in the Western Conference. Of the four teams mentioned, Seattle and Vegas would go into the West and Toronto and Quebec going to the Eastern Conference. That comes the conferences would have an 18/16 split. It's possible the NHL could move Detroit back to the West but two seventeen team conferences sound stupid. Again, this is all speculation.
One of the articles I referenced above is form fivethirtyeight.com and they're stats say that a team in Las Vegas is a bad idea man. Vegas was the fastest growing city in the U.S. until the economic bubble burst in 2008. I like Vegas. Lots of people love Vegas. In short bursts. Vegas is a tourist town and the regular people who live there usually work more than one job and the hours are not conducive to a 7pm start. Plus there's so much competition for your entertainment dollar in Vegas that I just don't believe that the NHL can wriggle into a top slot. Regardless of any state of the art arena they build there, I have my doubts as to how many season ticket packages they can sell. Vegas is a great venue for an all-star weekend but I just don't believe that the city can support a team.
I have my doubts about Seattle as well. Sure the city is still bitter about how things went down with the Super Sonics leaving town and they were robbed. But Seattle already has the Mariners and the Seahawks. Allegedly there's a core of NHL fans that occasionally venture into Vancouver to catch Canucks games but in the few times I've been to Seattle, I've never seen anyone who wore any type of NHL paraphernalia. Seattle never seemed to care about the NHL for decades, now all of sudden it's a viable market? I don't buy it. Seattle has had a history of pro hockey from 1944-1975 and there an attempt bring the franchise into the NHL but it never came to fruition and the NHL told Seattle to go f*ck themselves (allegedly) when the Seattle contingency couldn't get financing. Does Seattle even have a venue? One of the reasons the Sonics bolted for OKC was the Key Arena was a bad arena. The city put a lot of financing into the Seahawks and Mariners so how much is left? Sorry Seattle.
As for the Canadian cities, if Toronto can support a 2nd team then why not. Now Quebec had the Nordiques from 1980-1995 before moving to Denver to become the Avalanche and winning the Stanley Cup in 1996 and 2001 (that had to hurt).
The Nordiques were one of the four teams that came over from the WHA in the merger in 1979 along with the Oilers, Jets (now the Coyotes) and the Whalers (now the Hurrincaes). After the Oilers, the Nordiques were probably the 2nd best team from the merger winning the division in 1986 and 1995 (both seasons yielded 1st round playoff exits) and going all the way to the Wales Conference Finals in 1982 and 1985. What sunk the Nordiques (as well as the Jets) was the weak Canadian dollar. All the Canadian teams make Canadian money but they pay the players in American money and that led to the sale of the team and the move to Denver. The Nordiques had a real good rivalry with the Canadiens, they played each other 4 times in the playoffs and played to a draw. They had some interesting moments like this...
It was a different time.
If Quebec City can support a team, which it looks like they can, then let them have a team. Let's be honest, I always thought their uniforms were pretty cool too...
What can I say, I dig the fleur de lis.
The other major concern is the dilution of the talent pool. To me, there's already too much mediocrity. Adding more teams will mean that mediocrity can become too high a bar. Do you think that the hockey fans in Toronto want 2 lousy to mediocre teams? I doubt that (although the Leafs looked like they were turning things around in 2013 before losing a game 7 to the Bruins then missing the playoffs this last season). If Vegas and Seattle stink, how long will those franchises last? Sure the potential for $1.4 billion is probably too much to pass up but it will hurt the league in the long run (being the expert financial sports franchise analyst that I am). There are teams that aren;t in very good financial waters now. The Coyotes were propped up by the league since 2009 (the team went bankrupt) before recently finding a new ownership group. Though the consensus is that the group is looking to bolt from Phoenix as soon as possible.
A lot of other teams have had problems, the Islanders were poorly mismanaged for nearly two decades. Charles Wang finally sold the team and they're moving out of the wretched Nassau Coliseum into the Barclay's Center in Brooklyn for net season. They were so poorly run at some point, flim-flam man John Spano was briefly the owner of the team before he got indicted for fraud. The Ottawa Senators have problems in the past as they couldn't meet payroll. Though the franchise has turned itself around over the last few years.
It's a bad idea. If the NHL expands they owners and players will run into the same problems they had in 2004 and in 2012. I guess being a billionaire means never being wrong. Of course, the NHL denies such a thing is taking place but you know the owners are thinking about it. Thank you for your time.
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