No Posts
There will be no posts on Thursday as I will be in Cincinnati, OH all day to see my orthopedic surgeon after I hurt my knee (again) at work two weekends ago and I’m in a lot of pain. I will be posting this weekend, but it’ll be lighter as I have four exams next week.
Update: Good news, I don’t need surgery. At least not yet. I just have severe pes anserine tendonitis and saphaneous neuritis (inflammation of the saphaneous nerve which runs along the inside of your knee) so I will be crutching around & taking steroidal medications. 
Thanks for the well wishes guys!
If I were a hockey player…
Jes Golbez at Hockey Rants started the meme “If I were a hockey player.” I was then tagged by PB at One Fan’s Perspective so here are my answers…
Team: Detroit Red Wings (b/c well, we have tradition and we’ve been a decent team since I’ve been alive)
Uniform Number: 26 (b/c my bday is 1/26)
Position: Right Wing
Nickname: Gimpy (yes, that’s not a very good hockey nickname, but it’s the only nickname I’ve ever had)
Dream Linemates: Steve Yzerman and Brendan Shanahan
Rounding out the Power Play: Nick Lidstrom and Scott Niedermayer
Job: Scoring the game winning goals (and making it onto highlight reels)
Signature Move: Getting a Gordie Howe hat trick every game (well, as much as possible)
Strengths: A Brett Hull-esque slapshot, Shanny’s sniper “powers,” and Yzerman’s perseverance
Weaknesses: Get caught up in the physicalities of the game. Other players know I like to talk in between plays and use that to distract me from my game. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention my 8 knee surgeries.
Equipment: I have to go with Jes on this one, a blue tinted visor like Ovechkin.
Nemeses: Patrick Roy, Chris Pronger
Scandal Involvement: Going around the locker room asking for autographs for my kids, but then keeping them for myself.
Who I’d Face in the Stanley Cup Finals: Toronto Maple Leafs
What I’d do with the Stanley Cup After Our Victory: Party, duh! And take it to the Detroit Children’s Hospital like Kris Draper did in 2002.
Would the Media Love Me or Hate Me: They’d love me. I have Brett Hull’s slapshot and I also have his big mouth- so I’m always giving the reporters great quotes for their columns.
Next Up: Any blogger who has yet to do it…
Good Business Decisions in the NHL
My last post was full on ranting and venting about the poor business decisions that the league has made over the years. After reading Paul Kukla’s post at NHL.com, I would like to address the good decisions that this league has made.
This post may take a couple days before it gets uploaded as I have a lot of school work to do, but I wanted to open it up to the BtJ readers and see what you guys thought have been good decisions made by the NHL over the past 15 years.
Business Decisions in the NHL
This semester, I’m taking both Economics 101 and Sport Management 203 (Intro to Sport Business) among other classes at the University of Michigan. My SM 203 professor has taken shots at the NHL every single class (we meet Mon, Wed, and Fri). He doesn’t have a problem with the sport mind you, just that it has now become a mid-major sport in his eyes because of the league’s decisions. Of course it doesn’t help with the business decisions that the league has made of late, but when you actually look at the NHL and compare it with the other three leagues it really opens your eyes.
I’m a huge hockey fan as you all know. I wouldn’t be running a blog covering the Red Wings if I wasn’t passionate about the team and the sport. I got to say that I’ve realized how far behind the NHL is in comparison to the other leagues (NFL, MLB, and NBA) since I started taking this class. Before this year, I knew that the NHL wasn’t on the same level as the other three leagues but I had not realized that it had gotten this bad.
Yes, the league is now making money after the lockout, but I think the NHL could be doing a lot better than they are right now. This post will essentially consist of me ranting about poor decisions the NHL has made recently and over the past 14 years (yes, during commissioner Gary Bettman’s reign).
Anyone who doesn’t think hockey can work in America is forgetting this era [the early 1990s]. All of a sudden, hockey was challenging, if not beating, the NBA in a number of major U.S. markets – including New York. It’s almost impossible to imagine now, but it happened.
As the conspiracy theory goes, Stern sensed the potential trouble in 1993 while the NHL was in search of a new commissioner. So he looked around his own office for someone so incompetent that if they got the job, the NHL would be marginalized by their mismanagement and never again be a threat to the NBA.
Naturally, Stern recommended one of his assistants, Gary Bettman, for the job.
True story or not, it worked.
The list of bad ideas…
Note: These bad ideas (in my opinion) are not in any particular order.
1) Moving the All-Star game to a weeknight.
Sure the primetime tends to draw more ratings, but when your game is shown on Versus AND going against American Idol, the most popular TV show in America, it’s not such a smart idea. While the ASG ratings for the 2007 game initially sounded like an improvement, when you compare it to prior years (the last ASG was before the lockout in 2004) you will find out that the ratings sucked.
This year’s ASG brought in a 0.7 rating, which is about 474,298 viewing homes and 672,948 total viewers. Compared to the Versus’ programming average rating of 0.2, it was a 250% increase which sounds all nice and dandy. However, the 2004 ASG drew in 1.985 million viewers on ABC. That is a huge drop in ratings over three years. Personally, I think there still would have been a big drop in the ratings even if the ASG had remained on the weekend, but it probably wouldn’t have been this bad.
2) Staying with Versus.
First mistake, the NHL decided to sign a contract with Versus instead of ESPN following the lockout in 2005. The reasons? Versus would be able to give the NHL the coverage and care it felt it deserved. Plus, Versus was going to pay a lot more than ESPN. ESPN wasn’t going to offer a lot of money because the NHL ratings were so low (even worse than poker, a non-sport) and they believed that the NHL’s product did not warrant a bigger offer. Obviously I have the advantage of hindsight, but I think the league would have been much better off with a smaller TV deal with ESPN than their current one with Versus.
I’m one of those people that believe ESPN has gotten worse over the years and covers more entertainment crap than actual sports. However, I do believe that ESPN is critical to a sport’s success. When you can’t advertise on ESPN (and I’m assuming ABC as well since they are owned by the same company), you have a problem. When ESPN barely showcases the NHL in SportsCenter, you have a problem.
Now that the NHL and Versus have extended their deal into 2011, it’s going to be incredibly hard to return to ESPN. If and when they do, that TV deal is going to be quite small but it will provide the league with the necessary exposure to succeed in the sporting world. According to James Mirtle, it appears that the league really didn’t have a choice in the matter.
The interesting thing is that the decision was entirely in Versus’ hands, as the fledgling network had the option to decide how long they wanted to be the NHL’s broadcaster regardless of ratings and/or the number of subscribers.
It appears Gary Bettman’s plans to expand the league’s television footprint in the U.S. rests solely with Versus’ ability to attract new subscribers, something that seems questionable at best. You have to wonder if this means four more years of miniscule ratings like those reported from last week’s all-star game.
The only good thing about Versus is that the NHL and the Tour de France (a cycling race which happens in July) are their two main draws to their station so they are willing to put a lot of money and time for those two sports/events. According to the Sports Business Daily, Comcast “is contracted to spend $20[M] worth of promotion per year on the league.”
3) Staying status quo with the schedule.
I’ve made my feelings on the current schedule well known over the past year, but I had to mention it in this list.
The column I linked to at the beginning of this post had this to say about the current schedule and the new rivalries it was supposed to create:
Bettman claimed it would spawn “new” rivalries. Of course, old rivalries such as Detroit-Toronto – two hockey-mad towns separated by a single highway that actually has an exit for Wayne Gretzky Blvd. – no longer play a home-and-home series each season. It’s like killing Red Sox-Yankees so Blue Jays-Diamondbacks might catch on.
4) League expansion in the 1990s.
One of the league’s biggest mistakes, in my opinion, was allowing the dramatic expansion in the 1990s. From 1991 through 2001, the NHL added nine teams. During the same time, the NBA added two teams while the MLB and NFL added four.
Five of the nine NHL expansion teams in that time frame brought in only $50 million each as their franchise fee. The other four (Nashville, Atlanta, Minnesota, and Columbus) had $80 million as their franchise fee. This doesn’t seem too bad, but then you compare to the expansion fees in the other three big leagues.
When the MLB added Colorado and Florida in 1993, it cost the new team owners $95 million each. Only a short time later when the league expanded to Arizona and Tampa Bay, the expansion fee jumped to $130 million.
The NBA only allowed two teams to enter the league in the 1990s. Both Vancouver and Toronto joined in 1995 after each paid $125 million expansion fees.
Now we all realize that the NFL is a different beast in the sense that it’s TV contracts are so much better than the rest of the leagues allowing demand for teams to rapidly increase. In 1995, the NFL allowed Carolina and Jacksonville to join the league at the cost of $140 million. In 1999, Cleveland paid $530 million to become an NFL franchise. When Houston joined the league in 2001, they paid a whopping $700 million. Wow.
One of BtJ’s readers, Chris at the Checking Line, brought up a very valid point that many of those expansions had been agreed upon before Bettman came into play.
Contrary to popular belief, Bettman did not expand to Florida or California. The league had made the decision to expand to 26 teams before he became commissioner. Under Bettman’s watch, the league has only expanded to Minnesota, Columbus, Nashville, and Atlanta. Both Minnesota and Columbus are looking to be good markets while that remains to be seen in Nashville and Atlanta. You can’t expect these new hockey markets to support their teams after 8 seasons like markets that have been established for years. Oh, and the Board of Governers approves expansion.
After being appropriately corrected, I changed my bad idea #4 from Gary Bettman to quick league expansion. I still don’t like Bettman and believe there has to be someone out there better for the job, but the expansion cannot be entirely blamed on Bettman.
Chuqui at Two for Elbowing also has her thoughts on Bettman’s reign as commissioner and how it hasn’t been as bad as we like to think.
John Ziegler ran the league from 1977 to 1992 (and left in disgrace). Gil Stein from 1992-1993. Gary Bettman arrived in June, 1993.
Average attendance per game in 1992-93, the year before Bettman arrived, was 14,046, a total attendance of 14 million.
Average attendance per game in 2005-2006 was 16,954, total attendance 20.8 million.
This “disaster” (to use Tom’s infamous “quotes”) is an 18% increase in attendance per game, and a total attendance increase of 6 million bodies, since he took over the league.
End of my rant…
I would like to thank everyone who has commented thus far and I encourage any readers to share their viewpoints. Even if it’s proving my faulty logic, I appreciate it and a healthy debate can only help improve my knowledge of economics and sport business.
Michigan Hockey article
How perfect is it that my first article for the Michigan Hockey publication came out in the Steve Yzerman commemorative edition? It’s funny how my life works that way. Anyways, it was pretty cool to see my article, albeit a short one, in something other than my high school paper and the Internet.
For those of you who don’t know, I recently became an intern there so I get to cover youth hockey events for the paper. My next two assignments are on February 10th and 11th. On the 10th, I’ll be covering some event going on for Hockey Day in Michigan before I have to work the Plymouth Whalers game later in the day. On the 11th, I get to cover the Jeff Bourne Classic, which is a charity game played between the University of Michigan alumni and the Detroit Red Wings alumni- maybe Probert will show up like he did this past Saturday.
Anyways, I didn’t mean to go on but I thought it was so cool and funny that my first article was in my hero’s special issue.
I guess I should note that the article did not make the website because only the big stories do. Sorry!
Posting
There will be no posts until Sunday at the earliest as I will be busy either (1) celebrating my 20th birthday tomorrow, (2) going to classes, and (3) working the Plymouth Whalers’ game on Friday and Saturday. Have a great weekend guys and go Wings!
Yzerman to become Team Canada GM
Nothing is official yet, but it’s looking like Steve Yzerman will be named GM for Team Canada in the 2007 World Championship tournament in Russia. If that goes well, look for him to take on the 2010 Olympic management role as well.
The recently-retired superstar, who is now a vice-president with the Detroit Red Wings, has had several conversations about the job with Hockey Canada President Bob Nicholson. Hockey Canada wants Yzerman to do it. Yzerman, by all accounts, is extremely keen and when he returns from a ski vacation in Colorado, he and Nicholson are expected to nail down the final details and make it official.
Yzerman is said to be very excited to try his hand at managing in a hands-on role and Hockey Canada likes the idea of bringing another Canadian hockey icon into its fold, just as it did when it named Wayne Gretzky the executive director of the 2002 Olympic team.
Congrats to Stevie Y!
NHL schedule won’t change
I am still on a break from blogging, for the most part, because my knee is killing me and I need a short break.
However, I had to mention that the NHL Board of Governors met and the current schedule is going to last for another season at least.
Last time the BOG met, the proposal to revert back to the pre-lockout schedule was just short of approval (you need a two-thirds majority vote) by one vote. Today, 19 of 30 members voted for a change in the schedule. The proposal needed 20 votes.
So in a span of just under a month and a half, not a single person changed their mind (or if they did, it didn’t affect the total votes for or against the proposal). I don’t understand how the media and fans can complain so much about the schedule over the past month and nothing changes.
Ugh. I hate the current schedule. Hate it. I hate playing every one in our division 8 times. Even if they were all fantastic teams, you don’t need to play any team that much. For more on my opinion on the topic, you can read a paper I wrote for my English class last semester here.
What are your guys’ thoughts on this decision?
All-Star Break
NHL players are getting some time off during the All-Star Break and I am too. Between being sick, hurting my knee at work so now I’m limping all the time, and school, it is a good time to take a needed break. I’ll probably post something about the All-Star game, but expect regular posts to return next weekend.
Thanks!
Yzerman Contest Winners
I would like to congratulate Chris on winning the replica banner and commemorative player card set that was given out on Yzerman’s jersey retirement ceremony AND the SI Steve Yzerman Commemorative Edition. Once I get the address of the winner, I will mail out their prizes!
I had 41 entries, numbered 1 through 41 in a folder within my inbox. I then went to random.org and filled in the correct information. It then generated two randomly selected numbers between 1 and 41. The first number won the “grand prize” and the second number won the “runner up prize.”
The first number was 28 and the second number was 33.
#28 belongs to Chris out of northern Deleware. Congrats!
#33 belongs to Melissa who lives in New Brunswick, Canada! She won a copy of the SI Steve Yzerman commemorative edition!
I’d like to thank all participants for entering this contest and I hope you all agreed that the winners were decided randomly and fairly.