Just say no to expansion
This week, reports have come out that the NHL is considering expanding to two more cities within the next five years. The most likely candidates? Las Vegas and Kansas City.
NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly confirmed that the league has been in discussions with powerful film and TV producer Jerry Bruckheimer about owning a franchise in Las Vegas, Sports Business Daily reported yesterday.
Bruckheimer, an avid hockey fan and producer of the Pirates of the Caribbean series, has put together an investment group to locate a team in Las Vegas, meaning the NHL would be the first pro league to settle in the gambling centre.
Daly said “no decisions have been made” and no official agreements are in place.
Las Vegas is one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States and Bruckheimer has Hollywood cachet that the NHL craves.
The MGM Grand Garden Arena, which has held L.A. Kings pre-season games, could be available as an interim home while Vegas builds a new arena.
I cringe at the thought of expansion. I feel that the 30 teams in the NHL is already too much at times and we’ve seen certain markets struggle financially (ie. Nashville Predators and Florida Panthers). Relocation? Yes, I think some markets could do better in different markets (ie. southern Ontario). Expansion would be a big mistake and could only further dilute the talent in this league.
Hey, instead of trying to fix the apathy in your current markets, why not add new ones. Las Vegas may be good news for Janet Gretzky and Rick Tocchet, but since the NHL can’t beat Law & Order reruns, what chance does it have against The Strip?
Look, if the league wants to further strangle itself with expansion, why not Chicago? It hasn’t had a team since Bill Wirtz disbanded the Blackhawks in the mid-1990s.
Only the NHL could even dream this stuff up. The league needs to contract, not expand. It needs to improve the product, not disperse the talent, dilute rivalries and provide another slap at the game’s tradition.
No offense to Vegas and KC, but we’ve seen this act before. The few million in expansion fees isn’t worth adding a couple more cities that aren’t all that interested in hockey, save the core of 10-15,000 fans who will still be paying attention once the novelty wears off.
How would an NHL team do in Las Vegas? Well, I don’t think it’d be the worst place to put a team. There is no pro sports team there (that I know of) so you might get sports fans visiting the city to attend these games. A team owner in Bruckheimer would definitely help get celebrities in the seats (and it also doesn’t hurt that it’s Vegas) and thus get in the press more often.
It would be interesting to see how players for a Vegas team operate in a party city like Vegas. I like that hockey players stay out of the headlines when it comes to partying, drugs, and poor behavior outside of the arena. Would we see some of this in Vegas with hockey players (whether the home or visiting teams)?
Another potential problem would be attendance at the games in Vegas. Casinos probably wouldn’t advertise these hockey games because that means less time for visitors spending money in their casinos. Now if the team had an arena built with/in a casino, that might be a bit better when it comes to drawing people.
Vegas isn’t a huge media market (only #51) and a lot of people actually working in Vegas have low incomes and couldn’t afford tickets to a game. Plus, the busiest time of day for Vegas workers is in the evening so they couldn’t even attend the games if they so desired.
As one sports banking source put it, Vegas is an “upside down” market. While much of North America works 9 to 5, the standard shift in Las Vegas is 5 p.m. to midnight.
“I don’t know, maybe they’re thinking afternoon games all the time would work,” the source said. It’s similarly doubtful visitors would be interested in hockey – or that casinos would help promote the sport. Every three hours at a game would mean less time for the tourist to play slots, roulette or baccarat.
“It’s always struck me as a city where people are coming and going, not necessarily a good hockey market,” said former New York Rangers president Bob Gutkowski. “Maybe it would take the focus off the NHL’s TV problem and it’d provide some cachet, glitz and glamour, but that doesn’t mean it’s a market that would sustain an NHL team.”
And how will the league deal with the betting and gambling that is prominent in the city of Las Vegas?
“In order for the NHL to ever have a franchise in Las Vegas, they’d have to build a new state-of-the-art arena in Las Vegas. We’re talking a couple years away, minimum,” said Daly, who confirmed Bruckheimer and others have been in discussions with the league for the past six months.
“We’ve actually talked to a lot of different individuals who have interest in a franchise in Las Vegas, and Jerry is one of them,” Daly said. “This is not just about Las Vegas. There’s been an expression of interest from a number of individuals and entities in a number of different markets, and we’ll update the (league’s) board (of governors) with those and try to chart a course on how to deal with those.”
The board is scheduled to meet on June 20 in New York.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said last week during the Stanley Cup Finals that the league isn’t interested in expansion or relocation at this time, but if that position changes, Daly said Las Vegas is a viable option.
“I think Las Vegas is a very attractive market,” Daly said. “But there are issues, with respect to gaming, the National Hockey League would have to address. That’s certainly something the board would have to consider, but this is all very premature, and that’s not something to discuss with the board at this point.”
Spector believes the only reason the NHL is considering expansion is for the expansion fees and he doesn’t believe that’s a good enough reason.
The league has enough potential relocation candidates to choose from, so why bloat the league further and spread the talent pool even thinner by adding two more teams?
Expansion fees.
It was the prime incentive behind the seemingly mindless expansion of the 1990s, where cities with people willing to pay the big bucks could step right up and buy themselves an NHL franchise, even in what is called “non-traditional hockey markets”.
Ten years ago, the going rate for an NHL franchise was $80 million. Today, it’s estimated at $150 million.
Those monies are spread amongst the existing franchises, and since they don’t count as revenue, go directly into the pockets of the owners.
In other words, it has nothing to do with “growing the NHL product”, with improving the NHL.
It’s a cash grab, plain and simple. Good ol’ fashioned greed.
And if those franchise can actually work out in their new cities, great. If not, well, they’ll just cross that bridge when they come to it. Always put off until tomorrow the disaster you could’ve prevented today. That’s the NHL’s motto.
And yes, I’m against expansion even if it meant a franchise in Winnipeg, or Quebec City, or Saskatoon, or Halifax. I don’t want to see the already watered-down NHL becoming even more diluted.
Let’s say two teams are added to the Western Conference. There would be a chance the Red Wings could move to the Eastern Conference, but they’d have to compete with the Predators (if they do move to southern Ontario) and the Columbus Blue Jackets. Unfortunately, Gary Bettman has this notion that Wings’ fans like being in the Western Conference and knows that the Wings are a big draw in attendance when they are on the road.
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One Response to “Just say no to expansion”
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June 11th, 2007 at 10:01 am
I’m sure Bettman wants to expand and screw up the league even more… remember, when things are bad, they can always get worse. Especially when Gary Bettman is the man in charge.
http://www.FireBettman.com