By Mike Brophy
Hockey Columnist
SPORTSNET.CA
Just because the NHL’s board of governors didn’t discuss expansion at its annual pre-season meeting in Toronto Tuesday does not mean the subject is a dead issue.
The NHL’s deputy commissioner Bill Daly told Hockeycentral@Noon Wednesday, “Our focus is on getting healthy in the markets we are in.”
Yet talk of expansion will not go away.
Why, you might ask, would a league with so many teams on shaky ground and losing money, take on more teams and locate in yet another non-traditional hockey market? The answer is simple: greed!
Current owners cannot see beyond the supposed $300 million the league would get from Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer and friends to allow them to put a team in Las Vegas. That works out to $10 million per team. And if the NHL expands by two more teams, bringing Kansas City into the fold for a second time, it means more money coming the owners’ way.
For teams that lose money year after year it is awfully tempting.
And now that a group that wanted to build an arena in Las Vegas that could house an NBA team has backed off, it is an opportunity for the NHL to become the first major sports league to put a team there. That, too, is tempting.
But would it work? And more importantly, what will owners be left with after they deposit their share of the expansion fees into the bank accounts? I’ll tell you what: a further watered-down product and two more teams on shaky ground from the moment of inception.
They can get in line behind Phoenix, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Florida and Atlanta. Even Tampa Bay, which generated a lot of buzz with new ownership and an aggressive rebuilding program this summer, isn’t out of the woods in terms of being able to generate a profit.
Somehow I don’t see too many people who visit Las Vegas putting an NHL hockey game on their agenda. Sure the casinos could jump on board and buy up all the tickets and then give them away to their patrons, but giving people free tickets and then getting them out of the casinos and into a hockey arena are two different things. That would put a lot of pressure on the Las Vegas High Rollers, or whatever they are called, to attract locals.
Las Vegas has a population of 1.1 million with more than 1.4 million residing in Clark County. Ten or 11 of them are said to be die-hard hockey fans.
I guess you could hope and pray fans from successful hockey markets might make an annual trip to Vegas each year to see their favourite team play. Fans from the Canadian-based teams along with some of the established American-based teams could make a winter retreat to Vegas for some fun in the sun along with gambling and a hockey game. But it’s hard to imagine fans from the league’s weak sister franchise doing the same.
And what about the economy? With the stock market taking a tumble and gas prices soaring, people’s disposable income is shrinking.
If you told me the NHL was thinking about granting an Ontario-based city a franchise, I might feel more comfortable about its chances of succeeding. But even that announcement would be taken with a grain of salt. The NHL’s six Canadian-based franchises have been keeping the league afloat since the lockout ended mainly because our dollar was on par or at least close to the almighty American dollar. But even that is changing.
As Montreal Canadiens president Pierre Boivin told sportsnet.ca Tuesday: “We have no problem with the (Canadian) dollar at 93 or 94 cents, but if it drops seven or eight cents then it becomes a huge problem.”
There is no indication the loonie is set to go up anytime soon.
The salary cap was supposed to save the day for teams struggling to make a buck, but as we enter the fourth year of the cap world, it is abundantly clear it has failed. Some teams that couldn’t keep up with the big spends in the pre-cap world now are forced to pay more than they want just to hit the floor, never mind even dreaming of hitting the ceiling.
I believe Daly when he says expansion is not a front burner issue for the NHL at this moment. However, I also believe sources that insist it is a front burner issue for some of the league’s powerful movers and shakers. And if the owners want another one-time cash grab, well, all we have to do is look at the league’s most recent expansions to understand it will happen no matter how slim the new team’s chances of survival.
Mike Brophy writes on hockey regularly for sportsnet.ca
