NHL Hockey thread

[Barrister]

The team is out of the city in 3 more years when Vegas has it's arena ready.

So in year, 17-18 of a 20 year deal that was nullify by the other party in year 5.

Vegas is ready to go in fall 2016.

It's only a 15 year in Glendale BTW.

[Grey Fox]

For the 100th anniversary of the league!

[Sophie Scholl]

Comets lost the Calder Cup, but it was an amazing run and an amazing experience for the city of Utica.  I think the players and coaches thoroughly enjoyed it as well.  The Canucks even jumped in on the action and sent a lot of representatives around town.  A ton of current and former players hit up games, too.  So much fun.  Maybe next year...

[Syt]

[Grey Fox]

Why is a English language Korean newspaper reporting on the NHL?!

[viper37]

NHL expansion announced.  Vegas is a sure bet, even for the most non gambler people.

Quebec City, Markham, Seattle are other possibilities.

Only Quebec City has an arena fit for NHL standards.

However, the team won't be playing until 3 years from now, wich gives time to other teams to get the arena built, worst case, play 1 year in an older/shared arena.

With the current imbalance, adding two teams in the West would be perfect for the NHL.  Will they receive 2 bets from the West?  Your guess is a good as mine.

Harper says Quebec city is the best Canadian city to get a new hockey team.  IN YOUR FACE ONTARIO!!!!  He just gained my vote (wich was the objective)

At this point, 2 things can happen:
- Quebecor submits a token bid, to appear as if they really want to bring back hockey to Quebec city.  They submit a price lower than what the NHL will expect, so that they can shift the blame on the NHL
- The NHL receives an interesting proposal from Quebec city, but prefers to expand for 2 teams in the West instead, with larger markets.

Crunching the numbers, it gives 500 million$ for the team, 100 million$ to set up the management.  Then there are operating costs.  Even if they get the arena for free (I hope no one in Quebec city ever expected them to pay 6M$/year for the arena...), they have to pay somewhere around 60M$ in players wage every year.  Plus all the management they require.  And it will be 5-6, more likely 10 years of misery with 3rd rate players just good enough for the American League, players that nobody wants in their roster.

A full arena is close to 18 000 places.  At 150$ per place on average, it gives 2,7M$ per local game, if every single place is sold out.  Realistically, on average, we should expect 70% fill rate, paying places (often, teams give away tickets, for promotional purpose, or to try to book their seats for non popular games, like say, buy a ticket for Nashville and we'll give you a ticket for Florida.  Even Montreal does this.

So, that makes us 75,6M$ per year in gross revenues.  60 million$ is substracted for the players (I know the minimum is 52M$, but by the time there's a team, the cap and min will have increased to at last 55M$ and no team really competes at the absolute minimum).  That leaves us 15,6M$/year to play with.  We need to pay the management team (coaches, GM and all other staff).  We need to pay the arena staff, wich, granted, isn't the highest cost here.

Quebecor is steadily losing ground (well, shareholder's value) evern since PKP took over.  They won't be in a better position 3 years from now than they are today.  And that's with some form public funding for most of their operations.

So that means a net loss for Quebecor with the Nordiques alone.  However, it means they will have content for their sport networks.  My Nordiques will be as kétaine as the Habs have become

[Valmy]

Surely tickets do not comprise a club's revenues on their own.

[Barrister]

NHL expansion announced.  Vegas is a sure bet, even for the most non gambler people.

Quebec City, Markham, Seattle are other possibilities.

Only Quebec City has an arena fit for NHL standards.

However, the team won't be playing until 3 years from now, wich gives time to other teams to get the arena built, worst case, play 1 year in an older/shared arena.

With the current imbalance, adding two teams in the West would be perfect for the NHL.  Will they receive 2 bets from the West?  Your guess is a good as mine.

Harper says Quebec city is the best Canadian city to get a new hockey team.  IN YOUR FACE ONTARIO!!!!  He just gained my vote (wich was the objective)

At this point, 2 things can happen:
- Quebecor submits a token bid, to appear as if they really want to bring back hockey to Quebec city.  They submit a price lower than what the NHL will expect, so that they can shift the blame on the NHL
- The NHL receives an interesting proposal from Quebec city, but prefers to expand for 2 teams in the West instead, with larger markets.

Crunching the numbers, it gives 500 million$ for the team, 100 million$ to set up the management.  Then there are operating costs.  Even if they get the arena for free (I hope no one in Quebec city ever expected them to pay 6M$/year for the arena...), they have to pay somewhere around 60M$ in players wage every year.  Plus all the management they require.  And it will be 5-6, more likely 10 years of misery with 3rd rate players just good enough for the American League, players that nobody wants in their roster.

A full arena is close to 18 000 places.  At 150$ per place on average, it gives 2,7M$ per local game, if every single place is sold out.  Realistically, on average, we should expect 70% fill rate, paying places (often, teams give away tickets, for promotional purpose, or to try to book their seats for non popular games, like say, buy a ticket for Nashville and we'll give you a ticket for Florida.  Even Montreal does this.

So, that makes us 75,6M$ per year in gross revenues.  60 million$ is substracted for the players (I know the minimum is 52M$, but by the time there's a team, the cap and min will have increased to at last 55M$ and no team really competes at the absolute minimum).  That leaves us 15,6M$/year to play with.  We need to pay the management team (coaches, GM and all other staff).  We need to pay the arena staff, wich, granted, isn't the highest cost here.

Quebecor is steadily losing ground (well, shareholder's value) evern since PKP took over.  They won't be in a better position 3 years from now than they are today.  And that's with some form public funding for most of their operations.

So that means a net loss for Quebecor with the Nordiques alone.  However, it means they will have content for their sport networks.  My Nordiques will be as kétaine as the Habs have become

Why would you expect a 70% attendance rate?

Look at the attendance rates for Canadian franchises:

Vancouver: 98.9%
Calgary: 99%
Edmonton: 100%
Winnipeg: 100.2%
Toronto: 101.3%
Ottawa: 95.3%
Montreal: 100.1%

http://espn.go.com/nhl/attendance

They already get the arena: not for free, but for $3-5 mil per year.  That deal's already been signed - and it's well beneath fair market value.

And you're forgetting that each franchise gets a share of the TV rights, and that TVA will be required to pay fair market value to the team for its regional rights.  Plus advertising, merchandising...

Nordiques 2.0 will be fine.

[viper37]

Surely tickets do not comprise a club's revenues on their own.

no, of course not.
There are revenues from sales of derivated products (jerseys, caps, etc), advertising revenues and profit sharing schemes from the NHL.
TV rights go the NHL wich shares it with the team on a an unknown basis, I think.

Jerseys&other stuff, sales are gonna be very low.  This is the Nordiques, we are talking about, they will be popular in Quebec city and eastern Quebec, north&south shore, two very poor and lowly populated areas.  Montreal still gets 50% of the hockey fans just by existing in Montreal, then they compete with the Nordiques for everything else.

Advertising revenues.  Well, see, the Nordiques, and the Videotron center, despite belonging to the same entity will, in all likelyhood, be two different organizations.  Easy to screw things up to make the Nordiques unprofitable and avoir giving the city 6M$/year.  By their contract with the city, they pay a rent according to the profit they make.  If they make 6M$ or more in net profits at the end of the year, they pay 6M$ to the city.  If they make less, they pay less, up to 0$/year.

Profit sharing.  Depending on how the accounting is done, either the Nordiques pay a share of their revenus to American teams, or they receive payment.  If they receive payment, they'll probably exclude it from their hockey operation income.  If they have to pay it, they'll include it in their expenses.

Back when we had the Nordiques, the team was in deficit every year.  And they had 19-20M$ at most to pay to players, in their best years.  Of course, there's a huge difference between paying 19M$ wages when the other teams spend 90M$ and paying 60M$ when the others are paying 75M$.  That means more competitive teams.  Still, that's a lot of money upfront.

We've always been told that the Montreal Canadians, one of the most successful franchise in the NHL breaks even at the end of the season and makes money during the playoffs.  The Nordiques might be making the playoffs the first year, but are unlikely to reach that far for the next 5-6 years.

[Barrister]

Back when we had the Nordiques, the team was in deficit every year.

Times have changed.

Back in the 90s you could buy a ticket to a Jets game for $10 at 7-11, and they rarely sold out.

Now, the average price is around $100, and they've sold out every game since coming back.

[viper37]

Why would you expect a 70% attendance rate?

Because a lot of tickets are given for free, as I said.  It happenned in the past, and it is still happening with other franchises.

Look at the attendance rates for Canadian franchises:
Winnipeg: 100.2%
Toronto: 101.3%
Montreal: 100.1%[/quote]
I'm surprised.  Winnipeg does better than Montreal, but less than Toronto.  Wow.

They already get the arena: not for free, but for $3-5 mil per year.  That deal's already been signed - and it's well beneath fair market value.

Actually, it's 6M$ if they have an NHL team playing there.  But it's contingent on the profit of the Videotron Center.  If they lose money, they don't have anything to pay.

And you're forgetting that each franchise gets a share of the TV rights, and that TVA will be required to pay fair market value to the team for its regional rights.  Plus advertising, merchandising...
Nordiques 2.0 will be fine.

I hope so.  I must be a pessimist by nature.  Or simply don't trust PKP anymore.

[Barrister]

Because a lot of tickets are given for free, as I said.  It happenned in the past, and it is still happening with other franchises.

Look at the attendance rates for Canadian franchises:
Winnipeg: 100.2%
Toronto: 101.3%
Montreal: 100.1%
I'm surprised.  Winnipeg does better than Montreal, but less than Toronto.  Wow.

  I've never heard of tickets being handed out for free.  I mean, I'm sure the teams comp a few tickets for friends and family of players and what not, but that's not very many tickets.

And at those silly 100+% numbers, it's all in how they count attendance.  Essentially, other than Ottawa, Canadian NHL teams sell out every game.

[Sophie Scholl]

If the NHL is anything like every other sporting league from college to pros I've ever read about, there is major book cooking going on every single year to make their profits into "losses" or "break even" numbers.

[Barrister]

If the NHL is anything like every other sporting league from college to pros I've ever read about, there is major book cooking going on every single year to make their profits into "losses" or "break even" numbers.

Oh, I'm sure there is.

[Grey Fox]

While the NHL is still a attendance driven league, the 1990s Nordiques didnot have the benefit of revenue sharing & 2 massive National TV deals.

I really wish the NHL would do away with region based conferences/division & go the way of NFL/MLB instead.