NHL Anti-Thread: Bad Business Decision Aggregator

[IceCap]

1 hour ago, gosioux76 said:

Personally, I'd love to see additional Canadian expansion, particularly to Quebec City. Long overdue. And like with Winnipeg, I think the game would be well-served by returning to the markets it abandoned in the '90s. (Saskatoon is less than half the size of Winnipeg, in terms of population, so while it works as a metaphorical example, it falls short in about every other metric that matters.)

You missed the joke.

Of course Saskatoon isn't viable, but Atlanta's previous NHL teams left for Calgary and Winnipeg. So if we're doing Atlanta again then... well... what other Canadian Prairie towns are left?

 

1 hour ago, gosioux76 said:

The fact that Winnipeg got the Jets back is a miracle, and one that I would be surprised to ever see repeated. 

Well there are a few things to unpack here. First is that it wasn't so much a miracle as much as it was a Canadian billionaire with ties to the Canadian financial world basically saying "I can buy your ass ten times over Gary, mess with my move to Winnipeg and I'll shut you out of every financial institution in English Canada, aka the NHL's most consistently valuable market."

 

Secondly, if you want to count that as a miracle go right ahead, but it was one the NHL should be glad for. Despite @spartacat_12's bad faith selective argument that as good as Winnipeg's return has gone they're only the league's 27th most valuable team, we need to look at the numbers that really matter. The Jets' value against the Thrashers.

Now @the admiral is right. The Clippers being sold for way above market value inflated EVERYONE, so I won't be using the value of the Jets today against the Thrashers' last season. But I will look at the last Thrashers season vs the first Jets 2.0 season.

 

The Atlanta Thrashers were worth $135 million in 2010.

The Winnipeg Jets were worth $164 million in 2011.

 

Just one year removed, the only change being that they moved to a smaller city with a smaller economic base, and their value went up by $29 million.

 

Maybe that's not a lot when talking about the money involved in pro sports, even by early 2010s $ values, but Winnipeg's entire metro area has 12% of the population Atlanta does. That the franchise's value even rose at all after the move tells you how much more valuable Winnipeg as than Atlanta when it comes to being a hockey market.

Of course I'm repeating myself. I already covered this here. Over a year ago. I understand this is an ongoing topic that goes back a ways (a true testament to this league's own self destructive nature) but spartacat just ignoring facts that are inconvenient to his narrative and then hiding behind the thread's length to pretend they were never presented in the first place is lame.

 

But anyway there you go. And it's why this...

 

1 hour ago, gosioux76 said:

But you know that there's almost certainly someone, somewhere in the league offices who believes that the upside of Atlanta is so strong that even making it a moderate success would reap more benefits for the league than a return to Quebec City. It really isn't even about "sunbelt vs. canada." It's about finding a way to crack the 8th largest metropolitan area and the home to some of the nation's biggest consumer-facing corporate brands and potential sponsors.

... is a load of

I don't mean to come off as harsh, I'm just tired of rehashing the same stuff to people who think they're being clever.

"iF AtLaNtA cAn WoRk..."

 

Yeah. I get it. If Atlanta or Phoenix Glendale Tempe(?) or Miami or whatever suburban hell the Hurricanes play in can work then the potential value outstrips places like Quebec City and Winnipeg and bla bla bla. You haven't cracked the code the rest of us are too dumb to get. We've been having this conversation for literal decades at this point. And the "low floor/high ceiling" stuff starts to ring hollow when you apply it to a market like Arizona that's been a money pit for twenty-seven years or Atlanta that's lost two teams by this point.

 

The NHL has found success with that formula by the way. Dallas worked. Tampa worked. Nashville worked, as annoying as their fans are. But not every experiment will have a 100% success rate and the NHL is very much leaving money on the table chasing after failed markets like Atlanta and Arizona while Quebec City is right there.

[IceCap]

5 minutes ago, IceCap said:

Well there are a few things to unpack here. First is that it wasn't so much a miracle as much as it was a Canadian billionaire with ties to the Canadian financial world basically saying "I can buy your ass ten times over Gary, mess with my move to Winnipeg and I'll shut you out of every financial institution in English Canada, aka the NHL's most consistently valuable market."

And before someone gets uppity about me calling Canada the NHL's most valuable market...

The current NHL tv deal in Canada with Rogers is worth $5.232 billion.

The current NHL tv deal in the United States, a country that dwarfs Canada in terms of population and economic strength, is worth $1 billion.

[gosioux76]

10 minutes ago, IceCap said:

I don't mean to come off as harsh, I'm just tired of rehashing the same stuff to people who think they're being clever.

"iF AtLaNtA cAn WoRk..."

 

Yeah. I get it. If Atlanta or Phoenix Glendale Tempe(?) or Miami or whatever suburban hell the Hurricanes play in can work then the potential value outstrips places like Quebec City and Winnipeg and bla bla bla. You haven't cracked the code the rest of us are too dumb to get. We've been having this conversation for literal decades at this point. And the "low floor/high ceiling" stuff starts to ring hollow when you apply it to a market like Arizona that's been a money pit for twenty-seven years or Atlanta that's lost two teams by this point.

 

The NHL has found success with that formula by the way. Dallas worked. Tampa worked. Nashville worked, as annoying as their fans are. But not every experiment will have a 100% success rate and the NHL is very much leaving money on the table chasing after failed markets like Atlanta and Arizona while Quebec City is right there.

 

1)  you're right. I missed your Saskatoon joke. That's on me. 

2) This is a question, and not me attempting to poke holes in your point: Is it possible that Winnipeg's franchise value was higher than Atlanta's because of the  considerable wealth of its new owner? 

3) Your responses always seem to want to make this personal, which I really don't understand. I'm not attempting to "crack the code the rest of us are too dumb to get." I think i made it pretty clear that Atlanta would continue having problems as an NHL market and that Quebec City is preferable. There was no attempt at making an "iF AtLaNtA cAn WoRk..." argument. The point was that you can never really convince people to STOP pursuing the holy grail if they think it's still there for the taking.  And markets like Atlanta and Houston are certainly far more valuable to the league than smaller markets that are likely to be sure successes. 

[IceCap]

Just now, gosioux76 said:

This is a question, and not me attempting to poke holes in your point: Is it possible that Winnipeg's franchise value was higher than Atlanta's because of the  considerable wealth of its new owner? 

I'd say it's a combination of financially stable ownership and actual fans in the building. The NHL, more than the NFL, NBA, or MLB, is fuelled by ticket sales. Winnipeg is only 12% of Atlanta, but of that smaller number far more were willing to buy tickets to see a middling NHL team live.

Atlanta is a much larger market, in terms of population and economics. There's no way Winnipeg should be outpacing them objectively speaking, but it's not a matter of objectivity. Winnipeg is just a better hockey market than Atlanta. The NHL is regional and niche by nature. You can make it work in non-traditional cities, but you need management that knows what they're doing and a bit of luck to pull it off. You can't just look at metro area population numbers on a spreed sheet and say X > Y because with hockey sometimes Y has more built in advantages unique to the sport.

 

4 minutes ago, gosioux76 said:

Your responses always seem to want to make this personal, which I really don't understand.

No man, it's not personal. I'm just tired of having the same arguments and retreading the same ground over and over and over and over again.

 

The idea that a sunbelt metropolis can be big money had value in the early and mid-90s when these markets were untapped, but it was a risk. Sometimes it worked. Other times, it didn't.

 

And I just find it exhausting to deal with the same "low floor/high ceiling" arguments used to justify markets that have objectively failed. Sure, if things worked out differently maybe Arizona and Atlanta could have been success stories too, but they didn't.

 

It's time to stop pretending that this talk about "potential" applies to these places specifically.

 

[gosioux76]

1 minute ago, IceCap said:

I'd say it's a combination of financially stable ownership and actual fans in the building. The NHL, more than the NFL, NBA, or MLB, is fuelled by ticket sales. Winnipeg is only 12% of Atlanta, but of that smaller number far more were willing to buy tickets to see a middling NHL team live.

Atlanta is a much larger market, in terms of population and economics. There's no way Winnipeg should be outpacing them objectively speaking, but it's not a matter of objectivity. Winnipeg is just a better hockey market than Atlanta. The NHL is regional and niche by nature. You can make it work in non-traditional cities, but you need management that knows what they're doing and a bit of luck to pull it off. You can't just look at metro area population numbers on a spreed sheet and say X > Y because with hockey sometimes Y has more built in advantages unique to the sport.

 

 

This is a fantastic point. Couldn't agree more. The NHL very clearly works well as a niche sport in markets, like Winnipeg, that will fill every seat.

 

It's just an unfortunate circumstance that the league has yet to see it for what it is.

[spartacat_12]

1 hour ago, IceCap said:

Neither are we obliged to pretend your rebellion against the common (and justified) narration in Canada is anything but contrarianism. 

And yet they're far and away more valuable then they ever were in Atlanta. What does that say, given Atlanta's economic and population advantages over Winnipeg?

 

I don't know if it's contrarianism if I'm parroting the same talking points that the league has brought up in regards to where they put franchises. I also haven't once said I support the league going back to Atlanta again, because I don't see it working on the third try. It seems like a rumour that is based mostly on the fact that TNT is a broadcast partner now.

 

At the end of the day, Canadian franchises (other than Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver) are high floor, low ceiling opportunities for the league, while the large southern markets are low floor, high ceiling situations. Atlanta was the 29th most valuable franchise in the league before they left, and are 27th now after a decade in Manitoba. Meanwhile, Tampa Bay was 28th in franchise value at that same time, got a new owner who invested in the team/market, and is now the 14th most valuable team in the league now.

[IceCap]

5 minutes ago, spartacat_12 said:

I don't know if it's contrarianism if I'm parroting the same talking points that the league has brought up in regards to where they put franchises.

There is a certain segment of people who chafe under the particulars of where they grew up. New England fans who hate Boston sports, for example. Or Canadians who like to buck the trends of what most Canadian hockey fans- and media- want to see.

 

5 minutes ago, spartacat_12 said:

At the end of the day, Canadian franchises (other than Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver) are high floor, low ceiling opportunities for the league, while the large southern markets are low floor, high ceiling situations. Atlanta was the 29th most valuable franchise in the league before they left, and are 27th now after a decade in Manitoba. Meanwhile, Tampa Bay was 28th in franchise value at that same time, got a new owner who invested in the team/market, and is now the 14th most valuable team in the league now.

You keep doing this, and I keep pointing out that Winnipeg's value as a market is reflected in the ThrasherJets' comparison against themselves. They've always been more valuable in Winnipeg then they were in Atlanta.

 

5 minutes ago, spartacat_12 said:

while the large southern markets are low floor, high ceiling situations

That's a term used to describe potential. Atlanta failed twice and Arizona's been failing since 1996. We can stop crying about these markets' potential because we know that potential didn't pan out.

[spartacat_12]

36 minutes ago, IceCap said:

And before someone gets uppity about me calling Canada the NHL's most valuable market...

The current NHL tv deal in Canada with Rogers is worth $5.232 billion.

The current NHL tv deal in the United States, a country that dwarfs Canada in terms of population and economic strength, is worth $1 billion.

 

Well the Rogers deal is in Canadian dollars, so it works out to roughly $3.822 billion USD, and it is spread over 12 years.

 

And the new US deal is actually ~$625 million per year from ESPN & TNT for 7 years, which $4.375 billion total. 

 

13 minutes ago, IceCap said:

You keep doing this, and I keep pointing out that Winnipeg's value as a market is reflected in the ThrasherJets' comparison against themselves. They've always been more valuable in Winnipeg then they were in Atlanta.

 

I've never disputed the fact that the franchise became more valuable when they moved to Winnipeg, but my point is that they are only marginally more valuable now, and unless they become the sport's next dynasty, they've pretty much hit their ceiling in Winnipeg. 

[IceCap]

3 minutes ago, spartacat_12 said:

I've never disputed the fact that the franchise became more valuable when they moved to Winnipeg, but my point is that they are only marginally more valuable now, and unless they become the sport's next dynasty, they've pretty much hit their ceiling in Winnipeg. 

And my point is that given Atlanta's population and economic advantages over Winnipeg that the value even increased at all is an indictment on Atlanta. It's the same thing with the tv deals you felt the need to poke at. The US is so far ahead of Canada in terms of potential viewers and potential dollars that anything short of a huge money advantage for the US proves that there's more to this than going to Wikipedia and comparing metro area population stats.

 

Basically Canada punches above its weight when it comes to supporting hockey. Which makes places like Quebec City and Winnipeg more valuable hockey markets than places like Atlanta and Phoenix/Glendale/Tempe, where it's been failure after failure attempting to reach that hypothetical high ceiling.

 

Again, you're advocating for the league to keep a team in Arizona, a market that has been nothing but red ink since 1996, while Quebec City just sits there. That's leaving money on the table man, and no amount of whatif's will change that.

[Digby]

5 hours ago, gosioux76 said:

When it comes to Atlanta, though, I'd argue that the biggest obstacle is market saturation. Vegas and Seattle have been successes, in part, because they had far less competition relative to the size of their markets. 

 

Yeah, I think there's an assumption that a big market means four or five pro teams, and in practice it's rare for that to work and rarer still for all four to be thriving. That should be the exception and not the rule. (I'll crosspost this to the OAK/TB baseball thread now.)

[heavybass]

An animated game on Disney between the Capitols and the Rangers.... totally going to have the Capitols win it because it's Disney.

[IceCap]

57 minutes ago, gosioux76 said:

 

This is a fantastic point. Couldn't agree more. The NHL very clearly works well as a niche sport in markets, like Winnipeg, that will fill every seat.

 

It's just an unfortunate circumstance that the league has yet to see it for what it is.

Gary Bettman's tenure as NHL Commissioner coincided with the league attempting to expand its marketability outside of Canada and the northern US. Expanding down south, relocating down south, changing the Division and Conference names, it was all meant to... grow the game.

 

None of this is hard to understand. As much as @spartacat_12 likes to describe the people who disagree with him as suffering from a Canadian inferiority complex (I wonder how he squares that with Americans who disagrees with him?)

Honestly? I get where he's coming from... to a point.

 

My problems with it are twofold- one, attempting to explore new markets shouldn't have come at the cost of existing ones. The Jets 1.0 didn't have to die for the league to put a team in Arizona, for example. Giving some of the league's most loyal fans the middle finger to chase potential fans (most of whom never materialized) isn't a good look.

And secondly, it's not the 90s or 2000s anymore. I was nine when the Jets left for Phoenix. I'm thirty-five now. We can- and should- be able to call failed experiments failures.

Like I said, hockey is niche. It would have been shocking if it worked in every warm weather city they tried it in. In fact they probably did better for themselves then expected with the markets that did work. But others didn't, and I can't see advocating for Arizona over Quebec City in 2023 (or Atlanta over QC) as anything but doubling down on a point they've been proven wrong on.

 

Anyway sorry if my earlier post at you came off like a personal attack. It wasn't meant as one. More just exhaustion over retreading the same points again and again.

 

3 minutes ago, heavybass said:

An animated game on Disney between the Capitols and the Rangers.... totally going to have the Capitols win it because it's Disney.

What now?

Also why would Disney favour the Capitols?

[The_Admiral]

1 hour ago, gosioux76 said:

Is it possible that Winnipeg's franchise value was higher than Atlanta's because of the  considerable wealth of its new owner? 

 

Not really. I mean, the surest sign of a franchise's value is whatever someone just paid for it. That basically set the value at $110MM for the Thrashers (then another 60 for the "relocation fee" meant to make sure TNSE didn't get a bargain over what they agreed to pay for the Coyotes; no one ever paid the NHL a penalty to get out of Winnipeg). If the instant rise in value came from anything, it would have come from the synergy with the arena and other ancillary TNSE properties, I guess. The Thrashers had negative synergy in that respect.

 

I think Thomson's wealth was necessary to get the deal done, but I don't think his personal fortune in and of itself immediately made NHL Franchise #28 more valuable in Winnipeg than it was in Atlanta.

[The_Admiral]

1 hour ago, spartacat_12 said:

At the end of the day, Canadian franchises (other than Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver) are high floor, low ceiling opportunities for the league, while the large southern markets are low floor, high ceiling situations. Atlanta was the 29th most valuable franchise in the league before they left, and are 27th now after a decade in Manitoba.

 

These are just ordinal numbers without context, though. Where are those 27th and 29th in relation to everyone else? 

 

As for the high/low/floor/ceiling scenarios, looking at the world around us right now, I'll take the high floor.

[VampyrRabbit]

2 hours ago, IceCap said:

You missed the joke.

Of course Saskatoon isn't viable, but Atlanta's previous NHL teams left for Calgary and Winnipeg. So if we're doing Atlanta again then... well... what other Canadian Prairie towns are left?

Swift Current. Where Life Makes Sense, Where a NHL Team Makes Sense.

[Bmac]

1 hour ago, gosioux76 said:

 

This is a fantastic point. Couldn't agree more. The NHL very clearly works well as a niche sport in markets, like Winnipeg, that will fill every seat.

 

It's just an unfortunate circumstance that the league has yet to see it for what it is.

Bingo.

 

The NHL is closer to MLS than MLB/NFL/NBA in regards to niche status and ideal market size. They've tried too hard for too long to be the NFL when they should look to MLS. Put your niche sport in markets where it will be appreciated. Grow the game, but stop trying to force it in markets where it isn't working.

 

Nashville and Tampa Bay have that sort of MLS market vibe (Rowdies should be MLS, but that's for another thread) and while not traditional hockey markets, have ended up working out well. That wasn't always looking to be the case, but both franchises found varying levels of on-ice success and developed some game day atmosphere and connection to the community.

 

Arizona has had plenty of time, but there isn't the slightest indication of that ever working out regardless of where they play in the state. Atlanta didn't show legitimate signs of things working out with the Thrashers. Winnipeg and Quebec are sure-thing smaller market answers, the same way Portland and Columbus are in MLS.

 

Stop looking at Atlanta and Houston, start looking at Quebec and Kansas City.

[GDAWG]

The NHL probably believes it can be a smashing success in Houston as it has been in Dallas.  

[The_Admiral]

31 minutes ago, GDAWG said:

The NHL probably believes it can be a smashing success in Houston as it has been in Dallas.  

 

I think we have to interrogate the idea of a media market's size having intrinsic value as we move away from the rent-seeking of the basic-cable RSN model. Those numbers meant something when you were extracting non-negotiable carriage fees from households whether they watched a minute of hockey. If teams now have to rely on a subscription model for telecasts and/or produce their telecasts themselves, of what value is the media market in and of itself if most of those households would opt out? This is a case where the unique properties of Quebec as a market, wherein the team would be owned by the leading provincewide telecom company, could turn out to be advantageous. It's bad enough that most people in the vast suburban hellscapes of Houston and Atlanta couldn't be bothered to drive to games. What happens if you can't squeeze them on their cable bills, either?

 

COUNTERPOINT: this wouldn't be as much fun for Daryl Reaugh 

[WestCoastBias]

The Athletic just posted this article today..

 

NHL expansion scenarios: 6 cities the league could consider next - The Athletic

 

Houston, Atlanta, Toronto, Quebec City, Kansas City, Halifax in that order. Not sure why the author even included Halifax when he calls it a pipedream and that European expansion is more likely. Portland or Milwaukee would of been better to write about.

 

I think it's dumb that the NHL is already talking about expanding again when they just got to 32 teams and equal divisions/conferences. I say relocate a team to Canada (either Quebec City or Toronto) to get to 8 Canadian teams, exactly a quarter of the league. Then relocate another team to Houston to get your massive market and call it a day. My relocation candidates are Arizona if their arena doesn't pass, Miami, and Carolina.

[monkeypower]

Here's the thing, the NHL (officially/publically) isn't already talking about expanding again. All this started with some anonymous Twitter account followed by a Buccigross tweet then followed by Kevin Weekes with the eyes emoji.

 

Friedman said last week that he believes Houston will be an NHL city someday but thinks Atlanta is a tougher sell and that the league may not want to expand in case they need a backup plan if the Coyotes don't get Tempe*. He also said he doesn't know how far away any expansion teams are and the league is trying to throw cold water on the rumors, but he does also think there are some very serious ownership groups that will be interested if Houston and/or Atlanta come up.

 

*Could this also be like when Katz took a trip to Seattle during the twilight years of Rexall Place and the NHL sending out feelers amidst the Tempe vote? Though I don't know if it would work because Tempe might be, "Take my wife team, please."