NHL Anti-Thread: Bad Business Decision Aggregator

[mattwswfc]

Actually, expansion to 32 markets would be fine - if all the teams were in the right 32 markets. Houston, Kansas City, Quebec City and Hamilton each have groups interested in bringing the NHL to their area. So move Phoenix to one of them, move another struggling franchise to another, and expand to the other two. It's not necessarily a perfect solution, but it could still work.

There is more than one other struggling franchise than the Coyotes i.e. Columbus, Florida, NY Islanders to name a few.

You really think of all the 'right' places to put a team and you say Houston and Kansas City, really? Quebec City is top of the list by a country mile, but Hamilton won't even get a look in with the Maple Leafs throwing there weight around and whilst Gary Bettman and his his clan of anti-canadians are in charge! Hamilton is dead in the water and it probably will never get a team, I think a more realistic place would be Connecticut, which is a proven hockey market and has potential owners sniffing around and planing for new arenas.

[Gothamite]

An "interested ownership group" is only one part of the equation, and not the most significant at that. More important is a place to play and a fanbase receptive to the sport. If you've got those, and the market shows it can handle hockey, they'll have owners coming out of the woodwork.

[mattwswfc]

An "interested ownership group" is only one part of the equation, and not the most significant at that. More important is a place to play and a fanbase receptive to the sport. If you've got those, and the market shows it can handle hockey, they'll have owners coming out of the woodwork.

Exactly looking at the 4 he said, Houston has an arena but no owner or fan base, same with Kansas City, Hamilton has an owner who has attempted 4 times and has kind of blew his chances, they also have a nice hockey fan base (Bulldogs) and an okay arena, on the other hand Quebec City who have the fans, a potential owner and a state of the art arena being built, and even could have a temporary home in the Colisee, Quebec City have all the ingredients and it's just a matter of time before it happens.

[The_Admiral]

I've not heard anything about anyone in Kansas City or Houston wanting to own an NHL team. If they're out there, they've kept awfully quiet.

[IceCap]

Mario used Kansas City as leverage to get a new arena out of Pittsburgh, and then the league soured on the city as a market when they only filled up half of the Sprint Centre for a game between the Kings and Islanders (the latter of whom are often in the relocation discussion).

I don't see Kansas City happening.

[NJTank]

Here's a wild and crazy thought, NHL in Alaska.

[Brian in Boston]

I think a more realistic place would be Connecticut, which is a proven hockey market and has potential owners sniffing around and planing for new arenas.

To be precise, Connecticut has a single person "sniffing around" regarding the prospects of an NHL return to Hartford: Howard Baldwin. That's problematic, as Baldwin doesn't possess the financial wherewithal to purchase and own an NHL franchise, let alone build a "new arena".

Baldwin was, is, and always will be capable of nothing more than securing a minority share in a major-pro sports franchise ownership group. He was partnered with W. Godfrey Wood, William Barnes and John Coburn in launching the original WHA New England Whalers, with Baldwin serving more as the glad-handing, backslapping frontman for the ownership group, rather than a deep-pocketed equal partner.

Baldwin continued to fill such a role once the team relocated from Boston to Hartford, eventually cobbling together an ownership group that included himself (1%), Aetna (40.45%), Hartford Insurance Group (13.7%), CIGNA (11.4%), The Travellers (8.6%), United Technologies (6.1%), Connecticut Mutual (4.9%), Bank of Boston - Connecticut (3.3%), Connecticut Bank & Trust Company (3.3%), Hartford National (3.3%), Heublein, Inc. (1.6%), Hartford Attractions (1%), The Hartford Courant (0.6%), Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company (0.6%), Connecticut Light & Power (0.1%), and the Greater Hartford Chamber of Commerce (0.05%). Coordinating the interests of the many and varied partners eventually proved difficult, particularly with so many of them being corporate entities with shareholders wondering why the companies were pumping money into a small-market hockey team. Ultimately, the one thing the numerous partners could agree on was a willingness to sell majority interest in the team, and businessmen Donald G. Conrad and Richard Gordon purchased 74.5 % of the team. Aetna (13%), CIGNA (2%), The Travelers (2%), Baldwin (.82%) and eleven other partners (each holding less than 2%) held the remaining 25.5%. Conrad eventually sold the bulk of his share to Colonial Realty Company.

Ultimately, Colonial Realty would default on paying Conrad for his share, which would lead to Colonial declaring bankruptcy. Nearly three-and-a-half years of court battles would eventually see Richard Gordon gain control of the Whalers and, ultimately, sell them to Peter Karmanos. The rest is history.

Then there was Baldwin's ownership of the Pittsburgh Penguins (where co-owner Morris Belzberg fronted Baldwin the latter's share of the purchase price): he inherited a Stanley Cup-winning organization and managed to steer it into a bankruptcy filing.

As for Baldwin "planning for new arenas" in Hartford, he's currently promoting nothing of the sort. Rather, he's pushing for a $105 million renovation of the 36-year-old XL Center.

I also question Hartford's place as "a proven hockey market". Average attendance for the Hartford Whalers over 17 NHL seasons from 1980-81 to 1996-97 (I threw out the 9,854 average in 1979-80, as the team played the first half of the season at the Springfield Center while the Hartford Civic Center was being repaired) was 12,235. If, using that figure, we ranked the Whalers for average attendance as a hypothetical 31st NHL franchise amongst the league's teams over the past 12 seasons, the team would never rank higher than 28th out of 31 teams. Using the Whalers' all-time average attendance single-season high - 14,574 during the 1987-88 NHL campaign - as a benchmark, the team's best average attendance finish as a hypothetical 31st team over the past 12 seasons would be 25th out of 31 teams in 2005-06. The Whalers' all-time average attendance single-season low - 10,144 during the 1992-93 NHL campaign - would rank dead last in each of the past 12 seasons.

On top of all of this, factor-in that the Greater Hartford market is located adjacent to - and, squeezed in-between - the larger Boston and New York City markets. Further, the Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford Metro Area (1,212,381) is the 45th-largest in the United States, making it smaller than all but the Buffalo-Niagara Falls, NY and Raleigh-Cary, NC MSAs amongst those metro areas playing host to US NHL franchises. According to the latest (2010) Canadian metro area population figures, only the Edmonton and Winnipeg metro areas are less populous than Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford.

As for television, the Hartford & New Haven Nielsen Designated Market Area (1,006,280 television homes) is the 30th-largest in the United States, making it smaller than all but Columbus and Buffalo amongst those TV markets playing host to US NHL franchises.

Finally, the greatest concentration of personal wealth and corporate presence in the State of Connecticut is located in Fairfield County. Said region is much more culturally aligned - including in the area of sports fandom - with New York City. As a result, the Hartford Whalers were never able to draw significant corporate sponsorship dollars, or attract significant numbers of ticket-purchasers, from Fairfield County. There's no reason to believe that anything has changed with regard to this over the past 15 years.

Bottom line? The Whalers sported a great logo that manages to move souvenir products to this very day, but that isn't enough to make Hartford a legitimate candidate to play host to an NHL franchise... and I say that as someone with family members who owned season-tickets to the Whalers in both Boston and Hartford.

[Sodboy13]

Here's a wild and crazy thought, NHL in Alaska.

You should consider watching hockey sometime. Or looking at a map.

[Crash]

Here's a wild and crazy thought, NHL in Alaska.

Alaska, THE WHOLE STATE, has fewer people than, for example, the Grand Rapids, Birmingham, Baton Rouge, Omaha, Albuquerque, or Tulsa Metropolitan Areas. Were the entire population of the state considered as a single metro area, it would fall, by population, between Greensboro, NC, and Akron, OH, and would be the 72nd largest MSA in the country. Without combining the entire population of the state, the best Alaska can do is Anchorage at 133rd and Fairbanks at 346th.

The whole state, combined, falls below Quebec City and just barely above Winnipeg, which would make it the second smallest market in the NHL. The Anchorage MSA is less than half the size of Winnipeg, the smallest current market, and even if you combine Anchorage and Fairbanks (which are, by the way, 6 1/2 hours apart on a good day), the two largest markets in Alaska, they would be less than 2/3 the size of Winnipeg, itself just barely over half the size of the second and third smallest markets and almost exactly half the size of the two smallest US markets, Buffalo and Raleigh.

So just imagine putting a team in a city less than 1/4 the size of Raleigh and tell me they'd make it.

Also, take what I said up there and then look at this.

[mattwswfc]

I think a more realistic place would be Connecticut, which is a proven hockey market and has potential owners sniffing around and planing for new arenas.

To be precise, Connecticut has a single person "sniffing around" regarding the prospects of an NHL return to Hartford: Howard Baldwin. That's problematic, as Baldwin doesn't possess the financial wherewithal to purchase and own an NHL franchise, let alone build a "new arena".

Baldwin was, is, and always will be capable of nothing more than securing a minority share in a major-pro sports franchise ownership group. He was partnered with W. Godfrey Wood, William Barnes and John Coburn in launching the original WHA New England Whalers, with Baldwin serving more as the glad-handing, backslapping frontman for the ownership group, rather than a deep-pocketed equal partner.

Baldwin continued to fill such a role once the team relocated from Boston to Hartford, eventually cobbling together an ownership group that included himself (1%), Aetna (40.45%), Hartford Insurance Group (13.7%), CIGNA (11.4%), The Travellers (8.6%), United Technologies (6.1%), Connecticut Mutual (4.9%), Bank of Boston - Connecticut (3.3%), Connecticut Bank & Trust Company (3.3%), Hartford National (3.3%), Heublein, Inc. (1.6%), Hartford Attractions (1%), The Hartford Courant (0.6%), Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company (0.6%), Connecticut Light & Power (0.1%), and the Greater Hartford Chamber of Commerce (0.05%). Coordinating the interests of the many and varied partners eventually proved difficult, particularly with so many of them being corporate entities with shareholders wondering why the companies were pumping money into a small-market hockey team. Ultimately, the one thing the numerous partners could agree on was a willingness to sell majority interest in the team, and businessmen Donald G. Conrad and Richard Gordon purchased 74.5 % of the team. Aetna (13%), CIGNA (2%), The Travelers (2%), Baldwin (.82%) and eleven other partners (each holding less than 2%) held the remaining 25.5%. Conrad eventually sold the bulk of his share to Colonial Realty Company.

Ultimately, Colonial Realty would default on paying Conrad for his share, which would lead to Colonial declaring bankruptcy. Nearly three-and-a-half years of court battles would eventually see Richard Gordon gain control of the Whalers and, ultimately, sell them to Peter Karmanos. The rest is history.

Then there was Baldwin's ownership of the Pittsburgh Penguins (where co-owner Morris Belzberg fronted Baldwin the latter's share of the purchase price): he inherited a Stanley Cup-winning organization and managed to steer it into a bankruptcy filing.

As for Baldwin "planning for new arenas" in Hartford, he's currently promoting nothing of the sort. Rather, he's pushing for a $105 million renovation of the 36-year-old XL Center.

I also question Hartford's place as "a proven hockey market". Average attendance for the Hartford Whalers over 17 NHL seasons from 1980-81 to 1996-97 (I threw out the 9,854 average in 1979-80, as the team played the first half of the season at the Springfield Center while the Hartford Civic Center was being repaired) was 12,235. If, using that figure, we ranked the Whalers for average attendance as a hypothetical 31st NHL franchise amongst the league's teams over the past 12 seasons, the team would never rank higher than 28th out of 31 teams. Using the Whalers' all-time average attendance single-season high - 14,574 during the 1987-88 NHL campaign - as a benchmark, the team's best average attendance finish as a hypothetical 31st team over the past 12 seasons would be 25th out of 31 teams in 2005-06. The Whalers' all-time average attendance single-season low - 10,144 during the 1992-93 NHL campaign - would rank dead last in each of the past 12 seasons.

On top of all of this, factor-in that the Greater Hartford market is located adjacent to - and, squeezed in-between - the larger Boston and New York City markets. Further, the Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford Metro Area (1,212,381) is the 45th-largest in the United States, making it smaller than all but the Buffalo-Niagara Falls, NY and Raleigh-Cary, NC MSAs amongst those metro areas playing host to US NHL franchises. According to the latest (2010) Canadian metro area population figures, only the Edmonton and Winnipeg metro areas are less populous than Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford.

As for television, the Hartford & New Haven Nielsen Designated Market Area (1,006,280 television homes) is the 30th-largest in the United States, making it smaller than all but Columbus and Buffalo amongst those TV markets playing host to US NHL franchises.

Finally, the greatest concentration of personal wealth and corporate presence in the State of Connecticut is located in Fairfield County. Said region is much more culturally aligned - including in the area of sports fandom - with New York City. As a result, the Hartford Whalers were never able to draw significant corporate sponsorship dollars, or attract significant numbers of ticket-purchasers, from Fairfield County. There's no reason to believe that anything has changed with regard to this over the past 15 years.

Bottom line? The Whalers sported a great logo that manages to move souvenir products to this very day, but that isn't enough to make Hartford a legitimate candidate to play host to an NHL franchise... and I say that as someone with family members who owned season-tickets to the Whalers in both Boston and Hartford.

Surely you know an NHL teams success is not based on raw population alone, there are contributing other contributing factors to making a hockey team work. Now I'm not saying let's put a team in Hartford and see how it goes, but test the market first, like they did with Kansas City and it failed. Obviously all of this would be useless if there is no 'appropriate' arena and/or owner.

On the point of Connecticut being a proven hockey market, 3.5 million people for me could support a hockey team easily, and it has been proven that a market with a 1/3 of that can, but then again nearly 5 million in the Phoenix metropolitan area cannot support one. Also there is, like you said, the contributing factors of the teams around Connecticut i.e Bruins, Islanders, Rangers, I am sure that when the Whalers left in the mid 90's most of the Connecticuter's switched allegiances to the nearest teams or maybe to a totally new team, if they weren't already fans of their respective clubs.

On to attendance now, I think people have a facination of 19,000 fans will make a hockey team work, it is absolute nonsense, with teams now a days playing in shared arenas with NBA teams, and the reason the teams play in large arenas is because they also have to support the demand of the basketball fans, now I am not knocking this and I welcome it, especially when the Blackhawks draw nearly 22,000. I say if you can fill these arenas with hockey fans then that's great, but their is nothing wrong with having 15,000 every game, like Winnipeg have proved. It would be much better for any team to be playing in a 15,000 seat arena and having it close to full every night rather than having a 19,000 seat arena and having lots of empty seats every night. A team should live within its means and a few teams in the NHL are not living within their means and therefore are suffering for it financially. If a new team in Hartford could get 15,000 in a smaller arena that would be great, they don't have to aim for 19,000 like the markets that can support that many, live within their means! It has been proven in many markets, with having massive arenas and not being able to fill them makes them look bad, when unfortunately the demand isn't there.

[The_Admiral]

A new arena for Hartford would be shared with UConn hoops, of course, just like how the original Whalers are also the secondary tenant to a college basketball team. Anything between 17 and 18 would be fine for Hartford, maybe even down to 16,750 if they're able to get that much-needed corporate support and sell lots of luxury boxes for UConn/Whalers/concerts/etc., and control parking/concession revenue.

That was a really interesting history of the Whalers, Brian, particularly how the notoriously risk-averse insurance companies found themselves risking a good deal of money on the Whale. Where did you get all the numbers for that?

Something to consider with the attendance hypotheticals:

1) the capacity of the Civic Center was rather low compared to the post-Palace-of-Auburn-Hills superarenas. Over the past twelve seasons, there haven't been a lot of 15,000-seat dumps in the league, have there?

2) speaking of dumps, much like in Winnipeg, the arena was not a very good one, and this surely kept many fans away when the vaunted live experience of the NHL was still a crappy one, what with the low-end arena and its bad sightlines.

3) a 12,000 (or 80% capacity) average is bad, but consider the move across all sports leagues from reporting butts in seats to reporting either tickets sold or outright bald-faced lies. There are probably more teams closer to 12,000 than whatever numbers they're cooking up on the box score.

A Whalers team wouldn't be a slam dunk today, but I think they'd do better than you think they would. With respect to Hartford-New Haven's small media market, a Whalers team would certainly anchor a New England-wide sports channel, probably pairing up with the Celtics on Not NESN like they always did. If they become shareholders in the channel this time around and sell their television rights to themselves, jackpot. This would allow them to be a regional team, serving as an alternative to the Bruins if for some reason you would not like to be a Bruins fan right about now. As we're seeing with the Jets now and will see with the Nordiques soon, the Power Ballad effect (you don't know what you got till it's gone) will keep support relatively high. Consider that more people care about sports in more ways than they ever did when the Whalers were around. Even the weak sister NHL is much bigger business now than it was then. I don't think it's ridiculous to surmise that their support would go up simply by virtue of being a major league team.

All that said, I don't think it's gonna happen, and Howard Baldwin is the kind of owner the NHL needs like it needs a hole in the head.

[Lee.]

Howard Baldwin is the kind of owner the NHL needs like it needs a hole in the head.

While at the same time being the type of owner it seems to seek out on a regular basis.

[Gothamite]

3) a 12,000 (or 80% capacity) average is bad, but consider the move across all sports leagues from reporting butts in seats to reporting either tickets sold or outright bald-faced lies. There are probably more teams closer to 12,000 than whatever numbers they're cooking up on the box score.

That's a really good point, and one I hadn't considered. Attendance figures from any more than 15 years ago were arrived at by very different methods.

[Crash]

On a purely speculative level, as much as I'd absolutely love to see the Whalers revived, I think the only way it would be financially tenable would be if they had:

1) An extremely rich owner with very very deep pockets and a realistic view on how much money an NHL team takes and makes. (Of which there are currently none.)

2) A new or so-completely-overhauled-it's-basically-new arena. (Which would basically have to come from #1 because of the current state of the economy and reluctance of municipal/state governments to get burned by sports teams.)

3) A day one deal with a regional sports tv network. (And this deal would need to come in such a way that home Whalers games against the other regional teams would be ON THIS CHANNEL in Boston and New York...I don't know that there is such a channel, currently.)

4) A divisional/conference alignment such that they're playing the majority of their games against the other "local" teams, taking advantage of the local fans of not-Whaler teams.

5) An actual commitment to winning, as that shiny area and revived logo will only give them 5 years of good will at best.

6) One less competitor in the region by buying and moving one of them to become the new Whalers. (Although this could play out against them as easily as for them. Would Islanders fans follow the Whalers if the new Whalers are the old Islanders? Or would they HATE the Whalers for the same reason?)

And 7) A national promotional campaign. Can't make it work because of NYC and Boston? Try your BEST to become America's team. Grab the romanticism of the return of the Whalers and play it for all it's worth. At the very least, through a campaign and the regional tv deal, the Whalers have to attempt to be not only the Hartford Whalers, but the Albany Whalers and Springfield Whalers and, though IIRC they'll have to duke it out with the Bruins, the Providence Whalers.

[The_Admiral]

3) A day one deal with a regional sports tv network. (And this deal would need to come in such a way that home Whalers games against the other regional teams would be ON THIS CHANNEL in Boston and New York...I don't know that there is such a channel, currently.)

Maybe a Hartford team could muster up enough Nutmeg State pride to get their channel on Fairfield County cable systems, but a New England sports channel isn't going to have any carriage in New York, whether tri-state area or upstate. They would have all of New England along with the Bruins, the same way the Habs and Nords would each have all of la province.

Haha, speaking of Connecticut and being America's team, wouldn't it be something if ESPN2 were to pick up a slate of Whalers games. Old times' sake!

[njmeadowlanders]

SNY would jump at the opportunity to have the Whalers. All they have from October to February is reruns of the Mets 1982 highlight film and Golden Gloves boxing matches and some stupid game show named Beer Money.

MSG & MSG+ have all 3 NYC-Metro Area Teams and NESN has the Bruins for the uninitiated...also the MSG that the Sabres are on is the former EMPIRE network and does NOT appear on the MSG's in the NY Metro area.

[RyanMcD29]

I said this before... If the Islanders move to Hartford, all things considered with the other possibilities, it wouldn't be the end of the world to me. I'd much rather have them move 2 and a half hours away and become the Whalers than to move to Kansas City/Houston/Quebec/Whathaveyou and lose them for good if you catch my drift. Plus as njmeadowlanders pointed out, having them on SNY would more than likely keep them on local TV anyway. Only difference for me would be cutting down trips to games to probably one a year as they would be 2 and a half hours away from me rather than 10 minutes up Hempstead Turnpike. Obviously it's not the best scenario as an Islander fan, but considering the other options, I'd still be able to root for them if they simply go to Hartford.

Is it likely to happen? No. But stranger things have happened. Like the Coyotes still being in Phoenix in 2012 while Winnipeg got the Jets back

[rvrdgsfn]

Seriously, Baldwin isn't giving up... Article from November

http://thehockeywriters.com/2017-the-year-of-the-whalers/

Baldwin announced on Tuesday that he is trying to move forward with a renovation plan to the XL Center ? the former home of the Whalers and current home of the Connecticut Whale of the AHL ? with the goal of bringing back an NHL franchise by the year 2017.

[Sodboy13]

With. What. Money.

[Lee.]

Details, details.