NHL Anti-Thread: Bad Business Decision Aggregator

[Walk-Off]

4 hours ago, spartacat_12 said:

 

Who knows how accurate this scene was, but Howerton as Balsillie was a great piece of casting. He fumbled all his attempts to land an NHL team, but essentially provided the template for what not to do in order to become an NHL owner. 

 

It sounds like Ryan Smith did the exact opposite, which is part of why the league is interested in doing business with him. He never explicitly stated he wanted to own the Coyotes, he just said, "I would like to own a team, I have enough money to do so, and I have a building that is ready to host games right away." He probably would've preferred an expansion team that would be playing their inaugural season in a brand new arena, but given the Yotes salary cap situation & stockpile of draft picks/prospects he's inheriting a pretty solid starting point. There's talk that he's going to be very aggressive this summer to bring in some big pieces too.

 

Maybe it is just me, but I think that one of Balsillie's most fatal flaws in his dealings with the NHL was an apparent narrowmindedness as to how he wanted to bring a team to Hamilton.

 

IIRC, Balsillie was unwilling to lobby for an expansion franchise.  His NHL modus operandi was strictly trying to buy a US-based team with the intent of moving it to Hamilton.  Even the Pittsburgh Penguins — a team with a history dating back to 1967, back-to-back Stanley Cup titles in the 1990s, and a location in a traditional hockey market and a well-established major professional sports market in general — were targeted by Balsillie for acquisition and relocation in 2006.

[The_Admiral]

4 hours ago, Sport said:

I'm kind of nervous about SLC for this reason. Found this website where you can find population inside of a certain radius. 

 

https://www.statsamerica.org/radius/big.aspx

 

I set Salt Lake City and drew a 200 mile radius, which I figure to be about the edge of where a normal person would drive to attend a game. The tool says about 3.7 million people live in that circle. Sounds like a lot of people, but consider that little small market Columbus, Ohio using the same radius is over 28 million (that doesn't even include Chicago) and it feels like trouble.

 

To put a finer point on it, it's a metropolitan area that's about 120 miles north to south and, I dunno, like 10 miles west to east. It's a long boi. This is the same problem South Florida has, where everything is either relatively nearby or requires long drives up and down one artery, which I think is worse than Phoenix's 360-degree sprawl. I don't have the stomach for "but all our REAL fans live in Provo!"

[The_Admiral]

1 hour ago, Walk-Off said:

IIRC, Balsillie was unwilling to lobby for an expansion franchise.  His NHL modus operandi was strictly trying to buy a US-based team with the intent of moving it to Hamilton.  Even the Pittsburgh Penguins — a team with a history dating back to 1967, back-to-back Stanley Cup titles in the 1990s, and a location in a traditional hockey market and a well-established major professional sports market in general — were targeted by Balsillie for acquisition and relocation in 2006.

 

The league wasn't looking to expand in the 2000s, having overexpanded in the 1990s and paying the price for it with Lockout II: Expansion Fees Can't Paper Over Our Crap Anymore. Even if they were to expand, they wouldn't have expanded to Hamilton for the same reasons they wouldn't have to Winnipeg and didn't to Quebec City (how's that "deferred expansion" going, anyway?). After they wouldn't even let him move the lousy dead-ass Predators, the subterfuge of buying the Coyotes out of bankruptcy court and winning the eventual lawsuit was the only play he had left to make money on a Southern Ontario NHL team. 

 

Incidentally, I swear there were reports that Copps Coliseum was only to be a stopgap while they built a new arena in, of all places, Cambridge, roughly equidistant to Hamilton and Kitchener-Waterloo, but I can't find any sources.  But why would I imagine that? 

[Jer15]

1 hour ago, The_Admiral said:

Incidentally, I swear there were reports that Copps Coliseum was only to be a stopgap while they built a new arena in, of all places, Cambridge, roughly equidistant to Hamilton and Kitchener-Waterloo, but I can't find any sources.  But why would I imagine that? 

That was a popular rumor at the time. You're remembering right. That was because Blackberry/Research in Motion was a massive company in Waterloo at the time. I don't think that rumor lasted once the renderings of the renovated Copps came out.

[The_Admiral]

Wasn't it like a big plot of land off an expressway interchange? 

 

Speaking of Copps renovations, I saw that after a series of moderately ambitious remodels that would put a whole new exterior around the seating bowl, they just settled for painting half of it black.

 

 

 

They just find new layers of "what could have been" in that town, don't they?

[Jer15]

12 hours ago, The_Admiral said:

Wasn't it like a big plot of land off an expressway interchange? 

That part I don't recall.  Would make sense though. 

12 hours ago, The_Admiral said:

They just find new layers of "what could have been" in that town, don't they?

Yup.....

With the delays in the renovation, Copps/First Ontario has lost the CeBL team (minor pro basketball) and the OHL team. Sounds like the Toronto Rock will come back but I don't even know if that is a guarantee. They've fumbled this so badly. 

[neo_prankster]

But seriously though.

 

Why did the NHL put up so much fierce resistance to keep the Coyotes in Arizona? Was it just because Maricopa County was a huge TV market (and still is)?

[GDAWG]

23 minutes ago, neo_prankster said:

But seriously though.

 

Why did the NHL put up so much fierce resistance to keep the Coyotes in Arizona? Was it just because Maricopa County was a huge TV market (and still is)?

 

Yes.  

[The_Admiral]

3 hours ago, Jer15 said:

That part I don't recall.  Would make sense though. 

 

Did some research and finally found the land they bought: https://www.google.com/maps/place/43°24'36.7"N+80°17'01.0"W/@43.4101914,-80.2861965,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m4!3m3!8m2!3d43.4101875!4d-80.2836216?entry=ttu

 

This seems like it would have been a really terrible idea. Corel Centre II: Even Corellier.

[Jer15]

43 minutes ago, The_Admiral said:

 

Did some research and finally found the land they bought: https://www.google.com/maps/place/43°24'36.7"N+80°17'01.0"W/@43.4101914,-80.2861965,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m4!3m3!8m2!3d43.4101875!4d-80.2836216?entry=ttu

 

This seems like it would have been a really terrible idea. Corel Centre II: Even Corellier.

Holy :censored:, the houses across the street is where my sister used to live.

Small world. 

And yes, that would have been a horrible location. 

[tigerslionspistonshabs]

Imagine trying to get to a 7pm puck drop in 6pm 401 traffic. 

[The_Admiral]

Yeah, that's not a place for a hockey arena, that's a place for an office campus for something called "Telesystems Unlimited." Bullet dodged (but the Coyotes still probably should have moved to Hamilton).

[FiddySicks]

5 hours ago, neo_prankster said:

But seriously though.

 

Why did the NHL put up so much fierce resistance to keep the Coyotes in Arizona? Was it just because Maricopa County was a huge TV market (and still is)?

Phoenix is (I think) the 4th biggest media market in the country. Even if it’s a bit of a small flop, it’s still probably more successful than an enthusiastic Salt Lake City.
 

Problem is, it was never just a little flop with the Coyotes, but an ENORMOUS wet turd slapping repeatedly against the pavement.

 

I don’t think Phoenix ever has the chance to be a huge hockey hotbed, because it contradicts the whole vibe of the area. It’s already a literal hotbed. A sheet of ice and a wool hockey jersey you’ll have to wear into June just doesn’t make any sense. But even still, you’ve got like 8 million people to work with. Like, half of which are people who fled from actual hockey country. It’s like putting an Einstein Bros in Sky Harbor airport. Nobody really wants Einstein Bros, but it’s just there on the way to the gate and they charge for drinks on the plane now. Might as well Now repeat that a few million times. The Coyotes were exactly that, but their Einstein Bros was in the Mesa-Gateway airport. Nobody’s going out of their way for that garbage. 

[spartacat_12]

Cambridge definitely doesn't make sense, but I think if they ever do put a 2nd team in Toronto it would be best to put them in one of the suburbs (Vaughan, Markham, Mississauga), rather than have them share Scotiabank Arena with the Leafs. It would make sense to have an Islanders-type situation for the 905ers who would rather drive than figure out getting downtown, especially when you consider how many people no longer commute for work. 

[TBGKon]

14 minutes ago, FiddySicks said:

Phoenix is (I think) the 4th biggest media market in the country. Even if it’s a bit of a small flop, it’s still probably more successful than an enthusiastic Salt Lake City.

For clarity, Phoenix is 11th in media markets as of the 2023-2024 Nielsen media ratings, just ahead of Tampa Bay and just behind San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_television_stations_in_North_America_by_media_market

[FiddySicks]

So not quite as big as I thought, but still very robust, and more so than SLC. I get why the league wants it. If. Done right, it could be a moderate success. I’m not sure it’s worth all the work, though. 
 

 

But looking at that list, SLC slots in right between Nashville and Pittsburgh. It’s definitely not as out of the question for the league as I originally thought. If they aren’t a total dumpster fire like they’ve been in Phoenix, they may end up being a decent little success. But, just like Phoenix, is it going to be worth all the extra work? 

[The_Admiral]

I get so tired of hearing "the NHL NEEDS to be in Phoenix." Or else what? Their RSN went out of business this year and people from other places will just watch their own teams.

 

The NBA needs to be in Seattle more than the NHL needs to be in Phoenix and they're not there.

[The_Admiral]

Just now, FiddySicks said:

But looking at that list, SLC slots in right between Nashville and Pittsburgh. It’s definitely not as out of the question for the league as I originally thought. If they aren’t a total dumpster fire like they’ve been in Phoenix, they may end up being a decent little success. 

 

Is there another two-team market where the teams are NBA and NHL? It's not a configuration that comes to mind off the top of my head. Plenty of NFL + one of the other two, but that's still only partial overlap. 

 

Salt Lake City has the sort of demographics that the NHL likes to go after, but the problem is that that NHL-friendly demographic is deeply committed to the NBA. The Utah Jazz fanbase is much less given to writing about Kendrick Lamar lyrics; mostly they're just loud idiots who like rooting for their sports team. Again, I think there's going to be a major local/transplant fault line here with the hockey fans riding the SLUT to amazing craft breweries while the Mormons stick with the Jazz.

 

[Fowler2]

8 minutes ago, The_Admiral said:

 

Is there another two-team market where the teams are NBA and NHL? It's not a configuration that comes to mind off the top of my head. Plenty of NFL + one of the other two, but that's still only partial overlap. 

 

Salt Lake City has the sort of demographics that the NHL likes to go after, but the problem is that that NHL-friendly demographic is deeply committed to the NBA. The Utah Jazz fanbase is much less given to writing about Kendrick Lamar lyrics; mostly they're just loud idiots who like rooting for their sports team. Again, I think there's going to be a major local/transplant fault line here with the hockey fans riding the SLUT to amazing craft breweries while the Mormons stick with the Jazz.

 

 

You're correct. Salt Lake City would be the only market with just NBA & NHL. The last market I can remember like that was Vancouver (Canucks & Grizzlies) and we know what happened with the Grizzlies. 

[FiddySicks]

6 minutes ago, The_Admiral said:

Salt Lake City has the sort of demographics that the NHL likes to go after, but the problem is that that NHL-friendly demographic is deeply committed to the NBA. The Utah Jazz fanbase is much less given to writing about Kendrick Lamar lyrics; mostly they're just loud idiots who like rooting for their sports team. Again, I think there's going to be a major local/transplant fault line here with the hockey fans riding the SLUT to amazing craft breweries while the Mormons stick with the Jazz.

 

That’s a good point, and I hadn’t really considered that part of it. My area is going through a bit of that (on a much smaller scale, of course) with the Sharks and Knights. There are a disturbing amount of Knights fans where I live, and none of these fans seem to actually be from here. People who grew up here wouldn’t ever root for some :censored:ty Vegas team. That’s still essentially Los Angeles, Nevada as far as we’re concerned.