NHL teams in trouble

[trapezeus]

I post this not as a "i'm breaking news to you." but more to just get your opinions.

So a friend of mine works for a sports consulting firm here in new york. His clients are the NHL, teams of the NHL, MBL and teams of MBL. We were chatting and he said that essentially the original 6 teams and a couple additional markets are in tough positions with the economy, but would survive easily because the fan base is so large. he included buffalo in that tiering.

Then he said everyone else is kind of open to a lot of different factors. He said obviously that Phoenix, and Atlanta are worried about making payroll. He said he believed one of the teams had secured financing to stay solvent, but that it still didnt look good.

Surprisingly he said that the Wild seemed to be in tough shape and that salary dumping was key to their survival. That one kind of stunned me since Minnesota is a pretty big hockey area for kids.

He said the ideas they pitch to the NHL usually gets rejected and at his company their sense is that Bettman and the owners are in denial about how bad this can get. He personally thinks they can weather through this for another full season but that many of the owners will be hurting. He thinks if there are any setbacks, the NHL will come out looking like ostriches with their head in the sand because they refuse to take proactive measures to stop the bleeding


So what are your thoughts. does any of this surprise you? do you think the NHL can make it another year without a team folding? would you be surprised with the Wild folding?

[chubluv]

Personally I think the NHL as a whole is in trouble. With in 5-7 years a lot of the current franchises will not be around.

Its partial economy & the poor product thats on the ice these days. What I mean by product on the ice is this.

They locked them selves out for an entire season for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons was the way the game was played. As much as some people want to deny it fans want to see goals & fights. In 2006 penalties were being called more frequent and scoring was up, but by the end of 2007 through today less of them are being called. Players aren't being allowed to skate once again. Its the same old crap from before the lock out and its boring.

People aren't going to spend their hard earned money on a boring product. So unless they change back to what they were doing in 2006 the NHL is skating on thin ice.

[SabreEleven]

#1 reason why the NHL is in trouble, IMO, Bettman is still in charge. Fire him and start from there.

[JD]

Players ABSOLUTELY need to take paycuts or they just wont have a job anymore, its that simple.

[Ebenezer]

cut six teams...increase rosters to 21 and shrink the salaries with a real cap...get rid of arbitration...

[trapezeus]

#1 reason why the NHL is in trouble, IMO, Bettman is still in charge. Fire him and start from there.

but it's the owners who keep him. so they are just as ignorant as bettman. i understand that the hurting franchises want nothing to do closing shop, because all that invested money will just evaporate. And owners doing ok, don't want to see those teams go down without a fight, because their team's value will fall apart.

but kenny rogers said, "you got to know when to fold em." These teams are just leaking money and there really is no way to stop it without a TV deal (and that's not coming any time soon) or increased fan support (which is impossible because so many southern teams have given tickets away that the actual fans of those teams would rather just wait for the free handouts. Now you put a miserable economic environment and its a matter of time.

I also agree with CL, the game is boring once again. The intermissions are still too long when you are at the game and even longer when you are trying to kill time at home. They need to clean the ice and get back to the game for it to be TV friendly.

[SabreEleven]

cut six teams...increase rosters to 21 and shrink the salaries with a real cap...get rid of arbitration...

Aren't they at 25 now?

[Mski]

Aren't they at 25 now?i think its 12 fwds, 6 d, 2 goalies... that adds to 20 :idunno:

[SabreEleven]

sounds about right.

[TheGhostofJimKelly]

I am not taking away anything from your post, but I have heard the same thing stated before from people on NHL Radio. There are teams that are in trouble of going bankrupt. The NHL as a league is probably the second dumbest league there is next to baseball. They can't get out of their own way to get things done. They did everything right to get the league where it would be a better product and then they slowly let it get back to the way it was in the "boring" 90s. It is still hard to see myself buying tickets to a hockey game for my family. I went to the Sharks game this year to take my kid and it cost us $80 for two tickets, 20 for food, and 10 for parking. A hundred bucks to go to a game? Yikes. I love this team and I wouldn't want it to go away, but there are times when I wonder how it gets by. How do people afford these prices? And to think the seats here are one of the cheapest in the league. Now you have another potential franchise player (possibly two) in Tavares and he will end up in Long Island, Atlanta, or Tampa Bay. Not exactly high profile teams. I would rather the kid end up in Toronto, at least they will appreciate him.

[trapezeus]

yeah, i read the stories on line prior to talking to my friend. he says as a strategy consultant the NHL clients happen to stink the most because there is a lot of work that they need to do so they come up with plans and teams reject them and say, "you don't knkow our sport like we know our sport." and that's where it leads to people saying, "these guys know absolutely nothing about the game or the business."

i think people have gone to these games in past using credit cards that they don't pay down. Those times are essentially over. So it will be interesting to see how they lure fans into the buildings.

i went to a rangers game this year. Tickets were free through the company box, but a friend who got his bosses ticket had 350 on his one ticket in the lower bowl of MSG. Who pays that??