NHL Future Looking Bright

While the majority of the world is wrapped up in a major economic crisis, things for the NHL are actually looking up. It isn’t that the league is making a gigantic profit while everything around them falls apart, but for the most part, the NHL is steadily growing in support.

It has actually been growing since the end of the lockout, though in spurts of different sizes and lengths. Granted, the lockout threw the entire league into chaos and destroyed virtually all media support for hockey in the United States, but from the ashes the NHL seems to have risen stronger.

There will always be the old men in the back of the bar pounding back there whiskey and telling, “I remember when…” stories about the glory days of hockey. These are the same people that believe in longer overtimes, tie games, harder hits, and fighting with reckless abandon. Those were the glory days of NHL hockey without question, but whether you love or hate the state of the new league with shootouts and obstruction calls, there is something to be said about its marketability.

The new, more open hockey that evolved from the lockout has become the American sporting underdog. If there is one thing America loves, it’s an underdog.

That is of course not to say that Canada doesn’t deserve it’s own say in the matter, but the main goal of the new NHL was to appeal to where it was weakest; the younger generation of Americans. The game would be faster, shinier, and more high-flying than ever before. Kids like shiny things right?

The league, post-lockout, set out to secure its audience for generations to come, and something at least seems to be working.

There is obviously still gloom and doom to report. The Phoenix issues have turned into a disaster, though with the on-set of the hockey season, they seem to be clearing up slowly but surely outside of mass-scale public awareness. The NHLPA is still in chaos, but they are working to fix that internally before the new CBA must be approved.

Then there’s also the fact that in the early goings the NHL has shown a 2% decrease in attendance for the month of October based on last year’s numbers.

In a number of areas where teams have had poor on-ice products for the better part of the last decade or are located in a less than favorable market location for hockey (Atlanta, St. Louis, Washington, Pittsburgh,  Florida, and Columbus) attendance is rising.

In some areas, where on-ice product is diminishing, the economic situation is excessively difficult, or there is no serious hope for a playoff birth (Minnesota, Ottawa, Detroit, Nashville, Tampa Bay, New York (I), and Phoenix) attendance is unfortunately falling.

There are also some clear glitches. Philadelphia, for instance, has not finished outside the top five in attendance in nearly forever. Though thoughts of the Phillies possibly repeating as World Champions of baseball has caught the attention of many Philadelphians, it is not hard to imagine that attendance will pick up.

In areas like Dallas, Boston, Buffalo, and Chicago the early numbers do not show what will happen long-term for the team either. The attendance in those areas will pick up soon as well.

The Phoenix Coyotes and New York Islanders, two of the bottom teams in terms of attendance, have their own issues to sort out of course. The Lighthouse Project in New York is still causing drama, and fans are unsure of what will happen to their team. This will obviously cause a decrease in attendance. The same is true for Phoenix which stands at the middle of the biggest relocation drama the league has seen in years. (Early Attendance Trends – FromTheRink.com)

The 2% decrease in attendance across the board from this point last season may appear troubling, but increases like in Atlanta (12%) and New Jersey (10%) don’t do much to cover up the 30% decrease in Phoenix.

When the MLB playoffs are over, the attendance will of course rise. Then when the NFL is done for the year it will rise again. Early figures, when placed next to averages from prior years, normally appear problematic but always rebound.

Though all of this is not catastrophic, it isn’t all that great. So then what exactly is the good news?

Versus, the Comcast-owned sports television channel, recently had a huge falling out with DirectTV. Because of this DirectTV is ready to pull the plug on Versus. The sports programming, that falls directly under ESPN’s shadow, could be in trouble, but despite this, hockey viewership on Versus is up 10% from this time last October.

NHL.com hasn’t been left out of the action either. Compared to the same period through October 17th last year, the websites number of unique visitors is up a whopping 25%. The number of subscribers this season to NHL GameCenter Live, the league’s out of market game package, is up an incredible 50%. Unique IP addresses watching streaming videos provided on the league website is up 139% from this time last year as well. Sales revenue from the NHL online store is up 32%, and sales from the NHL Store Powered by Reebok in New York City is up 11%. (NHL Seeing Small Drop In Attendance, But Jumps In Other Metrics – SportsBusinessDaily.com)

If revenue continues and attendance in major cities begins to fall back into place, there is no reason for the apocalyptic premonitions of a sharp decrease in the salary cap for the near future to ever come true. In fact, there is a completely different spin coming from the league commissioner himself.

“Over the last few months, there’s been a lot of speculation that the cap’s going to go down 20 percent. That’s absurd. That’s just made-up. It isn’t going to happen,” Bettman said. “I think it will be somewhere near where it is ($56.8 million), up a little, down a little, somewhere near where it is.”

This is great news for the 20 NHL teams currently operating within $5 million of the salary cap.

While NHL hockey teams are spending more money in order to compete for a playoff bid which will, in turn, create more fans and more revenue, NBA teams are fielding teams under the maximum number of players possible to cut back on costs.

While the NHL has grown in the period of economic crisis, the NBA has teetered toward total economic implosion. A complex collective bargaining agreement (CBA) has left the league in a complete salary cap crisis while teams try to shed high-end players for almost nothing because the organizations can no longer afford their contracts.

Even with a national television contract the NBA is faltering while the NHL comparatively thrives off of local contracts and limited national broadcasts.

The NFL, North America’s premier money making machine, is not exempt from the crisis either as some teams struggle to reach a level of attendance so that their games can even be televised. Thanks to the amount of money involved in NFL TV deals, if a team falls short in nearly selling out a home game, that game will not be shown.

Both the NFL and NBA have expiring CBAs next summer. The NBA though is on the edge of suffering a lockout much worse than the NHL lockout of 2004-05. If anything, that year and the changes it forced commissioner Gary Bettman to make have given the NHL the upper hand in dealing with the economic crisis.

Meanwhile, ESPN, noticing the growing support for the NHL and decreasing audience for professional basketball, has started increasing it’s NHL coverage. There haven’t been any televised games, but the ESPN website has recently made full-blown online live blogs and discussions to Thursday night “games of the week.”

At this rate it is only a matter of time before the NHL looks into more national coverage, especially if the NBA is forced out due to lockout.

The league is also fighting a war on another front outside of rival sports within North America. In Russia the KHL has made every attempt to block talent from joining the NHL. They have also attempted to take some of the league’s best stars by offering more lucrative contracts. So far there has been no major shifts other than the occasional minor talent returning home.

Meanwhile, stories like the one of possible first overall selection Kirill Kabanov continue to leak in from Russia. While foreign superstars love playing in international competition for their home countries, the NHL is still the elite league for hockey in the world and will continue to be for some time.

While the KHL tries desperately to take control of the entire European hockey world by attempting to add teams in European countries to their league, the NHL has opened up ties with European leagues through efforts such as the Victoria Cup and playing a couple NHL games at the start of the season across the pond.

This has worked out very well so far. Even in Russia, coverage for the NHL by the media is growing.

So, as much as everyone hates Gary Bettman for his many mistakes and inconsistencies (and there have been many) when dealing with the NHL, is it safe to say that he has recreated a league ready to take a major foothold in North America once again?

I Hope you enjoyed this post. As always, leaving a comment below is both appreciated and encouraged. Thanks!

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