Elejamie wrote:So the NHL's deputy commish
says that the NHL might expand to Europe one day. He's not saying they definitely would, he's just saying that there's a possibility of it happening. Though, personally, I'm a bit mixed on this. I mean, on the one hand:
- You've got the runaway success of the Toronto Wolfpack, a rugby league team that plays in our (British) league system. Not only did they dominate League 1 but they also did fairly well in the Championship; if they didn't lose their Million Pound Game to the London Broncos then they would've made it to the Super League in their third year of existence.
- You've got the rumours of the NFL moving a team over to London. More than likely to be the Jaguars since they play over here a lot.
- You've got the possibility of more money to be made from a foreign audience with a permanent team rather than being part of a Global Series.
- Overall, it could be an interesting experience.
On the other hand:
- There are things like travel costs. Especially since, unlike football or rugby league games, ice hockey games are usually played more than once a week and you usually get teams playing two days in a row against different teams (bonus points if it's home one day and away the next).
- It could be taxing for players, whether they're in the new team and they're playing away to a team in the USA or Canada or they're playing for an established NHL team and they'd have to play against the European team.
- The salary cap could be even more of an issue due to the different currencies involved. Ditto the language barrier unless the new team plays in the UK or Ireland (or maybe France or the French-speaking part of Belgium because Canadiens).
- It's just a question of whether they're going to establish a brand new team or be like the KHL and EBEL did and wait for a team to apply to join them. Which wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that there are still plenty of current NHL teams that are in the red (*cough* The Wesleys *unconvincing cough*).
That and I don't think the KHL would be super keen on their North American counterpart muscling in on their turf. Still, what do you guys think?
It's unrealistic for several reasons:
1. Schedule: the NBA is far superior to any European Basketball League, the MLB is far superior to any Asian Baseball League, and yet they're not making the move. Why not? Because of the schedule. NFL has one game. NHL has two to three games a week. Leagues that play a similar quantity of games, such as MLB and NBA, do not go abroad.
2. European Hockey Market: the broadcasting revenue's not as big in Europe, as it is in the US. In Europe, hockey has to compete with soccer, as well as with popular local sports. Only seven European teams averaged attendance above 10,000: KHL - 3, DEL - 3, NLA - 1:
http://www.eurohockeyclubs.com/attendance?seasonId=183. European League Structure: all of the top European Leagues synchronize their schedule with each other, and fans are used to seeing certain games on certain days - it's a lot more organized than the NHL. They also take breaks for International Tournaments, which are a big draw in Europe.
4. Team and Country Loyalty: the teams that do best, financially speaking, are teams with fan loyalty. That means that you'd have to poach teams from their current leagues. I'm not seeing successful poaching from the KHL, and even KHL's poaching hasn't been that successful, when the serious leagues are taken into account. It's easy to poach teams from Latvian Hockey League, (lolwut) but the only team poached from a major league was Helsinki's Jokerit. Having one team in Europe - why bother?
5. Low Entry costs for European Leagues vs NHL's $500 million expansion fee. You can run a team in Europe on that expansion fee for over two decades, if done right.