NHL - Seattle Expansion

Oh that's right, they left town due to lack of fan support,....

Yeah, that's not why they left.

Yeah, that's not why they left.

We're both partially correct in fact; attendance in their last two seasons was amongst the lowest in the NBA but yes there were other extenuating reasons including as I recall issues revolving around a lack of local ownership, a sliding Canuck Buck and frankly an unwillingness of some players to live in Canada (or at least Vancouver).

That said I'm sure some of those players wouldn't have been much of a contribution either to the Grizzlies or to society as a whole - i well remember the completely retarded response from one Kenny Gattison when he was informed he was heading north: "Vancouver? Vancouver...I dunno where it is man, head toward Russia and turn right". Phhht. Clearly  product of a superior education.....

Edited by AllseeingEye, 06 October 2018 - 04:37 PM.

 

But 30,000 people out of 4 million is a pittance. It's less than 1% of the population.....

They shut the list down at 33,000.

As in "no more names, and no more deposits please".

Like I said, the first season is sold out - as in SRO! ... so I put little credence in predictions of doom and gloom for the NHL in Seattle

They shut the list down at 33,000.

As in "no more names, and no more deposits please".

 

Like I said, the first season is sold out - as in SRO! ... so I put little credence in predictions of doom and gloom for the NHL in Seattle

Does the team have good revenue streams outside of the attendance?   How much will they make for media rights?   A number of US teams cannot get any payment for media rights and do not sell a lot of merchandise.   

Next, no one had any idea what the ticket prices will be, but if the rest of the NHL is a measure, Seattle will not be able to charge what cities like Vancouver or Chicago can charge

According to the website the deposits are 100% refundable

Yes. At the time season ticket seats are selected, you can request and receive a refund of your deposit if you do not want to purchase season tickets. In addition, if the NHL does not grant an NHL franchise to Seattle, your deposit will be refunded to you.

Does the team have good revenue streams outside of the attendance?   How much will they make for media rights?   A number of US teams cannot get any payment for media rights and do not sell a lot of merchandise.   

 

Next, no one had any idea what the ticket prices will be, but if the rest of the NHL is a measure, Seattle will not be able to charge what cities like Vancouver or Chicago can charge

The team doesn't exist yet, so its revenue steams are unknown. The flip side of this is that you have no more reason to believe they will have poor revenue streams than I have to expect they will have excellent revenue streams.

What NHL teams don't have media rights deals? (source please)

What NHL teams don't sell "a lot" of  merchandise? - whatever "a lot" might be in terms of resident population. (source please)

You state that Seattle won't be able to charge as much for a ticket as Vancouver or Chicago ... what factual information are you basing this statement on? (sources please)

Of course deposits are refundable ... they've sold twice as many as they have available seats ... somebody is going to have to do without - and will get their money back.

Edited by Cassidy, 09 October 2018 - 12:43 PM.

TV revenues can make many teams profitable even with mediocre attendance records.

Here is a recent spreadsheet of team values, revenues and operating income    The revenue differences come from many sources

There are some sites with a lot more detail but they are behind pay walls.  

Gate receipts and other revenues of the Canucks and teams in weaker markets using 2016/17 stats

Vancouver $66 m ($90 m other revenue)

Edmonton $73 m ($78 m other revenue)

Nashville $59 m ($82 m other revenue)

Calgary $58 m ($71 m other revenue)

Winnipeg $52 m ($67 m other revenue)

Buffalo $40 m ($80 m other revenue)

Tampa Bay $37 m ($87 m other revenue)

Columbus $34 m ($72 m other revenue)

Carolina $24 m ($84 m other revenue)

Arizona $20 m ($78 m other revenue)

Florida $16 m ($84 m other revenue)

Non traditional US markets have to charge lower prices

The difference in gate ec

Can Seattle really support an NHL hockey team?  The team would be the number 4 or 5 sports team in the market

Seattle won't be the first mid-sized American city with four sports teams. Boston does fine. Washington DC does fine. Denver has five teams and they're doing fine.

At the end of the day, the expansion to Seattle is a largely private endeavour and all of the parties involved have taken stock of the risks.

Even if old Seattleites aren't huge hockey fans, there's a lot, and I mean a LOT of transplants in the metro area who are from other places where hockey is a thing. Lots of folks from NYC, Boston, Chicago etc not to mention Canadians working for various tech giants who would be interested in local top class hockey action. I think it would be unfair to underestimate their ability to support this team.

Gate revenue will be critical for the new team as it is for any NHL franchise particularly in the US and some of the smaller Canadian markets. In the US particularly by far more than any other league the NHL is a gate-driven proposition in terms of teams being profitable or not, simply because US TV ratings for hockey are, to be charitable, terrible.

Even the big US hockey markets - Chicago, Detroit, Minnesota, Boston and NY to a lesser extent - pull in minuscule TV ratings in comparison to the other professional leagues when their local teams are playing.

This is why the Big 3 of American networks don't broadcast the NHL on national broadcasts other than - occasionally - the All Star game and some of the outdoor games, although viewership for the latter is also waning in both the US and Canada.

This is also why ESPN bailed on the NHL years ago and why the league had to go crawling for a network TV deal to....Versus. Versus? As a buddy from North Carolina - a huge Carolina Hurricanes fan said - it might as well have been on the Gardening Channel. Versus at the time reached less than 4 million US households. ESPN of course later came crawling back after the network got into all sorts of financial trouble but they like NBC broadcast the NHL overwhelmingly on a regional basis. Unlike the massive TV and other revenues pulled in by powerhouse franchises like Toronto and Montreal, most US teams can only dream about that kind of revenue channel diversity. Its also why the NHL insists on 'revenue-sharing', code-speak for the most profitable teams, those in Canada and few of the larger US markets, "sharing" monies with the weak sisters in the league, mostly in the US sunbelt.

As I said off the top if the new Seattle team can duplicate the LVK formula and be competitive - and getting to the Stanley Cup in Year 1 is pretty competitive! - then I suspect they can and will do well. Struggle out of the gate, or worse, be merely "average" for 3,4,5 years and they might be in trouble.

Playing devils advocate to my own posts, I noted earlier that there's no reason to presume the Seattle team will not do a brilliant business ... but to be fair, there's also no reason (in advance) to presume that Bernard isn't correct in his questioning ... and that the team might struggle for one (or more) reasons Bernard noted in his posts.

There's definitely the "bloom on the rose" that a new major sports team brings in its first couple of years ... but the team will definitely have to perform to keep the Key Arena full.

I'm a hockey fan, so I'm pulling for Seattle as a great NHL city.

But realistically, without Seattle having any sort of history with a contemporary NHL team ... we're all just going to have to wait and see how it all turns out.

I'm hopeful though ... albeit as a long time fan of the game 

We're both partially correct in fact; attendance in their last two seasons was amongst the lowest in the NBA but yes there were other extenuating reasons including as I recall issues revolving around a lack of local ownership, a sliding Canuck Buck and frankly an unwillingness of some players to live in Canada (or at least Vancouver).

 

That said I'm sure some of those players wouldn't have been much of a contribution either to the Grizzlies or to society as a whole - i well remember the completely retarded response from one Kenny Gattison when he was informed he was heading north: "Vancouver? Vancouver...I dunno where it is man, head toward Russia and turn right". Phhht. Clearly  product of a superior education.....

Don 't forget their star player big "dumb  country" Reeves.

What a complete moron and shitty bb player.

They couldn't get out of town fast enough for me.

nhl teams have never relied less on ticket sales than they do today.  even if the team fails to earn a profit year-over-year its value will keep climbing.  so the big money is made in appreciation tv and streaming deals merchandise and licensing.  ticket sales can only cover about 1/2 to 2/3 of the player payroll even in the best ticket-sales market.

National Hockey League average franchise value from 2000 to 2017 (in million U.S. dollars)

https://www.statista...hise-value-nhl/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 11 October 2018 - 05:05 AM.

The Seattle expansion team has just been approved by the NHL's Board of Governors. Seattle will begin play in the 2021-2022 season. Sounds like the renovations to Key Arena are going to take longer than they previously thought. 

Also, the NHL recently acquired the rights to the Seattle Metropolitans trademark in Canada. Apparently a 26 year old guy owns the rights in the USA. Hmmm.... 

The Seattle team will be doing a draft similar to how the Las Vegas Golden Knights did. However as the Golden Knights are still a new team, they are apparently exempt from the draft - this time.

The Seattle team will be doing a draft similar to how the Las Vegas Golden Knights did. However as the Golden Knights are still a new team, they are apparently exempt from the draft - this time.

Vegas also does not get a share of the $650 million entrance fee Seattle will be paying. The other 30 teams will split it. 

The team would be the number 4 or 5 sports team in the market

LOL. Behind whom? The Seattle Storm? 

Seattle is the largest metro area in North America without a pro winter team. This thing is already a massive success. They sold more season tickets than anybody else before they even had a name or a General Manager.

People are seriously overlooking how stanky rich the Seattle NHL ownership group is. They just dropped $650M on an expansion fee and are spending a further $700M of their own money to renovate Key Arena. The magnitude of the money being thrown around by the Seattle ownership is like nothing the NHL has ever seen before. These guys make the Aquilini’s look like small business owners.  

The TV and radio deals are going to be huge. All of Washington and probably Oregon. Idaho? Montana? The advertising deals are going to be monstrous. Amazon Arena? Starbucks Place? Alaska Icehouse?

Look, I think people really forget how large and wealthy Seattle is. Compare Seattle to Vancouver at your own peril. Vancouver is not a great sports town, and it has very few corporate head offices.

[MLS is a boutique league. To rank them above a NHL franchise that is spending over a billion dollars to get started is ridiculous. The MLS team doesn’t even have their own stadium. A MLS ticket costs like forty bucks. What an absurd comparison.]

Edited by jonny, 04 December 2018 - 02:35 PM.

Yeah, that's not why they left.

Easily the worst post of ASE's VV career. 

The Vancouver Grizzlies should never have moved. Even former NBA Commissioner David Stern has stated that. In fact, he said it was one of his biggest regrets as Commissioner.

The Grizzlies as an organization were an absolute tire fire from day 1. The players were beyond atrocious. The Managers were utterly incompetent. They drafted a guy who stated he would never play for Vancouver. The league screwed the franchise from the start. Arthur Griffiths was in over his head on day 1. The ’98 lockout and the weak loonie certainly did not help. That scheister Michael Heisley never had any intention of making it work.

To blame any of what happened in Vancouver on the fans is utterly incompetent. The team won 22% of their games, FFS.

The Griz had nothing remotely close to the expansion luxuries the Vegas Golden Knights had.