Haven't We Suffered Long Enough?

Yesterday marked the 15th anniversary of Gary Bettman becoming the commish of the NHL. In that time, the league's core audience has become disenfranchised, the league has gone from prime time ESPN coverage to being hidden on, as the guys on PTI call it, "the bike race channel", and we've gone from having great franchises in Canadian cities like Winnipeg and Quebec City to having hockey in Tampa Bay, Atlanta and Pheonix. Bettman's lasting legacy will likely be his push for expansion into new markets trying to drive interest rather than trying to retain a core audience for a sport that simply isn't mainstream. He'll never admit it, but he's got to know that it's been a failure. Aside from a few exceptions (L.A., Dallas, and maybe S.J. & Anaheim), none of the cities south of St. Louis care about or deserve a hockey team. I know that it's difficult for everyone to take, but sometimes the best thing you can do for a business is admit that you're not going to grow as big as you'd like to. The NHL is never going to be as popular as the so called big three in the US and the sooner they can admit that, the better chance they have of not completely destroying the game.

Fortunately, I have a solution. It's drastic, but it could work. It'll also never happen. Here it is anyway though, for anyone who's interested:

1. Contract (aka - eliminate) all teams south of the 37th parallel except for Los Angeles and Dallas. That gets rid of 8 teams and we're down to 22.
   
2. Put two new (or moved) teams in Winnipeg and Quebec City.
3. Recognize that exposure is going to drive interest and that being stuck on Versus isn't doing it. Drop the NBC deal. If you're going to go begging to a network, you've got to pick ESPN, not NBC.

That's it! It's that simple. Here's why these few changes would help:

1. Having six fewer teams in the league will have a dramatic impact on the talent level. The guys who are fourth liners now, won't be able to make the bigs because the top talent from those six contracted teams will be vying for those jobs.
2. Increasing the talent level will do more to drive excitement and improve the game than silly rules like telling the goalie he can't handle the puck or talking about increasing the size of the nets. Making the game better can do nothing but help drive interest.
   
3. The NHL is a ticket-revenue driven business. They will not get a huge TV contract or endorsement deal to bring in the money. As I illustrated last week, the teams in hockey markets have no difficulty charging more money for tickets and selling them out. This is especially true in Canada. While the Canadian teams suffered when the dollar was at about 60 cents, we're now back near parity and the Canadian teams are making record money. I'm not blind enough to believe that the dollar will stay so high, but the 25-30% price premiums that the Canadian teams are charging will go a long way to overcome any drop over the next few years.

Unfortunately, my plan can't happen. The Players Association won't allow the league to retract any teams because it'll cost some guys their livelihoods. And the league is more likely to favour expansion than contraction because of the price that new owners have to pay to get a seat at the table. Bettman has created a monster over these last 15 years, and we're going to be stuck with it long after he packs it in. Now, if we could just get him to do that, perhaps we could think about making progress.