NHL is just a minor league with major losses
Bernie Miklasz - St. Louis Post Dispatch
Arthur Levitt, the former chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, reported that the National Hockey League's 30 teams lost $273 million last season. He warned that the NHL is on a "treadmill to obscurity."
I would disagree with Mr. Levitt's premise.
The NHL wandered into obscurity a long time ago.
The NHL is basically a minor league pretending to be major league. And that's especially true in the way the NHL bangs fans over the head with an average ticket cost of $41.56. Ticket prices have escalated about 50 percent over the last decade. And for a more substantial investment of their working income, fans who can afford to buy a couple of decent seats get to see dull, low-scoring games with no offensive flow. They get to see clutching and grabbing and incompetent referees. The fans get to see a bunch of teams they don't care about and players they've never heard of. They get minor-league entertainment at big-league prices. No surprise, then, that average attendance for an NHL game is on pace to come in at a six-year low.
The NHL's television ratings have plummeted 16 percent over the last three years. The average regular-season broadcast for 2002-03 generated a 1.1 rating, or lower than televised bowling, billiards, and poker tournaments. Last weekend, the NHL All-Star Game on ABC went head-to-head against an Arena Football League contest on NBC. The Arena League rating was 17 percent higher than the NHL's. Each NHL team receives around $5 million a season under the broadcast agreement with ABC and ESPN. But according to recent media reports, ABC is expected to drop its NHL broadcasts, and the league can expect to take a dramatic revenue hit in its next TV contract.
Levitt certainly can't be wrong in his assessment that the NHL is hemorrhaging money. How much evidence does any rational, reasonable person need to conclude that this sport is in serious trouble? But the lunkheads at the NHL Players Association immediately began mewling over Levitt's claims. He has been portrayed as a pro-management pawn.
The labor agreement expires in September, and NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow seemingly has programmed the players to believe the NHL is a profit-churning machine, so deep in money the league could wrap its pucks in $100 bills. The NHLPA is adamantly opposed to a salary cap - even though a cap is acceptable to the players in the highly successful National Football League.
NHL players must be suffering too many concussions. They're receiving about 76 percent of the league's gross revenues, compared to 64 percent for NFL players and 48 percent for National Basketball Association players. But more and more, hockey players are posturing and depicting themselves as victims.
Obviously, NHL players want to retain the current arrangement. Any system in which underachieving Blues goaltender Brent Johnson can receive a $400,000 raise and lift his 2003-2004 salary to $1.1 million is obviously working beautifully for players. But even if the sport undergoes a significant economic reform, NHL players will be paid extremely well to play a game.
Never mind that; hockey players think they're baseball players now. They're just as arrogant and out of touch with reality. And this is supposed to be a humble, working-class sport? Please. Not anymore.
I hope all of the boys in the NHL locker rooms get on a Zamboni and follow Goodenow straight over that metaphorical cliff. The only way to save this league is to destroy it first, and then rebuild it.
That's why I'm hoping for a long, sobering labor shutdown. One day the NHL can come back with fewer teams, lower salaries, cheaper tickets, more skating room on the ice, and more goals on the scoreboard. Until then it's a minor league.