Arizona Coyotes New Arena and/or Relocation Thread

Yeah but the reason those “Canadians” are down there is they want to get away from the things that make us real Canadians, e.g. snow, ice and winter.

:frowning_face:

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Because it’s about American TV contracts. When Bettman came in his mission was to get that fat US national open air TV contract and he couldn’t do that with no team between California and St Louis and no team between Philly and Florida. So rather than have teams in small Canadian markets that were struggling at the time with the American dollar (not fan support) he paved the way for them to move to Denver and Phoenix. As for Hartford, they too did not leave for lack of fans. They moved because the NHL saw no use in having 2 teams in New England (Hartford Boston) yet NOTHING in that HUGE rectangle between DC - Florida - Dallas - St Louis. Hence the Carolina Hurricanes were born and soon the Preds and Thrashers followed.

The irony is that 25 years later Bettman STILL has not delivered that TV contract …

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$620 million US/season not big? Interesting :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

Btw at that time those Canadian teams were losing money through the nose and the only buyers for them were American. Bettman had little to nothing to do with that. The American teams moved when other cities offered way more in terms of new facilities and financial incentives to move teams
To their city. This has happened in every league. Nothing new.

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Is there Hockey Night in America yet? Is there Friday Night Hockey Game appointment television on NBC?

By your numbers 620 mil divided by 32 teams is si roughly 20 mil per team or roughly 25% of the salary cap. By comparison CFL teams get 4 or 5 million TV bucks per year or 80-90% of their salary cap. One could argue that the CFL has a better TV deal with TSN than the NHL has in America.

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Hold my beer. You are going to make the argument based on nebulous history and mere demographics in Arizona that 1) Phoenix is as good a hockey town as is Las Vegas and 2) Phoenix’s team will have even close to the success at hand in Las Vegas, which will remain for quite some time?

The old deal with NBC paid a little over 200 whatever they charged for the streaming rights back then. They’re included in the ESPN deal so the rights fees still tripled. Add in the Canadian rights fee plus all teams have regional deals.

They’ll never be ahead of the NFL, NBA or MLB but they’re doing quite well. There really not many US markets left that will move the needle on the national rights. Seattle may be the last one.

To you or I $620 million is nothing to sneeze at, but the NFL makes over 10 billion a year on TV money despite the fact that it only plays 256 games per year, the NHL 1312.

If you consider that an NFL franchise costs approx 200 million to run each year, the TV contract alone covers ALL NFL expenses and still has 40% left over.

Now THAT’s a TV contract. :wink:

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Weren’t the NHL’s revenues derived from the Six Canadian teams at 40%? Wasn’t the TV deal included?

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I think that’s when the Canadian dollar was at par. But still that’s a hefty pull. Yes I do believe that included the TV deal.

Imagine what would happen if the dollar reached par again…The Canadian based teams would be cooking with gas and driving up the cap for the Coyotes of the world!

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There are dedicated hockey nights for broadcast in the US. That will continue moving forward. The details are still being worked out on that.
It won’t be on NBC because NBC is no longer a broadcast partner with the NHL.

The CFL does get almost all of their salary cap covered by their television contract but that is largely due to are historically very weak players association which is not the case in the NHL. If anything that just bolsters the argument of what many have been calling for which is a more equitable split of CFL revenues with players.

In addition it’s not just 620 million US. It’s that plus the $400 million Canadian that they get from their Canadian broadcast partners. So the math actually works out to about $1 billion give or take currency exchanges divided by the 32 teams

Even at 1 billion it still doesnt cover half of their player salaries. Furthermore NHL salaries are tied to revenues (or at least were at one point) and pegged somewhere in the 50-60% range. The CFl has a salary Cap of 5.3 and on average a CFL team costs about 11 million to operate so salaries are roughly 45% of revenues, a bit less but still comparable to NHL.

I do agree with you on this. I ,by the way, am not advocating for the Coyotes or any other franchise to relocate anywhere.

I just have an issue with the NHL picking and choosing which franchises to save and fight for.

That is correct. The players get a portion of all revenue not just the television contract. (A 50/50 split worth players).

You’re getting revenue and expenses mixed up. REVENUES for most teams not based in Toronto are a lot higher than $11 million. And no they aren’t anywhere near comparable to three NHL.
NHL teams get a guaranteed 50% of all money taken in while the CFL Doesn’t get anywhere near that percentage. (More like 30% or even less if you’re team rhymes with Mesmatchewan)

A CFl team costs between 11 and 12 million to run. Teams on average break even. Sask pulls the average up sure, but that means that some teams are making less than 10, but even Toronto still pays their players 5 million or more so in Sask salaries might be 30% of revenue, but in Toronto it might be 60% and this year I could easily argue much higher than that. So yes, CFL salaries to revenue ratio I believe is very comparable to NHL.

You also made a reference earlier to the CFLPA being soft. No big 4 players union has a softer reputation than the NFL. They especially drew heavy criticism not so long ago under the Gene Upshaw years where he was pretty much accused of being a 'collaborator' and they lost out on guaranteed contracts, salary cap issues, player safety issues ...

I think the original NHL fight was because Basille wanted to buy them and go around the league’s process. They want the right who they chose as their owners. Hence they bought the team from Bankruptcy since no one else was bidding against Basillee.

After that… long story short Glendale kept bailing them out until they amended the 2013 lease 2 years later. Without the subsidy they can’t make Glendale work. It’s why the talk of a new East Valley arena doesn’t go away.

Now that that Glendale is physically kicking them out and I’m led to believe it’s not a negotiating tactic, there may not be much left to fight for…same as Atlanta way back when

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Again, you’re confusing revenue with expenses. What a team cost to operate is an expense not a revenue. A revenue is the money you bring in. Again, teams being in a heck of a lot more than $ 11 million.

You are right about the NFLPA. They are by far the weakest of the big four players unions. However they are practically Teamsters compared to the CFLPA which is largely been a joke in this century and A term like collaborator would be far too kind for the things that I’ve gone on with that organization.

Read again, I have not confused anything. I laid out that I estimate that the richest team brings in roughly 15 and the poorest probably 9 or even 8, for an average of 11 or 12 (roughly break even). We know that the cap is 5.3 so salaries league wide are ballpark 40-45% of revenue whether that is mandated or not.

Just to bolster your point, in recent years, Edmonton posted revenues close to $25 million, Winnipeg about $35 million, and Saskatchewan as much as $40 million.

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Your figures are way off. Riders brought in just under 40 million. Players salaries didn’t even crack 20% of that. For other teams it’s closer to 30%. Nowhere near 40% league wide. Players wish it was that high (and it used to be; actually around 60% at one time).

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Thanks Dave.
Wonderful job providing that data and a lot better than I would have ever done. :+1:t3: