The Players future in jeopardy

The 2012 NHL season was a coming of age season tale, greater viewership at all levels and the anticipation for the upcoming season 2013 season being the season that viewership could take a bigger leap.  But and this is a big but, there is an imbalance in the Big League of pushing pucks.  A major publication the  New York Times recently published an piece on the negotiations between the two entities within the organization Players vs Owners.


As some publications do, they choose sides;  So I'm going to go over some facts. There have been 5 major bankruptcies and NHL interventions since the expansion era.  The teams are
1975 Pittsburgh Penguins, 1995 Los Angeles Kings, 1998 Pittsburgh Penguins, 2003 Ottawa Senators,  and 2003 Buffalo Sabers.  In recent history we have the 2009 Phoenix Coyotes and the 2011 Dallas Stars who have filed for bankruptcy in accordance with the NHL constitution.  Beyond that, there are 3 current teams in the NHL who's Net Assets do not meet the valuation of the team.  Meaning if the team sold the owner would still have to file for bankruptcy because their investment is not paying off.


All of this makes the NHL look like losing bet and not popular to have outside investment come.  What is the NHL going to do about making it's position to investors more enticing, instead of changing the NHL Constitution, it is going to seek profits from the teams themselves so if another team declares bankruptcy the NHL can remain solvent to till the team returns to profits.  So for the good of the league the profits must be redistributed so that owners have a chance to bet on a winning game.


That is what the league is doing,  but the teams the teams are self correcting their payrolls to reflect the demand (or what the teams view as the lack of demand) for the grinders, the grunt workers, and men down in the AHL. The teams are doing so that the net payroll for the players will save them enough cash to not end up being in the red.  All teams are emulating the near bankrupt teams hoping that the 3 teams can bring back their profit margins and grow the sport. The  most evident eviedence of this is the median contract holders.  these middle of the road contract players are falling by the way side.  The boys who used to make 1.3 million to 2.4 million have been reduced by 20 percent this summer contract cycle.  This is growing the bottom line for the Stars of the league leaving the 20 players on the bench with less coin.


The players of the WHL are watching,  The NHL's biggest talent pool is watching both the League and the Owners shrink their exposure to the teams who make the cup a reality.

US Div Seasons on the Rise

The US division of WHL has quite a following and I have proof.  I was going over the attendance averages for the past season and the average attendance seems to be another good season for the teams south of the border.  The chart below has the seasons average for the past 5 years.

                           2008          2009          2010          2011          2012

Everett               6425          6030           5701         5807           5278
Spokane             6557          6656           6453         6439           6643
Seattle                4082          4181           3853         4096           4206
Tri City              4245          4424           4480         4702           4653
Portland             4460          3648           4437         5594           6075

The most interesting part of the data is that the worst attendance season for the division was 2010 with an overall average for all 5 teams being 4,984.8.  The 2012 season was best attendance season for the division for the past 9 years with an average of  5,371 people attending the games.