Quote:
Originally Posted by IgiTang
The reason NHL WILL work in Vegas... Advertising dollars!
Casinos will pay a premium to have their Casino advertised on National TV in the US, Canada and Europe. Even if hotels give away the tickets for free and give incentives for those comps to actually attend the game, the advertising revenue internationally is massive.
One thing the NHL has over the other major sports is its international fan base (aside from Soccer).
With a $400Mm buy in and a serious corporate injection of advertising dollars and executive boxes..
Vegas would be very successful.
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National ad deals go to the NHL itself, so adding Las Vegas is mostly irrelevant to that. Local advertising dollars go to the teams, and are dictated based on ratings, so unless the Las Vegas team is a ratings dynamo (highly unlikely), the revenue they can make off advertising will be average or below average (certainly below the 7 Canadian teams, the New York area teams, Boston, Detroit, Minnesota etc...you know, places that love hockey?). Likewise casino's have no interest in targeting Las Vegas residents, who would be the ones watching the games. So it wouldn't really work.
As to the international fanbase, that's utterly irrelavant because a 7:30PM PST start in Vegas is 2-6AM in most of Europe (where hockey is popular. The rest of the world? Not so much) so not exactly going to be a ratings draw (ratings = ad money). Likewise the NBA crushes the NHL internationally and baseball is pretty big too, so really the NHL has the NFL covered in terms of international appeal, but that's it. So no, the international revenue it can generate is microscopic and has little to no consideration in terms of putting a team there.
Putting a team there is about being the first pro team in Vegas and trying to get the fan loyalty as there likely isn't going to be intense fan support for multiple pro teams. Problem is once the NBA gets a team there (60% chance it happens down the road), the NHL is in big trouble as Vegas residents will easily choose to support a NBA team over a NHL team.