Quote:
Originally Posted by killer_carlson
I think this tells you what a pain in the arse the IIHF is to deal with. They'd rather create their own event than have to deal with those clowns.
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Can't pin this on the IIHF. With the Olympics you have arena scheduling issues, athletes in villages, and all sort of logistics...and you can't totally control the TV time. With the next games in Korea, it will be the middle of the night start times in early rounds.
Though the "rather create their own event" is correct...and the people that would be doing the creating is the NHL and TSN (probably). NHL would want full control in order to get full control of the network right fees to host broadcasting the event. Networks like TSN (who i'd be shocked if they don't spend huge money to win rights) want the event to be created because they can control 100% of the advertising, and make a lot of money. With the Olympics, you have to have Olympic sponsors (some of who are sponsors in the first place because of the extra attention Men's hockey brings) and other rights holders, making the ability to sell ads more restrictive than this money grabbing event.
Anyways, the World Cup in a 1 city format is 95% for people making money at the thing, 5% for the hockey (shoe-horned into a season), a 0% for making it an international event.
TSN, if winning the rights, doesn't have to go all over the place and spend money/expenses to have 7 different locations to broadcast from, saving them money. The organizing committee/financial backers of this don't have to pay for teams to fly back and forth over the continent, saving them money. Of course, they will set the ticket prices and policies to make huge profit, and it will be easier to do make profit if you just have one arena in Canada's biggest city hosting all the games. Corporate sponsors can conveniently walk out of their corporate head offices in Toronto and to the games; no "hassle" to get out to Pearson Airport to fly to Calgary for a couple games, and that convenience of their home city makes them more willing to spend more (is how they'll be sold on it by the media ad sellers).
Don't get me wrong, the media (especially those winning the rights *cough* TSN *cough*) will force feed us how cool this is, how monumental it is on a global scale, and draw the ridiculous comparisons in stature to the "Superbowl" (as LeBrun already has) to try and convince everyone around the country how unique the setup it to try and get the world feel engaged.
When really, its the league making some good money off of it, TSN able to promote the heck out of something for months, as well as drape themselves in the flag to Canadians a second time that year. Gives a chance for a bunch of Toronto media types to boast about hosting the World Cup. Media execs from same company able to now do a new bunch of deals with Toronto-centric corporate sponsors, extracting a premium out of them. As for fans, unless your in Toronto or willing to fly there and willing to cough up huge dough (for a stub hub ticket or the inevitable 'package of tickets" gouging they sold at the WJC this year), you're not seeing any games live outside of the Air Canada Centre in this "global" event that 6 countries are participating in.