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Originally Posted by Finger Cookin
Pretty sure Nielsen and Numeris know how to properly measure a media market. It's just what they're in the business of doing.
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The thing is, this information is radically irrelevant to an NHL franchise, since the NHL is heavily dependent on gate revenue.
In the first place, a media market may include areas so far away from the core city that there is little chance any of their residents will buy significant numbers of game tickets. The Calgary DMA, as measured by Nielsen, includes Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, and Jasper (!). The Vancouver DMA includes all of Vancouver Island, and the coast all the way up to Sullivan Bay.
What's more, many of these so-called possible expansion markets have no arena that could possibly accommodate an NHL team, and no prospect of building any. Sherbrooke, for instance, is allegedly a ‘possible market for expansion or relocation’. The arena there is the Palais des Sports, which seats 3,646.
You also need to remember that the number of ‘avid fans’ is based on information about Google searches conducted in a district. It's a long, long step from looking up hockey information on Google to actually buying tickets to NHL games.
In short, the population data for the DMAs is accurate – but the ‘avid fans’ data is based on bogus methodology. Even the DMA information was never intended to be applied in this way. An algorithm that rates ‘Sudbury–Thunder Bay’ as a possible NHL market is beyond screwy. Take these so-called data with all the salt you can mine, or better yet, don't take them at all.