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Originally Posted by Matty81
I think they do make those decisions based on economics, but I think they consistently do so in a short sighted fashion. And here I don't think they care much about new fans in Asia because they can't easily monetize them in the short term. As a result they saw somebody else profiting and tried to get a piece, failed and torpedoed the enterprise.
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So, what exactly do you envision here as an alternative? NHL expansion to Asia? Because I don't see how that is remotely practical in my lifetime. I think the best bet for the NHL to generate out of market income is through Game Centre and sports cable subscriptions. Over the course of the last twenty years of NHL Olympic participation these are DEFINITELY hard numbers that the NHL has access to and I assume monitors in making these decisions.
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They make more money moving their product from peasantvision to premium sports cable obviously and gamecenter type packages. In the long run is that good for the health of hockey? Definitely not as far as attracting new fans (I know they've pushed games onto CBC). How about getting every team into an ultra premium luxury box filled stadium? Makes a lot more money short term but what does it do to your fanbase in the long term when it costs hundreds of dollars to take your kids to a game? Chokes out the ability of lower income and immigrant families to attend. Coupled with equipment and icetime getting crazy expensive for kids to play at the same time it's not a good recipe long term.
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The market determines gate revenue. I think we are well past the point of worrying about "choking out the ability of lower income families to attend." That ship has sailed, and it is not coming back. My kids have never been to a NHL game because I cannot afford to take them, and they will likely never go, but this is not a NHL problem—this is a professional sports problem. I think you are unrealistically idealistic in your hopes that there is any recourse to making NHL games more affordable.
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I think they consistently choose the path that will make them the most money over a short horizon and are unconcerned with, or too narrow to see that in the long run, hockey is not picking up new fans in other areas of the world and in fact is also losing much of the younger demographic here as a result.
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I think the kind of "long term investment" that you seem to be envisioning is simply too great for anyone to realistically assume.