I wonder if there is any considering of trying to sell
some tickets, even if not until the final 8.
Arenas may not have sufficient BOH space to manage 8 teams at their venue (some concourse areas may need to be repurposed). I also imagine there is a certain threshold of ticket sales where it would even make sense to operationalize the building to the public, but I don't think it's inconceivable to house 1000-4000 people per game.
Seats could be allocated in a staggered fashion. Perhaps masks are required on the concourse. Strictly manage capacity in the washrooms, strongly encouraging people to use them during periods, not just at intermissions, etc.
Only certain markets would have fans interested in watching "hockey" that doesn't necessarily involve their own team (ie. Canadian markets). Vegas might even be dumb enough to desire travellers from each fanbase, though...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Erick Estrada
Gaps don't matter at the end of the season as a team can miss the playoffs by a single point after 82 games or even after being tied with the 8th place team and having less regulation wins so why should gaps matter now? The league didn't have control over when the season ended so I don't see the issue in drawing the line where things ended. Take the top 16 teams by winning percentage and call it a day as there's nothing fair about how the season ended but what's fair is taking the teams that had the best winning percentage of the season to it's date of closure. This current 24 team format isn't remotely close to fair for the teams that were the best over the regular season.
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Unbalanced, uneven schedule. The 82 game schedule may not be perfectly balanced, but it's closer than this 68-71 game cluster####.
Drawing a line at 16 right now has potential to drive awaya customers. Not sure it's a test you really want to try when people are being given a 'free' test-drive of what life is like without watching hockey. Most STH's will already be reconsidering their personal budgets - I think there's a good chance you'd see a higher lapse rate among the teams who got excluded by a few thousands of a percent.