https://business.financialpost.com/f...-nhl-franchise
Probably one of the best written business of sports articles I've come across.
Imagine, as per Seattle, that an expansion team costs around US$650 million. If you are not Quebec City, a new arena would need to be built, costing another $200 million, give or take, assuming the new owner convinces taxpayers to pick up a chunk of the tab. Now, almost a billion dollars later — huzzah — you have yourself an NHL franchise earning, in a good year, about US$25 million before taxes, interest, depreciation and amortization or, in other words, close to a zero-per-cent annual return on a huge investment.
Some really good tidbits in there about the league expanding, and a second Toronto team from Richard Peddie himself. Of all things, proposals to play both teams out of the ACC.
Peddie was approached, post-MLSE career, by a private group looking to examine the possibility of Toronto being home to another NHL team, a big what-if requiring an ownership group with a monopoly agreeing to waive its monopoly. The working assumption was that the alliance between Bell and Rogers would eventually fracture, forcing one of them out of the Leafs’ ownership group. Peddie, in crunching numbers, had the Leafs and the expansion team both playing out of Scotiabank Arena, a model that could work financially, he says, but, in talking to his connections, it fell apart, because both Bell and Rogers were only interested in owning the Leafs.
Why Canada May Never Get Another NHL Franchise
