Massive cap increases are league distorting as it opens up cap room for one or two teams to pay the superstars to add to teams under the previous lower caps. It also results in a bunch of terrible mid-tier players getting overpaid on the cap spike. In the NBA it led to the Durant/Curry warriors. Having a balanced cap increase to come out of Escrow makes sense.
I don’t see why in division games has to be even. Play your closest rivals like Edmonton and Vancouver more. Do we really need the same amount against San Jose, Anaheim and Seattle?
Add a play-in tournament like the NBA has. And actually do the World Cup.
The NBA play-in tournament is 6 games. The World Cup is 16 games. Even the bigger World Jrs and Olympic tournaments are only 30 games -- and no one will want to pay NHL prices to watch a round robin game between Denmark and Latvia.
Reducing the season from 82 to 76 games would be a loss of 96 games league wide.
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Originally Posted by getbak
The NBA play-in tournament is 8 games. The World Cup is 16 games. Even the bigger World Jrs and Olympic tournaments are only 30 games -- and no one will want to pay NHL prices to watch a round robin game between Denmark and Latvia.
Reducing the season from 82 to 76 games would be a loss of 96 games league wide.
And not just ticket revenue.................revenue from your tv/radio/digital partners. Oh and in house advertising, concessions, parking, merchandise....and on it goes.
I like the idea of reducing the preseason and adding more regular season games. Start the actual season a week sooner and get rid of a couple of preseason games.
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The NBA play-in tournament is 8 games. The World Cup is 16 games. Even the bigger World Jrs and Olympic tournaments are only 30 games -- and no one will want to pay NHL prices to watch a round robin game between Denmark and Latvia.
Reducing the season from 82 to 76 games would be a loss of 96 games league wide.
For sure. It's a 7.3% reduction of games, but I'd argue you would cut out the lowest marginal value games.
Gate revenue and regional tv deals would take a hit, but I'm not sure it would be a totally proportional hit to corporate partnerships/advertising, and national deal losses could be negligible.
So, would you work 7.3% less for 4% less pay? I probably would, especially if it means 4-6 fewer nights on the road.
Probably a bit harder to justify for owners, though there would also be a corresponding reduction in expenses - again flat expenses against the worst marginal revenue games. But it would have to be a bigger picture 'good of the game' thing.
From a fan engagement perspective, how many of those 96 games are meaningful? In the last 2 weeks of the season, there are usually 10 teams comfortably in the playoffs on cruise control, and another 10 with no hope at all, leaving a dozen or so still playing meaningful games. Of course with 76 games this fact would still be true at some point to a lesser degree, but that would be further mitigated with a play-in.
It's only a matter of time before the regular season gets lengthened and top players will miss games more routinely because of it. Just like basketball.
There is an optimal number of games where you balance supply and demand. And right now, every sports league out there is looking to grow the schedule, not shrink it so clearly people are willing to pay up for more games. Quality of the product just isn't a huge consideration.
There is no room to expand the season and expand the playoffs. Expanding both likely pushes a potential Stanley Cup game 7 way to close to July which no one wants.
must show all Flames games nationally when they play on Saturdays, Mondays, and Wednesdays !!!
