[Rumour] Forbes. NHL could announce relocation in June

[FaFaFlamey]

Originally Posted by Finger Cookin

Those avidity numbers and media market numbers are out of date and not very useful when examining where things stand currently.

I agree! Edmonton doesn't have a population of 1.6 million people (unless it's an estimate of how many fans or includes surrounding cities like Sherwood Park, but still is a little high IMO) and Anaheim isn't even on the list.

[Finger Cookin]

As mentioned, it's the media market size. Not a city population number or a Metro area census number or anything. It's a number from 2013.

As of fall 2014, Edmonton is 1.769M in the media market. It's probably grown since then.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Finger Cookin

Those avidity numbers and media market numbers are out of date and not very useful when examining where things stand currently.

The second data link is from last fall.

The table produced is four years old.

[Finger Cookin]

When one method has (for example) Las Vegas avidity at 6%, and another has it at 12.1%, that's a pretty wild swing. Combine that with growth in the media market since 2011, and you could be going from 90.9K "avid" NHL fans in the area to anywhere from 111.2K to 224.3K.

Seattle being either 5% (actually 5.26%) or 6.1% in 2015 could move it from 241.4K fans to anywhere from 244.9K to 283.7K.

Those small interest swings in big markets are why they will always be more appealing than small "avid" Canadian markets.

[Locke]

As Resolute said, this is likely bunk.

At the moment I'm guessing that the NHL's #1 priority is expansion to get the west to 16 teams to have both Conferences even. I understand that having 2 more teams in the East has been a severe sore spot amongst the owners.

We can see then that relocation isnt the answer otherwise they wouldnt have moved Detroit to the East and as such Quebec isnt even in the conversation. All eyes have to look West on this one.

So I think this is a big reason why the NHL is looking to roll the dice on Vegas.

At the end of the day the NHL's issue is: How can you justify expanding with 2 more teams when so many current markets are in financially dire straights?

At the same time every single day the East has 16 teams to the West's 14 is uncomfortable for the league.

In the end, I can see a few possible scenarios but the craziest one that actually might make the most sense would be the league granting 2 expansion franchises and authorizing up to 2 relocations all at the same time.

Now that would be HUGE.