Quote:
Originally Posted by Enoch Root
You don't charge a team $500M USD (or whatever it was) to join, and then cut the schedule - and thus the revenues - by 7.5%.
|
I'm not convinced $500M has or will ever change hands in either case (though I'm sure there are a few roundabout ways the league could come close to justifying this number).
I think the argument would be that you are trimming off the worst 7.3% of opportunities to generate revenue (e.g. Monday night in Feb Flames vs. Preds game), as well as ~7.3% of operating costs (but not sunk costs) which are far more consistent. Then replacing that with far fewer, but significantly better opportunities to generate more revenue per opportunity.
As many teams will really miss those gate revenues as will appreciate missing them...for the rest it would shake out pretty evenly. As for TV, maybe you only shorten the season by one week instead of two. Regional deals would suffer more than national deals, who would maintain almost as many prime supply slots as before.
Maybe it shakes out to a 5% total HRR reduction. But it might be worth it to improve the quality and sustainability the product (fewer injuries to stars, easier to accommodate the Olympics, every game matters even more, etc.).
To be clear, the players would have to agree to this, knowing that it would decrease their final take home pay. I know I'd take 7% less gross for 7% more time off...that last 7% of pay is taxed at the highest rate...
FWIW; 30 teams x 82 = 2460 reg games.
32 teams x 76 = 2432.