There’s been some discussion recently about the economics of hockey. Did you know that more money means more success on the ice? According to Forbes, it does:
An analysis of payroll data shows that pro hockey teams with billionaire owners spend more on their players than teams without billionaire owners–and their teams rack up more points.
Seems logical; it’s clearly worked in Detroit. So why aren’t Tampa Bay, Edmonton, and Los Angeles doing better?
There’s a correlation between the extra spending and winning. As of Friday, billionaire-owned teams were averaging 62.3 points for the season. Teams not owned by billionaires were averaging 59.8 points.
Just a guess, but Detroit’s double-digit lead over everyone else is likely making up for a lot of the difference, especially when L.A. is thrown into the mix.
Let’s face it, there’s no guarantee that spending a lot will bring success. In addition, being a billionaire owner has other difficulties. Just ask Tom Golisano about owning the Sabres:
Even though Golisano has taken a low profile with the hockey team, Sabres faithful are pointing the finger at him. One fan lamented in a letter to the Buffalo News that Golisano and management have made the club “the farm team for the rest of the NHL teams who have competent management.”
Ouch. Sometimes, perception is everything. Take a look at USA Today’s interview with Dave Ogrean, the executive director for USA Hockey. Hockey Weekend Across America is coming up, and Ogrean took the opportunity to talk about the state of hockey in the U.S. One point emerged:
Gary Bettman has sometimes been criticized because of his goal of adding teams in the south in order to get a national television contract…Our Southeastern District from the Carolinas down is a big growth state. This isn’t a regional sport anymore.
Sounds promising, right? Then how come the New York Times disagrees?
Evidence that Southern teams are struggling abounds. Local TV viewership for the Atlanta Thrashers in the first half of the season was down 50 percent from last year and in Dallas, Tampa Bay and Phoenix it has dropped by 29 to 35 percent. (It rose by 50 to 114 percent in Detroit, St. Louis and Minnesota.)
The Nashville Predators came close to leaving town recently after missing several attendance benchmarks associated with their arena lease. And according to Forbes magazine, four of the league’s five least valuable franchises are in southerly locales: Nashville, Washington, Phoenix and Atlanta.
I sure wish Washington felt like a southerly locale right now.
Comparing the market for hockey in Detroit, St. Louis, and Minnesota with Atlanta, Dallas, Tampa Bay, and Phoenix is like comparing Rick Nash to Steve Nash; it’s just not the same thing. The same goes for correlating high payrolls and winning.
15 Comments
Wow, a correlation of 2.5 points? Sounds like another case of conclude first, collect data later.
Having recently lived, played, and officiated in the “Southeastern District”, I can assure you that the game, at least on a youth level, is growing and even thriving in some places. The fact that this doesn’t correlate to ratings/attendance is that its the kids that are learning to love the game, not necessarily the parents.
Additionally, a lot of the markets where the sport is gaining popularity are not all that close to NHL markets. Places like Birmingham, Baton Rouge, Memphis, Jackson, and even Huntsville are all hours away from NHL arenas.
The sport is taking roots however, and while it will never supplant college football, it was surprising to me (a Boston native) the number of kids who are learning and loving the game despite parents who cannot even skate.
This correlation obviously translates to football as well. See Dan Snyder.
A high payroll didn’t guarantee anything even before the cap was in place (see: NY Rangers), and the same is true now. Detroit is obviously throwing these numbers off, and they’re successful not because of money, but because they’re one of the best-run organizations in pro sports (I hate them, but it’s true). Developing good players in your own system is the key to winning, period.
A few quick comments (you know I have to pop up sometime, right?):
1) DCSC, fun article. Your stuff is always worth reading. This blog just keeps getting better and better.
2) Money is funny in hockey–while you can’t expect to win a championship on the cheap, you also can’t buy one the way you can in baseball. In the recent era, the teams that have enjoyed success have been the ones who drafted and traded and signed well, not necessarily the ones who simply threw gobs of money around (see under: Toronto Maple Leafs). Money helps, but its not enough.
3) Detroit is a machine, sure, and they are one of those very teams that drafts and trades and signs well. However, they are also in a weak division, or at least a very mismatched one. The Central may not be as truly horrid as in years past (Columbus seems to have clawed out of the basement), but the Wings still have the luxury of playing 32 games per season against teams that are well, well below them in calibre. Something to bear in mind.
4) You think WASHINGTON doesn’t feel like a southerly locale? As I write this from Toronto, we are under a “snowfall warning” (when the hell did you last get one of THOSE in DC?…), and we’re expecting about 8 inches of the damned stuff tonight. Its 25 degrees F, with the wind making it feel like 14.
And what’s worse, you’ll be breaking out the flip-flops before I’ve put away my boots. Guaranteed.
For those who live in DC, and know the frustration of fighting for media and cultural competence against the Redskins or even the Wizards, I know deep down that it’s fair to compare us against Tampa, Nashville, or Phoenix. Still, it stings to have twenty years invested in a team and still look, to the rest of the hockey world, like a johnny-come-lately.
Thunderweenie, what do you mean by pointing out the “luxury” of the Wings playing Central Divsion teams? Setting aside for a moment the fact that playing teams that mostly won’t make the playoffs for pretty much the entire month of March may not be the best preparation for the first round, the Wings really haven’t benefited from their division in terms of points this season. They’re 14-0-2 against the Northwest, 14-3-0 against the Pacific, and 6-2-1 against the Eastern Conference, but only 7-8-2 against Central.
Thanks for the compliment, Thunderweenie!
Granted, our winter weather isn’t usually that bad, but if you saw the ice storm we had yesterday, you might reconsider
I would rather have snow any day over ice. Hell I just want snow. I miss Snow.
Sadie, you make a fair point about Detroit’s record this year, and I’m not denying for a moment that the Wings are for real. Buuuuut…..from my back-of-the-beer-coaster calculations, the Wings were a jaw-dropping 22-4-6 in their conference last year. And as you pointed out yourself, they’ve got 15 intra-Conference games all piled into their 23 games remaining this season. So while their record against Central teams and their final point total won’t necessarily be as lopsided this year as they were last year (one never knows), I wouldn’t be surprised if it edges that way.
My point is that they don’t exactly exist in the League’s toughest division, and their point total has to be read in that context.
And DCSC and Chanuck…you wouldn’t miss snow if you had been out there shoveling the damned stuff with me at 6:45 this morning!!!! And yes, there’s a layer of ice under there, too! Say, you guys have a couch I could crash on for the next three or four months?
Thunder,
why don’t we just swap homes for the winter…works for me. Then I can also watch more OHL games, spend less money, and regularly visit the local Tim Hortons.
Eeeexcellent!
(Sorry, that’s all I got)
Why on earth would they do the analysis for only one season? Unless they were just doing the analysis to ‘prove’ a point they already had in mind…
Depends where you live, MulletMan, but given that we have yet more snow in the forecast for later this week, you may want to choose wisely…
We might have to swap cars also though. I’ve heard that mustangs don’t like the snow that much
BTW, I had never heard of Hockey Weekend in America, likely because I live in Canada. But it sounds great! Promote hockey at the grassroots level, I say–forget whether the Nashville/Kansas City/Las Vegas Predators will be successful or not. Growing the game and growing the NHL are not necessarily the same thing.
You guys and gals at OFB have also done more to promote genuine hockey interest in the US than the NHL has done in a decade and a half.
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