MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
Was that a gary thing or was that a rising tide lifts all boats thing? All sports franchise values in North America have skyrocketed over the last few decades.
GDT #77 - TOR vs another bottom feeder
- Thread starter zeke
- Start date
Was that a gary thing or was that a rising tide lifts all boats thing? All sports franchise values in North America have skyrocketed over the last few decades.
Wayward DP
Well-known member
I'm going to guess a bit of both?
But I'm tired of defending the weasel, hit my quota for the day. Will defer to @zeke on this
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
Salary caps/fixed costs helped, I will give Gary that. But I can't think of anything else that had successfully grown the profile of the sport and caused values to move.
zeke
Well-known member
Everyone was bitching and complaining that Gary had ruined all the rivalries by pretty much getting rid of divisions. There was more bitching then than there is now.
Wayward DP
Well-known member
I mean I have a huge list of complaints about the guy and his failure to promote or grow the sport as I believe he can and should, but that's all as a fan of the sport.
His constituents are the owners and I do think he continues to make them happy, fans be damned.
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
The cap has probably been the main driver of a 10x increase in franchise values over the last 15 years and Gary is definitely the architect that. How much of that 10x is just overall asset inflation (stock markets are up 3-4x over that period), the increased importance of all live sports to broadcasters bottom lines (streaming has changed viewership dynamics massively), and how much is "cost certainty" is definitely up for discussion. But Gary's constituency definitely have him to thank for whatever portion of that is due to the latter.
By most other metrics though, the NHL is lagging further and further behind the other major sports and starting to be passed by the MLS in a lot of important measures (for instance, MLS has caught up to the NHL in revenue generated per match played). Women's NCAA nat'l championship just did 9.9 million viewers, the Stanley Cup finals averaged 5.8. A lot of that can also be laid at Gary's feet.
Neurospasm
Well-known member
What do you guys think should be done to grow the game? For me I’d like to see the rule book be followed, regardless if some team is going to get 20 minors in a game.
Wayward DP
Well-known member
1. market your stars
2. protect the stars (i.e. enforce the fucking rules)
3. follow the fucking rules
4. no more fighting
5. bigger nets
6. change the rules to protect skill players (like all the other major sports leagues have done in recent memory)
Wayward DP
Well-known member
but a big issue that has no easy solution is how inaccessible the sport is to most people who are not rich and white. I dunno how you fix that.
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
1) Market the stars. Work towards changing the culture where the perfect hockey personality is a farm boy from Saskatchetoon who can only awkwardly rub cliche's together whenever a mic is in his face. It's fucking boring. No one under the age of 50 or owning any tint in their skin actually likes this. Rip off the boomer bandaid now. They don't matter.
2) Inject mexican supplements into league wide youth hockey initiatives in NHL cities and surrounding areas (follow the demographics...if there's a high number of children in a neighbouring suburb, focus there). Rather than spending 10's of millions on propping up loser franchises, move them to places they'll at least break even and pump the money you were willing to waste on them into building arenas and good ball hockey pads. ~20 million a year doesn't build a lot at once, but do it over a generation across non traditional hockey markets and you'll move the needle.
3) Create a true best on best international tournament and run it every 4 fucking years without fail in a host city. Here's the kicker...it's 16 teams. Yes I know that there aren't 16 competitive national hockey programs in the world. But FIFA also knows that there aren't 64 competitive international soccer programs yet they're entirely cool with North Korea or whoever qualifying occassionally and getting smacked for 3 matches. It gives weirdo international programs something to organize around and a reason for potential fans to care. Stagger it against the winter Olympics so that if you can sort your shit out with the IOC, there's best on best international hockey every 2 years. Be as consistent as possible with this for a fucking generation. You can go from backwater to mid tier program in 10-15 years.
Yes, this matters. Japanese kids seeing a rando japanese goalie in the 2050 hockey world cup throw a 50 save shutty against Team Canada after a cinderella qualification run is the type of weird shit that ignites a national program. This isn't the 70's either, where world class coaching is hard to get. You just have to be willing to invest and it's pretty easy to acquire legitimate professional level coaching and skills development for your junior programs.
4) Attract and acquire relationships with cultural icons. What the Leafs are doing with Bieber is the future, I wouldn't piss on Bieber if he was on fire, but the jerseys are dope. Every club should be seeking these types of visible relationships with cultural icons from their city/regions.
Wayward DP
Well-known member
yeah also a recognition of the modern demographics of North America would help too. in particular the rural/urban divide.
more and more folks are living in cities. more and more infrastructure, rinks, leagues, etc. are in cities. yet the league and the (Canadian, at least) media seem to want to focus on any rural municipality that has a rink.
the NHL needs more young fans in cities. the country boys, especially in the prairies etc, I don't think there's any risk of losing them to other sports. but a second generation kid living in Markham? give him a reason to like hockey. engage him somehow. this is building somewhat on ME's post but the NHL seems to have turned a blind eye to growing the game with the demographic types where they could reasonably succeed.
more and more folks are living in cities. more and more infrastructure, rinks, leagues, etc. are in cities. yet the league and the (Canadian, at least) media seem to want to focus on any rural municipality that has a rink.
the NHL needs more young fans in cities. the country boys, especially in the prairies etc, I don't think there's any risk of losing them to other sports. but a second generation kid living in Markham? give him a reason to like hockey. engage him somehow. this is building somewhat on ME's post but the NHL seems to have turned a blind eye to growing the game with the demographic types where they could reasonably succeed.
Neurospasm
Well-known member
Very good points. It doesn’t really seem like it would be that hard to implement most of them either. It’s almost like the powers that be don’t want things to change.
LeafGm
Well-known member
It really is crazy what a huge fetish Canadian media and HNIC in particular have for small rural Canadian towns.
At least they finally axed Ron McLean’s weekly tour to and celebration of Bumfuckville small-town Canada, but even so it’s still a big thing for them.
Wayward DP
Well-known member
in a sense it reminds me of the Trump Republican party.
they cater pretty much exclusively to the base, who are rabid supporters and are unlikely at this point to go somewhere else. by doing so, they turn off any potential swing voters, prevent any broadening of the tent.
NHL seems content to do the same. aim its marketing and promotions at the folks who are going to be hockey fans regardless (i.e. bumfuckvillians), while ignoring the demographics that could actually move the needle were they to get on board.
who knows, maybe the league has seen focus groups and other such stuff that inform what they do and make my suggestions seem asinine. but just seems like they're not really interested in growing the sport.
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
In general, executives don't like marketing programs that take more a few months to plan and implement. Asking execs to greenlight 10's of millions of dollars in funding where KPI success is a 1,000,000% increase in instagram likes from 12-25 yr olds who live in Asia, by the year 2040 is a tough sell, regardless of how much obvious sense it makes.
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
eh, the first rule of focus groups and polling is that if you load the questions appropriately, you get the answers you were looking for from the beginning. NHL head office's constituency is a few dozen rich white guys. Give them the answers they're expecting "the plebs want fights and traditional values!!!" and show them asset value increases, they'll let you continue to run with carte blanche.