So by now, you are all aware of the NHL’s newest expansion team, the Seattle Kraken. Cool name right, cool logo(?!), cool city. How though does the NHL go about creating an expansion team? What does a potential new owner look for? How do they choose where?
Well let’s be honest, it’s not an exact science, but hopefully the below will give you a better idea.
The Market for an NHL expansion team
The most important thing for a new NHL team (or any professional sports team for that matter), is will it make money. Player’s salaries, arenas, arena staff, infrastructure are extremely expensive. A potential new owner and the NHL need to know that a new team will make money. The might have forgotten this briefly when the Coyotes first started!
So how do professional Ice Hockey teams make money? Ticket sales and TV rights. These are the most significant and important sources of income for a team. Team sponsorship and merchandise sales are also important but this gets quite a bit more complicated.
How do you find the market?
We turn to the golden question. How do you know that the location you pick for your new team has a market (i.e. will there be enough people who will pay for tickets and watch the team on TV)?
The real answer is that no one ever knows the answer to this question, the best you can do is make an educated guess. In doing so though, we can look at the following points:
- Is there another competing team in close proximity that fans might be tempted to support instead?
- What is the city/location’s reach (i.e. how many people identify with the city)?
- Does the location have a team in a different sport and what is there support/income like?
- Do the potential supporters have sufficient spare money to spend on watching sports/buying merchandise etc (do they have a lot)?
- Are there businesses that are doing well in the location/city that would benefit from sponsoring a team?
What type of city should get an NHL expansion team?
So, we need a big city (lots of people), with a thriving economy and ideally with already successful teams in another sport. Can you see where I’m going with this?
Are the Manchester Storm about to be playing the Penguins, the Rangers, the Avs?
You never know…
Grow the game.