Stuuuuuuu wrote:
I'd like to see the balance sheets too. Just some simple post it note math tells me that if most teams are spending to the around the cap of approximately $60 million, then player salaries league wide would come to about $1.8 billion. If the NHL took in close to $3 billion in revenue last year, then they'd be sinking 60% of revenue into player salaries. Now, I'm not sure what the average percentage of revenue labor costs account for in most industries (wasn't easily found by a Google search), but 60% seems pretty high to me. Especially when you consider that that's only PLAYER labor costs, and doesn't factor in salaries of all other staff, like management, coaches, trainers, janitorial staff, retail employees, etc. Then of course, you have the cost of buying equipment, the maintaining of facilities (refrigeration and humidity control no doubt being a major expense in this sport). There's also advertising and plenty of other expenses that I'm sure I'm missing here.
It's just hard for me to see how running an NHL team could be profitable (or even could cover costs) for 30 different businesses operating in that financial atmosphere.
Two major things I think you're forgetting are sponsorships and endorsements. These teams probably make a great deal of money from that, in addition to ticket sales and merchandising.
I think Phil once provided the correct term in that owning a sports franchise is what is called a vanity asset. In appearance it looks like a very valuable asset, but in reality they generate losses. At the same time, owning a sports franchise is probably wise for someone generating a lot of income because the losses offset any income they have, thus reducing their tax liabilities. I don't really know, though, since I don't access to the information.
But to kinda refer back to your post, I ultimately think that contraction is inevitable and should happen. If you look at the NBA, for example, the superstars are clustering together and the other teams can't even compare. Having a large amount of teams mean that too many average players enter the league and can't compete with teams that have a conglomerate of super stars. Having fewer teams, in my opinion, makes it more competitive and interesting.
Or having a more restrictive CBA would help, but the players unions are too greedy over the millions of dollars they already make.