I don't know how Rick Westhead does it, but he always seems to get his hands on those secret reports. And for that reason he's the best in the business at writing about the business. Here's his latest,
Canadian NHL Teams Mean Money.
I'll get into these numbers and others that I've compiled over the course of the season this summer but I wanted to get an opening thought up.
The stat that is most frequently discussed coming out of Westhead's report is that the six Canadian teams generate over 31% of total regular season gate revenues but I like this one much better:
Gate Receipts, Six Canadian Teams = $356,700,000
(Toronto: $77.9 mil, Montreal: $69.7 mil, Vancouver: $57.4 mil, Calgary: $53.3 mil, Ottawa: $49.2 mil, Edmonton: $49.2 mil)
Gate Receipts, Bottom Fourteen Teams = $360,800,000
(Columbus: $32.8 mil, Tampa Bay: $32.8 mil, Boston: $32.8 mil, Buffalo: $30.75 mil, Carolina: $28.7 mil, Los Angeles: $26.65 mil, St. Louis: $24.6 mil, Nashville: $24.6 mil, Washington: $22.55 mil, Atlanta: $22.55 mil, NY Islanders: $22.55 mil, Chicago: $20.5 mil, Florida: $20.5 mil, Phoenix: $18.45 mil)
Six Canadian teams generate as much revenue at the gate as the bottom fourteen teams in the league.
But it's not just a Canada-US discussion..
The top half of the league generates almost 2/3 of the League's gate, leaving the remaining fifteen teams to account for the bottom 1/3.
(Note that regular season gate revenues account for approximately 43% of total HRR - once you include playoff and pre-season gates that % climbs over fifty. Then you've got Broadcast/New Media revenues, In-Arena revenues and other misc revenues like licensing and sponsorships.)
Revenues continue to rise, the cap is soaring and the gap between the those teams that are making the league stronger financially and those that are losing more and more money despite their revenue sharing checks is getting wider.
Next year's salary floor will be almost double what it was coming out of the lockout.
How can a team afford to pay over $40 million in salaries when they're earning under $20 mil at the gate?
Enjoy the game tonight,
Danny -
[email protected]
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