The #NHL is expecting a record of $6 billion in revenue this year. The Salary cap will continue to rise. Per Allan Walsh, “the upper limit of the salary cap for the 2025-2026 season could be as high as $97 million.” With a projection of $105 million by the 2027-2028 season. pic.twitter.com/ER5MYfSYMd
Lets start with the rumored cap rise, shall we? You can see the tweet above reference Alan Walsh’s prediction of a 97m cap while Bettman has talked about a 92.5m cap. Players have stopped paying escrow this year and the league looks to hit 6 billion. There are a few problems that agents conveniently leave out and I’m just going to swing for them.
The season started with ratings down even further with only one pro sport seeing a bump, the WNBA. I’ll give you the numbers of the season openers, but here is where my first problem is. Agents compare hockey players to NFL and NBA payers in terms of salary. Here are those numbers:
Sunday Night Football - 20+m. That’s one day of the NFL multiply by 16 and then realize they’re adding 2 more games next year (being voted on).
NBA Average - 1m+.
NHL average to start the year, sub 600k. The “triple header” opening day looked like this:
In an interesting programming decision, two teams situated west of the Mississippi River opened the season while it was still afternoon on the East Coast. The St. Louis Blues and Seattle Kraken opened the action during the late afternoon window, averaging 348,000 viewers, down 42% from last season's Nashville Predators-Tampa Bay Lightning game (598,000 viewers).
Game two of the tripleheader was the top hockey audience of the night, as the Boston Bruins and defending champions Florida Panthers averaged 790,000 viewers. The game was down 45 percent from last season's Chicago Blackhawks-Pittsburgh Penguins game averaged 1.43 million viewers and included Bedard's debut.
The NHL closed out the night by featuring its new franchise, the Utah Hockey Club, up against the Blackhawks. The game averaged 522,000 viewers, down 24 percent from the Seattle Kraken and Las Vegas Golden Knights nightcap last season (691,000 viewers).
Look at the percentage drops. 42%, 45%, and 24% for the late game. The Winter Classic changed its spot from New Year’s Day to New Year’s Eve. Here’s what that chart looked like before this year:
Viewership is an issue and it’s getting bigger. We’ve seen in the comments “pirate” sites recommended, but something else is happening as well. ESPN, a fairly important broadcast partner, is the largest portion of the NBAs new TV contract. That league is going from 2.1B annually to 7.5B annually starting next year (and is off TNT). ESPN is cutting staff (again) and hockey isn’t a priority. There will be a video on that coming up.
So, there’s a revenue increase, right? Well, there’s a number increase but with a little thing called inflation.
This is an item I go to quite a bit for many things. “Value” as opposed to “dollars”. If a player was making 2.5m from 2019 in 2024 it had seen an inflation hit of 22.7% and would need .5m to make up the gap. Ticket prices go up, cable prices go up, etc.
Why bother with all this? Who cares, right? In the end, if there’s a big jump in the cap and continued reduction in audience, the payers pay
the price. Agents push narratives that have made it difficult to take them seriously. The CHL transfer lawsuit happened right after NIL came into being. Then a push for fewer draft rounds. Some of you remember:
Some player agents believe the NHL Draft should be shortened to just 4 rounds, and there’s a possibility that the NHLPA could fight for shortening the draft in the next CBA, per @FriedgeHNIC (32TP).
The reasoning is players that don’t get contracts are mostly later-round picks,…
Agents are playing a tough game. Fewer teams carrying a max roster, stagnant cap for years, so they’re getting creative. If an agent gets a college kid an NIL deal they can make up to 20% (attaching NIL video and what it did to football, part 3 of series).
If the college or NIL group set it up, it’s going to be less than that. Still, agents can make money on kids that weren’t getting paid. 4 rounds leaves more free agents where you can more quickly get a commission.
To be clear, agents have done a lot of good for sports. However, the fight for clients and raises seems to be at a fever pitch. Compare the viewership numbers and TV deals. The NBA is currently at 2.1B, the NHL USA deals between ESPN and Bally was originally around 550m. 1/4. That Bally deal lost revenue so gambling and ads on jerseys come to town. Eventually, advertisers pull out if viewership goes down.
Most fans want a higher cap, myself included. The reality of where the NHL stands in comparison to the NFL, NBA, college football and basketball and now the WNBA is getting to be problematic. Agents are outspoken on the numbers that make their case. The league is outspoken on the numbers that defy that logic. Somewhere in between the two have to meet up and do what’s best for the sport, players, and the fans.
The #NHL is expecting a record of $6 billion in revenue this year. The Salary cap will continue to rise. Per Allan Walsh, “the upper limit of the salary cap for the 2025-2026 season could be as high as $97 million.” With a projection of $105 million by the 2027-2028 season. pic.twitter.com/ER5MYfSYMd
Detroit Red Wings Blogger • 
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