Perhaps the Most Selfish Reason for the NHL Not To Open Its Season in Europe

Bob McKenzie reported this morning that the NHL will play four games in Europe to start the 2008-09 season: The Ottawa Senators will play the Pittsburgh Penguins in Stockholm and the New York Rangers will play the Tampa Bay Lightning in Prague, each playing twice on the weekend preceding the domestic opening of the regular season. This follows the mixed results from the League's foray to London to kick off this season.

If the League is on a mission to become a global sports entity like the NBA -- once a David Stern disciple, always a David Stern disciple -- playing regular season games to hockey-mad crowds in Prague and Stockholm is a great idea. I think, overall, the pluses outnumber the minuses in a big way here. If there's a short list of reasons to not play overseas, I'm pretty sure HNIC's Scott Morrison's logic ranks somewhere below "because EuroTrip sucked." Morrison opines that the rights of Senators fans to see Sidney Crosby in Ottawa outweighs the League gaining a stronger foothold in potentially very lucrative foreign markets:

All teams are compensated for losing one home gate, so there is no revenue loss. But in the case of the Senators, for instance, there is a greater cost involved. They lose the buzz of having Sidney Crosby and the Penguins come to town. They lose that excitement that is attached to a visit from The Kid. And Senators fans lose the opportunity of seeing Crosby in person. It means one fewer visit next season.

Boo-hoo. I'm no Mr. Spock, but I'm pretty sure the needs of the many outweight the needs of 20,500 fans in Ottawa that will still get to watch Crosby come to town again later in the season. I'd like to see the hard economic data that suggests taking one Crosby visit away from Ottawa will adversely affect anything except the media's time spent star gazing in the Penguins' locker room.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

1-24-2008 @ 4:13PM

Brad said...

While I'll agree that the league has to consider its own broader marketing rather than just the fans of 1 (or 4) teams, that doesn't change the fact that if I were an STH of any of those teams I'd be pissed. I think it would be different if they were intra-divisional games, where you'd be missing one of three rather than one of two. This isn't about Crosby, as much as any MSM members would make it out to be, but as a Caps fan I can sympathize with anyone who'd be pissed at missing a game against a non-division opponent. I doubt the Rangers fans will be caring much about missing a Tampa game, but I think all of the others have legit gripes. I guess as long as they keep the scale of these events small, the NHL figures they can have their cake and eat it too. I just hope they don't start expanding it too much, or else they'll start pissing off too many fans to be ignored.

1-24-2008 @ 5:15PM

Matt Gibson said...

What I don't understand is why is Pittsburgh the other team in the Stockholm game? Sure Sidney Crosby is the star of the league but doesn't it make sense to have the Red Wings in that game. They have 7 Swedish players right now. That would sell the game more I think.