Thursday, October 30, 2008

NHL Revenues:Size DOES Matter

Back in May, the Toronto Star published figures which it said showed the average ticket revenue per game for NHL teams. Combining that information with the recently published Forbes list, I thought it would interesting to see which teams generated the most revenue from non-ticket sales sources (tv contracts, corporate sponsorships, marketing etc). Two conclusions: large US cities, even those with mediocre on-ice results and attendance like L.A. and Chicago, can still generate well above average non-ticket revenues, simply because of the sheer mass of advertising and corporate dollars available in those metro areas. The New York metro area generates $173 million between the three teams. A second team in Toronto would only have to generate non-ticket revenues equal to the Islanders ($40 mil)to be in the top ten in total revenues for the entire league. Conversely, the smaller Canadian cities, Calgary and Edmonton, struggle to produce non-ticket revenues. And one of the smallest US metro areas, Columbus, is in dire straits, producing more than a third less non-ticket revenues than the average franchise even before this year's anticipated drop in sponsorship income.
The list is below: if the details of revenue sharing (how much teams paid out and how much other teams received) were known the bottom of the list would surely change. Florida is an anomaly here, even if you assume they received revenue sharing funds, they still generated about as much in non-ticket revenue as Colorado or Minnesota. Again, the sheer size of the corporate market may be a factor in the Panthers' numbers.
1. Toronto $78 mil 2. NYR $75 mil 3. LA $63 mil 4. Boston $60 mil 5. NJ $58 mil 6. Det $56 mil 7. Montreal $56 mil 8. Chicago $55 mil 9. Dallas $55 mil 10. Tampa $54 mil 11. Florida $52 mil 12. Phil $51 mil 13. Anaheim $48 mil 14. Phx $48 mil 15. Wash $48 mil 16. STL $47 mil 17. Van $47 mil 18. ATL $46 mil 19. Car $45 mil 20. Buff $44 mil 21. Pitt $44 mil 22. Col $43 mil 23. Minn $43 mil 24. Nash $42 mil 25. Ott $42 mil 26. NYI $40 mil 27. CGY $37 mil 28. SJS $37 mil 29. CBJ $36 mil 30. Edm $33 mil

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for estimating this. Can you explain how you derived them?

    It looks about as one would expect with the Sharks being a big surprise. SJ and greater SF is a very large market, and I find it very surprising they don't make more money off of local tech companies that might build suites for entertainment purposes.

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