Since 2005 the league had been garnering a massive $77 million per year from Versus so it is quite an improvement to more than double that amount to $190/200million per year.
i think Damien Cox covers the current imbalance in terms of finances in tv deals well:
To Canadian hockey fans, this doesn’t necessarily mean a whole lot, although the fact you can get $140 million for national hockey rights in the Great White North and only about 50 per cent more from a market more than 10 times the size tells you something about the imbalance in hockey interest between the two countries.
It's not much of a tv deal and the apparent $6.6 million per team per year is, contrary to your argument, not much more at all than the Leafs annually contribute for revenue sharing.
Also, the Lidstrom remark was completely uncalled for and exposes your blatant biases in this argument.
I guess I could have just thrown myopia into the discussion; that would be my take on those who would see Lidstrom in that role (versus historically the greatest player of all time i.e., Orr). I'll dial back the sarcasm in future.
April 22nd, 2011 at 11:24 AM ^
I don't remember what attendance was in Winnipeg because I was like 10 when they moved, but Coyotes attendance this year was ~12000. With the exception of the Kings who succeed simply because the city is so massive and the Islanders who are a disaster, there is an almost perfect correlation between average attendance and average temperature.