How to fix the NHL's "symmetry issue"

[mikecubs]

All these other places have a HUGE city or city without another full time team. I Didn't say Milwaukee outright would fail ala Glendale. It would be lower 2/3rds and struggle to make money without much upside. They'd probably be like a Buffalo/St. Louis at best or a poor mans version of that. You ducked my question because you know it don't favor you. Where does Milwaukee rank in your opinion? Can it beat Buffalo? Are they anywhere near the Wild? It's just not participation rates. There's a lot more to pro sports than that. You need a big city if you want to support several full time teams well or semi-big if there is only one full-time team. This is why we NEVER had a team. If we solely looked at participation rates by state for basketball and judged on that the Indiana Pacers and Charlotte Hornets would be 2 of the NBA's biggest financial teams. They are NOT. Why? Charlotte and Indianapolis are not that big.

Here is why we don't have a team. Lets look at the top 15 states for hockey participation. Lets look at the states that has nhl and don't. I will bold the ones who don't.

Minnesota 54,507 (1%) --Minneapolis(3.8M)
Michigan  50,585 (-2.5%)-- Detroit(6.3M realistically)
New York 48,354 (-0.39%)(New York 23M, Buffalo 1.7M plus help from Canada and only NFL to compete with)
Mass.  48,074 (+2.9%)----Boston(8M)
Penn. 30,529 (+0.7%) --Philadelphia (7.1M) Pittsburgh(2.65M, plus the Pirates are not nearly as popular as the brewers)
Illinois 29,977 (+8.4%)-----Chicago(9+M)
California 25,288 (+4.8%)---LA(18M) Bay Area(8.7M)
New Jersey 18,438 (+0.95%)----part of New York Metro/CSA(23M)
Wisconsin 17,762 (+1.2%) Milwaukee(2M, not growing, 2 other full time teams, would get some help from Madison but can't fully count it)
Ohio 14,387 (-0.29%)----Columbus(2.3M, no other teams)
Colorado 13,570 (+1.86) Denver(3.3M, plus Fort Collins, and some help from Colorado Springs, top 5 growing area)
Connecticut 13,275 (-0.37%) (Hartford 1.4M, not growing, Springfield and New Haven won't help according to you so there is your answer on why no team)
Texas 12,909 (+8.8%) ---Dallas(7M, growing 1M every 10 years)
Florida 11,982 (+0.4%) Tampa(4.2M in reality, not much competition from Rays, city is growing at average rate)
Virginia 9,351 (+2.2%) (part of Virginia is part of DC metro/CSA which is over 9M)

What do the bolded ones have in common? No major city that is really big or a semi-big city without another full time team.

[wolfmannick]

^ Umm, none of those cities are bolded Mike

[mikecubs]

I was still editing!!!!! Don't rush me:)

[sting]

Jun 14, 2015 1:23:42 GMT -6 mikecubs said:

2M is the combined statistical area not metro but combined statistical area is more accurate than metro for sports so 2M is a very good number to use for Milwaukee. Here are all the cities that support more than 1 "full time team"(MLB,NBA,NHL) meaning not the NFL since they play once a week and it's easy to support NFL.

rank-city-(population)-fortune 1000 companies-per capita income

1 New York-Newark, NY-NJ-CT-PA (23,632,722)- 144- $58,119,000
2 Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA (18,550,288)- 38- $43,008,000
3 Chicago-Naperville, IL-IN-WI (9,928,312)- 63- $47,831,000
4 Washington-Baltimore-Arlington, DC-MD-VA-WV-PA (9,546,579)- 37- $57,810,000
5 Toronto (9,108,357)- NA- $44,462,000
6 San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA (8,607,423)- 59- $60,603,000
7 Boston-Worcester-Providence, MA-RI-NH-CT (8,099,575)- 32- $54,967,000
8 Dallas-Fort Worth, TX-OK (7,352,613)- 40- $45,568,000
9 Philadelphia-Reading-Camden, PA-NJ-DE-MD (7,164,790)- 29- $49,831,000
10 Houston-The Woodlands, TX (6,686,318)- 52- $50,490,000
11 Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Port St. Lucie, FL (6,558,143)- 13- $43,959,000 (THis counts areas over 100+miles away go with the 5.9M miami metro it's more accurate)
12 Atlanta--Athens-Clarke County--Sandy Springs, GA (6,258,875)- 28- $40,046,000
13 Detroit-Warren-Ann Arbor, MI (5,315,251)- 18- $41,276,000(this don't count Windsor, or Toledo, this should be around 6.3M)
14 Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ MSA (4,489,109)- 13- $38,006,000
15 Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI (3,835,050)- 26- $49,191,000
16 Cleveland-Akron-Canton, OH (3,497,851)- 19- $42,351,000
17 Denver-Aurora, CO (3,345,261)- 19- $49,623,000 (Fort Collins and Colorado Springs are within 68 miles so if you counted them you'd be at 4.3M, Denver is also one of the fastest growing cities in the US or Canada)
18 Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL MSA (2,915,582)- 7- $40,862,000 (This is grossly underinflated because lakeland is only 30+miles away and Sarasota is around 60 miles, this should be about 4.2M, also due to the suburban location of the Rays stadium they really aren't supporting the rays)
19 St. Louis-St. Charles-Farmington, MO-IL (2,910,738)- 18- $44,153,000
20 Pittsburgh-New Castle-Weirton, PA-OH-WV (2,653,781)- 15- $46,458,000
21 Milwaukee-Racine-Waukesha, WI (2,043,904)- 13- $45,032,000

Milwaukee is already on the bottom by over 600,000 for having 2 full time teams(MLB,NBA, NHL) and the Bucks are a VERY weak franchise that should be let go to Seattle. Only 4 cities are under 3M that support at least 2 of MLB,NBA, NHL and Tampa is shortchanged and will shortly be over 3M anyway on paper due to population growth.

If the Bucks leave and the NHL comes what does an NHL team add to the NHL? What's the upside? It won't help the NHL get the big TV deal. They won't get a big local TV deal. The city doesn't grow. Gate wise at best they'd achieve mediocrity or maybe a little more IF Madison helped out a lot. Madison is 78 miles and a 1 hour 20min drive away. What does having a NHL team in Milwaukee that would barely survive(like the Buuks) bring to the NHL? What is the purpose of having the Milwaukee bucks? What is the point of having a sports franchise in general where the upside is they barely survive and they only can do that if the tax payers get totally screwed?

NHL should

1. Focus on Canada(Quebec, 2nd team in S. Ontario) This should be number 1 goal
2. Focus on fast growing, rich, big cities(Seattle, Houston-when Leslie Alexander dies/sells)
3. Focus on markets without competition that are growing at a decent rate like Vegas if there is an interest.
4. Focus on 1 team markets that are growing decently and might be big enough to take on a 2nd team in the future(Portland)
5. Fix big(ish) markets that are growing fast that the NHL screwed up on with suburban arenas if possible(Phoenix/Miami)

This is all moot anyway. The state will approve the Bucks NBA only arena. Wisconsin is a good hockey state the problem is the state is too spread out and Milwaukee alone isn't that big and there is no 2nd city big enough for an NHL team. If you could combine Milwaukee-Madison you'd be onto something.

I was going with Wikipedia when it says Milwaukee is the main cultural and economic center of the Milwaukee–Racine–Waukesha Metropolitan Area with a population of 2,040,498 as of an official 2013 estimate

[JETStender]

Jun 14, 2015 15:02:59 GMT -6 Bruinsfan said:

Jun 14, 2015 11:33:06 GMT -6 mikecubs said:

No you read it right!
NHL isn't as popular as you think in Wisconsin. It's youth/Badger hockey that people like. I don't know 1 NHL fan here in Green Bay area other than myself. Milwaukee only has 94,000 NHL fans. That's hardly beating down the door for NHL. I agree market size ALONE doesn't determine a good market. I've said many times NHL isn't like MLB where population is almost the indicator of how good a market is. I think I used the stat that if you used population alone to judge markets for NHL you'd be way the hell off on half the league. But the small markets that rock in the NHL are all small Canadian towns that have 0 competition from other fulltime sports or are on the Canadian boarder(Buffalo) near 1/4th of the population of Canada. At best an NHL team here would be the St. Louis Blues 2.0. Survivable with no growth potential. Kind of a better NHL version of the Milwaukee Bucks. Yes they'd get propped up from Chicago when the Blackhawks come to town and from Madison on Friday and Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons after football season. But Madison is too far to rely fully and count as 100% of Milwaukee. Weeknights would be a struggle. It would be an hour 20min drive one way. Not going to work on work nights. I do think it would be possible to make hockey great here if we either had a big city like the state of Minnesota(Minneapolis) or Michigan(Detroit) or a smaller big city with no competition. The problem is we only have Milwaukee and it's over saturated. Yes they call Wisconsin the hockey state but we need a big hockey city. That's always been our problem and why we will never get NHL. Our state is too spread out.

Overall I'd rather keep the Bucks if tax money has to be wasted on an arena. Bucks do have a long history here(1968) and did win a title. I do think NHL would be more popular than NBA(black stars hate small cities in general) but at least the NBA has that TV deal so it would be more stable just off that alone. If NHL goes wrong you pay the "arena management fee ".

I ask you this how many current markets would a buck-less Milwaukee be better than in the NHL?

according to you Wisconsin is the only place in norht america with high youth hockey participation that wouldnt do well as an nhl market (outside of say alaska where there isnt a large enough population)

I dont accept that. Sorry.

Anchorage Coyotes, now that has a ring to it.

[Deleted]

Not bad. 6.4 rating for hockey in the Milwaukee area.

[mikecubs]

That's because the Hawks are playing.

[mikecubs]

Jun 14, 2015 23:30:04 GMT -6 JETStender said:

Jun 14, 2015 15:02:59 GMT -6 Bruinsfan said:

according to you Wisconsin is the only place in norht america with high youth hockey participation that wouldnt do well as an nhl market (outside of say alaska where there isnt a large enough population)

I dont accept that. Sorry.

Anchorage Coyotes, now that has a ring to it.

Give Alaska a team. It doesn't need population. It has snow!!!

[wolfmannick]

^ Well then that dosen't make sense, how about Mexico City look at how many people are there, some of them must be able to afford tickets. If Bettman can make hockey work there he can make hockey work anywhere.

[mikecubs]

LOL Don't give Gary any ideas!!!!

[wolfmannick]

^ Sorry an arena just outside of Mexico city for whatever reason. Right you are Mike don't want any arenas actually in a city lol.

[mikecubs]

LOL We joke but sadly it's true.

[Deleted]

41.0 is insane, for a market the size of Chicago. Milwaukee with another hug rating at 7.9

[jetsorbust]

Jun 12, 2015 8:47:07 GMT -6 Bruinsfan said:

Jun 12, 2015 8:12:05 GMT -6 cheswick said:

Or they can just stick to 4 divisions and eliminate conference play. Play 2x's teams outside your division and the rest inter division. Then formulate divisions that span a maximum of two timze zones. The issues Detroit had with playing in the west was pacific coast trips. Playing one time zone over wasn't an issue.

Colorado goes to the pacific.
Detroit goes to the central.
Quebec goes to the atlantic.

You could also just seed the playoffs 1-16 instead of two conferences would be fun to watch

This is what I would like to see.

I don't think it will happen, but I vastly prefer it to any other system even if there was "symmetry"

[Xordok]

Hi guys, I just stumbled on this thread and I haven't read much.. But here's my take on the Symmetry issue..

No more Coyotes, added Vegas, Seattle and Québec...