Can TORONTO support TWO NHL TEAMS?

"Why shouldn't we put another team in the best and biggest market in the world?" says one anonymous NHL governor.

Links:

Globe and Mail: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081020.shoalts21/BNStory/National/home

CBC: http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/story/2008/10/21/nhl-toronto.html

TSN: http://tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=253294&lid=sublink01&lpos=headlines_nhl

Sportsnet: http://www.sportsnet.ca/thewire/hockey/2008/10/21/nhl_floats_notion_of

Howard Berger: http://www.hockeybuzz.com/blog.php?post_id=17408

Jim Kelley: http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/2008/10/21/kelley_toronto_expansion/

Below are a few of the many comments of the idea from two other external blogs,,, great writeups and a lot of food for thought:

Hockey Fever: A Second NHL Team for Toronto? by the Weathereye.wordpress.com blog.

http://weathereye.wordpress.com/2008/10/21/hockey-fever-a-second-nhl-team-for-toronto/

"The question is this: can Toronto support two pro hockey teams? And the answer is yes. (I know there are minor-league teams, but it just isn’t the same, and you know it too.)

The NHL has made some dubious expansion decisions over the past 15 years. Moving into the sun belt led to underperforming teams in places like Miami, Tampa, Phoenix, Atlanta and Nashville. Nashville! That never made any sense to me. I am a Canadian kid. I played hockey all my life, and still love the game. I just never quite adjusted to the idea of hockey being played in places where it never snows. Other expansions and moves put more teams in California; one wise one was returning a team to Minnesota after the North Stars moved to stupid Dallas. Minnesota is a hockey hotbed, or coldbed, I guess. When I played peewee hockey, I played or the Jr. Minnesota North Stars, green uniform and all.

The simple truth is that all the good markets are taken. Aside from maybe Seattle and Portland, and maybe Houston, there are very few large American markets that can support a pro hockey franchise. So many have failed: Cleveland, Denver (although a team did come back), Kansas City, Atlanta (likewise, another team is there now). Other teams in big markets are struggling, like Pittsburgh, which has a winning record, a superstar in Sidney Crosby, and yet still hurts financially.

And pro sports are packed with teams sharing cities. Chicago has two baseball teams. Los Angeles has two NBA teams, and a whole bunch of baseball teams, and once had two NFL teams, but now has none. New York has three NHL teams if you count New Jersey. It can be done. It can work.

Especially in Toronto. This isn’t Portland or even New York. It’s a hockey-made city in a hockey-mad country with disposable income to burn. Canada’s economy is pretty okay, and Canadians love to spend money on the things they love — beer, pickup trucks and hockey.

Now, I’m a born-and-bred Vancouver Canucks fan. Always have been. I spit on the Leafs. My kids, though, like the Leafs, as they are, more or less, our hometown team. It would be nice to have a new option. And it would be nice to have another team in Canada, where hockey belongs.

My only concern is the name. You just know Balsillie’ll want to call them The Toronto BlackBerries. And that would be on a Mighty Ducks level of suck."

A new NHL team for Toronto? by Andrew Bucholtz:
http://sportingmadness.blogspot.com/2008/10/new-nhl-team-for-toronto.html

"First, if the Leafs allow another team into their city, they lose market share. This may not be huge at first given their market dominance and history, but they're no longer the only game in town. They'll likely still sell out every game, but the supply of NHL tickets has just doubled and it's hard to imagine the demand rising at a similar rate. Therefore, the premiums they can charge for their tickets will drop. Of further importance is the impact on merchandising, advertising and television revenues. Yes, there will still be a huge demand for the rights to Leafs' games, but television networks now have another viable alternative source for hockey if MLSE demands too much money: thus, the Leafs will earn less from their television contracts.

Yes, people will still buy Leafs' gear, but some will choose to buy merchandise from the new team instead. The same holds true for corporate sponsors, who gain leverage from the doubling of the supply of boxes and advertising opportunities. If the teams both play at the ACC, they could package their corporate and advertising sales together. That would have to involve some sort of discount for a bulk rate, as no one will pay double the current fees for the Leafs and a new team. You can bet that the new team would take a large share of any profits as well. If they don't package them, all of a sudden that supply of corporate boxes and advertising opportunities doubles, reducing the value of those items if the demand doesn't double as well. "