And I know why the Coyotes have not relocated, so I don’t need to ask NHL commissioner Gary Bettman about it. Since the mid-1990s the NHL’s business model has been built on establishing a presence in every major U.S. TV market — even if they have hardly any hockey fans. That’s why the original Winnipeg Jets were even allowed to relocate to Arizona in the first place.
Relocation has become a rare thing in the NHL for one simple reason. If there is a city out there with no NHL team that looks like a good destination for a franchise to relocate, the NHL would much rather put an expansion team there and collect a huge up-front expansion fee from the new team. The Seattle Kraken, for example, paid a $650 million expansion fee to join the NHL a couple of years ago. That money gets divided among the existing owners and goes right into their pockets.
So an NHL team will only relocate in a rare case where the team’s ownership situation is so precarious that the league has to intervene and get involved in managing or subsidizing the franchise. That’s exactly what happened to the Coyotes a few years ago.
You folks are missing something. It’s taxpayers. As long as one dollar is goes to support the NFL it’s up to congress to put a stop to this crap. Remember in the 70’s where a sold-out game 72 hours before kickoff was required to be televised? Even us free marketers need gatekeepers. Would the beautiful Sofi-stadium get built with 100% private capital? They can squeeze us out, the Joe six-packs. I don’t care but I’ll be dammed if they get away with drinking at the public trough.
The NFL is a $12 billion/yr industry. It’s no secret they want to double it. They can do it on their own.