Kuklas Korner: Is gary bettman afraid of the leafs?

Kuklas Korner:

“Frankly, I live in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area and it’s tough for all the clubs to get media attention, particularly when they’re having tough years on the ice. There’s some real downside to having multiple teams in one market,” Bettman said Monday in his state-of-the-union address.

My spin: Is Gary Bettman that afraid of the Toronto Maple Leafs? Do the Leafs have that much power that they can veto a second team coming to Southern Ontario?

Hey, Maybe he’s just speaking reality. Look at the challenges that go in in various sports where there are two teams in a market. One team ends up dominant over the others, whether it’s in TV ratings (and access), newspaper coverage, fan mindset. Look at the challenges of, say, TV in Los Angeles, where there are two baseball, two basketball and two hockey teams (and no football!), all trying to get onto two cable stations and the same sports pages. Here in the Bay area, the Giants outdraw and out-TV the A’s by a wide margin, have access to a much more powerful radio station, and generally take priority on the sports pages (despite, of course, looking at which team’s won more world series and pennants in the last 20 years).

Look at how the Devils and the Islanders play second and third fiddle to the Rangers, even when the Rangers suck.

It’s not JUST about fans. It’s about corporate money, it’s about sponsors, it’s about media. And if you look at multi-team markets in all sports, all around the continent, there are challenges. If you were to, say, move a team into Kitchener or some place outside of the Leaf’s no-go zone, you still have to deal with getting them on cable and CBC (and let’s not forget, it’s the Toronto Sports Network for a reason, and the CBC in the new TV contract had to actually and formally admit that Ottawa existed and ought to be on TV once in a while. Imagine if you added a third team to the mix!).

Now, in reality, the demand for hockey — and NHL hockey — in Ontario is amazing. the prices that the Leafs can charge are abusive, well beyond insane. But putting another team in there, as opposed to putting a team back in, say, Winnipeg?

You KNOW the entire region is going to support a team in Winnipeg. You can bet that fans will support another team in Ontario, but will the media? TV? sponsors and corporate? And at what price tickets? Guess right, and the new Winnipeg Jets succeeds wildly. Guess wrong? and you have hockey’s LA Clippers.

Now, I think a team in Ontario could work. but I don’t think it’s a no-brainer, and I don’t think people reacting to all of this are thinking through all of the business complications, just looking at being able to buy tickets that don’t cost as much as they do for the Leafs games. If only it were that simple…

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