Notion Flames might try to move is ludicrous
SCOTT STINSON
We are still at the point in the Great Calgary Arena Funding Debate of 2015 to the Present when the threats are more implied than overt. Thus, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman’s cheery suggestion of “consequences” should the city fail to come up with enough public money for a new building, and Flames president Ken King’s vow that the hockey club is ready to muddle along in the Saddledome for as long as they can make it work. Such selflessness in the face of the struggle of making millions annually is rarely seen.
Those positions are even of a piece, sort of, with Brian Burke’s early-summer musings that there would be no relocation threat absent sufficient dollars from taxpayers: “We’ll just leave,” said the team’s hockey operations boss. Not technically a threat! (Although it is interesting that Burke has said nothing on the matter since, possibly because the red tie that is forever hanging undone around his neck has been strategically placed somewhere else.)
But, the threat is there. When Bettman is talking about consequences in the manner of a protection racket and the Flames’ executives are saying they are happy in Calgary for now, the only question is when the relocation question becomes explicit.
And on that note, let’s just imagine the commissioner selling that to the league’s other 30 owners. Among NHL franchises, the Calgary Flames are not a weak orphan, particularly in a league that is familiar with the sickly and underfed.
The Flames last season were 10th in the NHL in total attendance at about 18,700 per game, filling the Saddledome to about 97 per cent capacity even amid a struggling Alberta economy. There were six teams that failed to average 15,000 fans per game, with Colorado, New Jersey and the Brooklyn Islanders joining perennial attendance duds Florida, Arizona and Carolina.
The Hurricanes didn’t even crack 12,000 fans per game, and owner Peter Karmanos has been trying to sell the team for at least three years, although he was reportedly considering a US$500-million dollar offer in July. The Coyotes, meanwhile, don’t want to be in Glendale, and Glendale does not want the Coyotes, but other municipalities are not exactly clamouring for the team given that Glendale would have been better off setting fire to a giant pile of money than building an arena for the hockey team. Brooklyn doesn’t want the Islanders — speaking of bad ideas that happened anyway — and the new owners are reportedly casting about for minority investors while trying to figure out if they can find a new home back on Long Island.
None of this is particularly unusual. At any given time, there are NHL franchises that are not a sure thing, because it is not backstopped by the absurd TV money that has been showered on other U.S.-based pro leagues.
The Flames are a sure thing. The valuations conducted by Forbes magazines aren’t bulletproof, but they are at least useful for comparison purposes. It estimated the Flames had an operating income of US$18-million in 2016, 10th best in the league, and had the team valued at around US$420-million, right at the midpoint of NHL franchises. That income also doesn’t include the US$16-million that each team received from the US$500million expansion fee charged to the Vegas Golden Knights. And it’s here where squabbles about what the Flames’ owners can or cannot make in their existing arena need to stop: the company that owns the team bought it for $US16-milion in 1980, and it is now worth something in the hundreds of millions. Also, the team has taken part in the expansion-fee bonanza ten times since it moved to Calgary. As an investment, we can confidently say the wealthy men who own the team have done OK for themselves.
There’s also the question of what having a hockey team in Calgary does for the league’s revenues as a whole. The Canadian national television rights, you will recall, were sold in 2013 for $5.2-billion for a dozen years, a deal made when there were seven NHL teams in this country. NBC’s existing 10-year contract for U.S. national rights, pays the league US$2-billion. There are now 24 teams in that country. The NBA, meanwhile, gets more than the total value of the NHL’s NBC deal — US$2.6-billion — every year for its national U.S. television rights, which gives a sense of where the NHL fits in the sports-TV hierarchy in the United States.
Professional leagues are known to do crazy things from time to time, but it’s just not plausible that NHL owners would countenance moving a team out of the country that gives it the bulk of its shared revenues. Particularly when the team’s stated beef is that it is unhappy with the portion of public dollars that would be spent to make a profitable business even more profitable. The Flames’ fellow owners once bought the Coyotes out of bankruptcy and absorbed its losses for almost four years just because, it was said, the league was so loath to see a team leave an existing market.
The Flames’ relocation threat may yet come. But no one should imagine for a moment that it is real.