League looks at 24-team playoff option
Expanded post-season party in future will put more cash in owners’ pockets
The NHL playoffs are close to returning. And they’re not going to be like anything we’ve seen before. That likely goes for next year and beyond.
On Monday, the NHL held a board of governors meeting to discuss plans for returning to play, and one of those plans involves jumping right into the playoffs with 24 teams competing in as few as two hub cities for the Stanley Cup.
There’s a lot to unpack here logistically. And there are many questions that still have to be answered, such as which cities (there are eight or nine currently on the short list) will host the games? Will players’ families be allowed to stay with them in the hotel? How will the league regularly test players? What happens if someone tests positive for COVID -19?
And when is this even going to happen when border restrictions are preventing players — 17 per cent of whom are currently outside of North America — from returning to the continent?
“I don’t think anybody has a fixed timetable, particularly in North America right now,” commissioner Gary Bettman said in a digital keynote interview with Leaders Week, a sports business conference, as reported on Monday by Nhl.com. “We have been working very hard since we took the pause on March 12 to make sure that whatever the timing is, whatever the sequencing is, whatever physical ability we have in terms of locations to play, that we’re in a position to execute any or all of those options. There is still a great deal of uncertainty.”
But the big take-away is that, if the NHL decides not to complete the regular season, then 24 — not 16 — teams could be in the playoffs.
That’s a huge increase. And don’t be surprised if it becomes the norm.
The reason for adding another eight teams into the playoff mix this year is mostly out of necessity. When the season was paused on March 12, there was a handful of teams on the bubble with a dozen or so games still on the schedule. It’s not fair to take the standings as they are today. Nor does it make sense for a team like Detroit, which is already mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, to come back and play for nothing.
Of course, the real reason for expanding the playoffs is that it puts more cash in the owners’ pockets.
The final two weeks of the regular season were going to be meaningless for Montreal or Buffalo, or the teams that were essentially too far back to make a push. No one wants to watch that. But fans would definitely watch if Montreal and Buffalo were playing against each other in a play-in series or as part of a round robin.
The logistics are still being worked out. But the NHL, which would require a three-week training camp, is considering all of its options in how to make the biggest impact in its return to play.
Whatever it decides, you can bet more playoff games will be part of the equation. After all, more playoff games equal more TV revenue. And for a league that has lost so much money due to cancelling the final weeks of the regular season, this is its chance to recoup some lost dollars and keep as many fans as possible interested.
But if you think this is a onetime deal, think again.
We probably won’t see playoffs in empty buildings next year, or centralized locations for playoff games. But an expanded playoff format is almost certainly going to be the norm.
Do you honestly think owners, who could potentially lose more money next year if fans aren’t allowed back in the buildings, will want to go back to 16 teams? No chance.
The NHL won’t be able to put this toothpaste back in the tube again. And why would it?
The playoffs are when teams make back their money. It’s when the players are playing for free and when the game tickets — when fans are in the building — cost more money.
The need to be in the playoffs has now never been stronger.
And it’s also never been as difficult as it is today.
When Seattle enters the league as the 32nd team in 2021-22, the odds of qualifying for the playoffs will drop to 50 per cent. But if 24 of 32 teams make the playoffs, then the odds of qualifying will increase to 75 per cent. That’s still less than what it was in the early 1980s, when 16 of the 21 teams (76 per cent) made the playoffs.
In other words, it doesn’t diminish the regular season. If anything, it strengthens the post-season. And for this season, it would make the Stanley Cup something to truly remember.
“We’d like to complete this season,” Bettman said on Monday. “We’d like to award the Stanley Cup, the most treasured trophy and the most historic trophy in all of sports. And our fans are telling us overwhelmingly that’s what they’d like us to do, because people have an emotional investment in this season already.”
If more teams are involved, more fans will profit from that emotional investment. This year and beyond.