Kin
New member
So this got kicked up a little bit in some of the press Hayley Wickenheiser did recently that, given the fairly wonky state of professional women's hockey right now, there was some push for the NHL to step in and offer sort of a WNBA like system where the league itself created and financially supported a women's league.
It got me thinking of whether or not it could conceivably work and though I was pretty doubtful initially I think I've sort of come up with a scenario where it might make a little sense, provided you avoid some of the mistakes that have been made in these efforts before.
Because, at a fundamental level, we all tend to like the women's game at the Olympics, right? Sure, most of the games are snoozers because the talent levels are so wildly disparate between Canada-US and every other nation and games between the other nations are pretty lacking but this league wouldn't have that. Primarily only having Canadian and American players(with obviously room for the best players from elsewhere if they're up to par) would go a long way to solve the issue of competitiveness.
So, how could it be a success? Here are some ideas:
1. Start small. 6-8 teams at the beginning. Big markets. Hockey markets. All connected to NHL franchises. Toronto, Montreal, Boston, New York, Ottawa, Calgary, Minnesota...maybe someone else.
2. Keep it professional. Establish a cap on total salaries but a minimum salary that ensures that players didn't have to work outside jobs. So long as they could focus on being professional players, have access to professional coaching and training, the quality of the game would improve. Most sports leagues began from a place of paying players a real wage, follow suit.
3. Make the TV networks effectively fund the league. Want the NHL contract? Then you get the Women's League contract as well. If there are 8 teams with a 2.5 million cap, that's 20 million a year. Get that in TV rights tacked onto the NHL deal in exchange for hundreds of hours of content. Then the league only has to pay for things like travel and staff out of pocket or through other revenues generated by ticket sales.
4. Use the power of established brands. Don't come up with a bunch of terrible, modern sports team names. The Toronto team? The Maple Leafs. Boston? Bruins. Same jerseys, same logos, no "Lady Red Wings" or whatever. The Toronto Terror vs. The Montreal Monsters is a tough sell. Leafs-Habs? Less so.
I'm not sure if it would be viable to run this in the summer, so as to be hockey for when there is no hockey and likewise I'm not sure if it'd be viable to do this out of NHL arenas as opposed to Ricoh and the like but I'm guessing that the logistics could be worked out. Would it be successful? I'm not sure. But I do think that if there was a Leafs-Habs or Leafs-Sens game tonight that featured players from the Olympics that at least some of us would watch it vs. another terrible Jays game or...whatever else is on in the summer. And I think you could do it with the costs being a drop in the bucket for the modern, revenue generating NHL. And for all the talk about promoting the game and making hockey accessible to everyone, this seems like a real opportunity to access an underserved market.
Anyways, just idle thoughts when there's no hockey around.
It got me thinking of whether or not it could conceivably work and though I was pretty doubtful initially I think I've sort of come up with a scenario where it might make a little sense, provided you avoid some of the mistakes that have been made in these efforts before.
Because, at a fundamental level, we all tend to like the women's game at the Olympics, right? Sure, most of the games are snoozers because the talent levels are so wildly disparate between Canada-US and every other nation and games between the other nations are pretty lacking but this league wouldn't have that. Primarily only having Canadian and American players(with obviously room for the best players from elsewhere if they're up to par) would go a long way to solve the issue of competitiveness.
So, how could it be a success? Here are some ideas:
1. Start small. 6-8 teams at the beginning. Big markets. Hockey markets. All connected to NHL franchises. Toronto, Montreal, Boston, New York, Ottawa, Calgary, Minnesota...maybe someone else.
2. Keep it professional. Establish a cap on total salaries but a minimum salary that ensures that players didn't have to work outside jobs. So long as they could focus on being professional players, have access to professional coaching and training, the quality of the game would improve. Most sports leagues began from a place of paying players a real wage, follow suit.
3. Make the TV networks effectively fund the league. Want the NHL contract? Then you get the Women's League contract as well. If there are 8 teams with a 2.5 million cap, that's 20 million a year. Get that in TV rights tacked onto the NHL deal in exchange for hundreds of hours of content. Then the league only has to pay for things like travel and staff out of pocket or through other revenues generated by ticket sales.
4. Use the power of established brands. Don't come up with a bunch of terrible, modern sports team names. The Toronto team? The Maple Leafs. Boston? Bruins. Same jerseys, same logos, no "Lady Red Wings" or whatever. The Toronto Terror vs. The Montreal Monsters is a tough sell. Leafs-Habs? Less so.
I'm not sure if it would be viable to run this in the summer, so as to be hockey for when there is no hockey and likewise I'm not sure if it'd be viable to do this out of NHL arenas as opposed to Ricoh and the like but I'm guessing that the logistics could be worked out. Would it be successful? I'm not sure. But I do think that if there was a Leafs-Habs or Leafs-Sens game tonight that featured players from the Olympics that at least some of us would watch it vs. another terrible Jays game or...whatever else is on in the summer. And I think you could do it with the costs being a drop in the bucket for the modern, revenue generating NHL. And for all the talk about promoting the game and making hockey accessible to everyone, this seems like a real opportunity to access an underserved market.
Anyways, just idle thoughts when there's no hockey around.
