Proposed plan would have 4 bubble cities for entire 2020-21 NHL season

An entire season in the bubble!?

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 3 years ago
Proposed plan would have 4 bubble cities for entire 2020-21 NHL season
Zuma Press

According to a report from former Sportsnet NHL insider John Shannon, the NHL and the NHLPA have apparently had "preliminary talks" about creating a four city bubble for playing the entire 2020-21 season. 

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Hearing the NHL and PA have had preliminary talks about next season. One proposal is to create 4 bubble cities, and rotating all 31 teams in those venues in 8 game increments. 
At present, there’s no indication if all the cities would be in Canada. 
But makes the most sense.

An interesting concept but how feasible is it really? I'm no economist, but if the NHL can't sell tickets to the buying public how are they supposed to stay in business? Sure sponsorships, ad revenue and television contracts will provide millions in annual revenue, but the fact of the matter is that the NHL is a ticket sales driven league. Without the ability to sell tickets to games, I don't see how the league can carry on as its currently constructed. 

Then again, maybe the league does have the reserves to keep this entire bubble experiment going a little longer? Maybe, hopefully, mercifully we're back to a somewhat normal NHL in 2021-22 with full capacity buildings and the millions of ticket revenue that that comes with. If that's the case, then I can understand the NHL's plan for keeping the bubble going for awhile longer. Basically, if there's light at the end of this tunnel then it makes sense to move toward the light. I'm just not sold on the economics of it all at this point. I can't see the NHL's 31 owners approving this proposal.

As Pittsburgh Penguins insider Dan Kingerski points out the Penguins, who are one of the most financial successfully teams in the NHL, get over 40% of their entire revenue from ticket sales.

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Honestly, I don’t think this flies. I don’t think the players would go for it. Nor the teams. 41.3% of Pens revenue comes from ticket sales, according to Forbes

If that's the case in Pittsburgh, I can only imagine that most NHL teams are in the same situation. Stay tuned, hockey fans.

Source: John Shannon