re: How does Gary Bettman still have a job?

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gate driven league at least up here

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Exactly.

Hockey is not a television-friendly sport in the same way that football or baseball are. The size of television contracts cannot be measured in the same manner. All of us who are hardcore hockey fans (watched my first Bruins game in 1958 at the old Boston Garden, listened to all the games on my small transistor radio, knew the names of most of the players in the NHL at that time because it was easy with just six teams!) know that watching hockey in person involves watching the entire ice area, and not just following the puck, as TV does. Over the decades, I have turned dozens of people into hockey fans simply be getting them to a game in person one time. Hard to make new fans via television alone. Many football fans would just as soon sit in their recliner in their living room and watch an NFL game and get to see every other play on instant replay. Hockey, by contrast, is best enjoyed live, especially considering the speed and continuity and sound of the action, which minimize the usefulness and impact of instant replay. That's why 50% of NHL revenue is ticket-based, and why the NHL will never get the kind of television deal that we would like, no matter who is Commissioner.

Gary Bettman is a little troll. Screw that POS.

Signed, Red Wings fan.

Growing up in the south I always had almost zero interest in hockey. I tried to watch a few games over the years and found it to be dreadful.

When I lived in DC some friends invited me to a Caps game. I figured I would check it out and it was a ton of fun! I still can't watch it on TV, but it is a great sport to go see live.

It is still a tough sell in the south: most people don't play growing up and it is hard to convert someone into a fan based on tv. But if I lived in a city with an NHL team I'd absolutely support them.

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The NHL is an unsustainable business model. Attendance in most places sucks and player salaries are out of control. Owners lose money hand over fist.

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Outside of a few cities (READ: Sun Belt), the NHL has better attendance than the NBA. The NHL's problems are not attendance, but TV. And I have little sympathy for owners who cry poverty after handing out huge contracts. "Help me from wasting money!"

The NHL's problem is that it is not a war among players and owners, but small market teams (the Sun Belt) versus large market teams. Since they can't figure out a proper way to distribute the money amongst themselves, they just take it out on the players. The problem is that the Coyotes are unsustainable and the Rangers are rich as hell.

I like having hockey in my town, but it might be time to give up on the South. Everybody below the Mason Dixon line can root for the Caps or the Blues (though I think Carolina might be sustainable).

I think hockey would be better off taking a little less money on their next tv contract to get back onto ESPN and back into mainstream sports. Even the Stanley Cup wasn't on basic cable last year other than a few games, and I think people would watch if the sport was more accessible. I went to Brass games back when they were still in existence and it was always a great time. If more people could watch, it would probably pick up fans and help the health of hockey.