Is the recent restructuring of the National Hockey League after the lockout helping save the league?
It very well may be.
Every major sports league in the United States has cut its workforce over the past month. The NBA cut nine percent of its workforce, the NFL announced plans to slash 10 percent of its employees and the majority of Major League Baseball teams have many of their seat prices frozen for next year. Even the once darling powerhouse of NASCAR, in the face of a massive bailout of the auto industry, is cutting jobs and expenses to the bone.
Every league has their weak franchises but the NHL is thriving under their new hard salary cap that has effectively made all the franchises viable on one scale or another. Only the owner's finances could be an issue. NHL teams as a whole are down only an average of 193 fans per game through December 1 or 1.1%. As a comparison, the NBA is down an average of 2,056 fans across the league per game.
And we didn't even talk about the depreciating Canadian dollar, which is now worth 17 cents less than the American dollar.
