Relocation Ramifications of the Predators sale

If as JW!O expects, the Preds do exercise the "cure clause" in their lease with Nashville this season, the Preds may be one year away from relocation. Prospective owner billionare Jim Basillie (who signed a letter of intent with current owner Craig Liepold to purchase the team for a reported $220M), tried to buy the Penguins earlier this year. However, that deal fell through because the leauge wanted to attach too many clauses that would make it tough to relocate the team if an arena deal could be reached. In essense the NHL kind of protected Pittsburgh by attatching too many conditions to the sale for Basillie's liking.

However, I believe Nashville will not enjoy such protection because it's fans have not been filling their building the way the Penguins had been, and this sale is more likley to be approved even with an understanding a relocation is possible to probable. The Predators still have a lease with Nashville, but my last post outlined how they can get out of that. So if we're down to one season in Nashville what can happen.

The speculation may surprise you. Most of it is that Basillie wants to move a team to Southern Ontario. Currently Ottawa and Toronto have NHL teams in Ontario and are the two largest metropolitan areas in the province. The third largest is Hamilton, with about 682,000 in the metropolitan area (which makes it about the size of the Quebec City, or Winnipeg metropolitan areas, Canadian Demographic info click here) Hamilton does already have an NHL-quality building in place, the 17,500 seat Copps Coliseum (currently home to the AHL's Hamilton Bulldogs). However, Hamilton lies within a 50mi (80km) protected area of both the Buffalo Sabres and the Toronto Maple Leafs. Which means these teams would likley have to be compensated to relinquish claims in order to put a team there.

One other idea is to put the team in the Kitchner, Ontario metropolitan area, one reason is that this area contains the city of Waterloo, Ontario which is home to Basillie's company Research In Motion. Also this area lies outside of Toronto's protected area, but still within 30-40 miles of Hamilton. (Trouble visualizing this? click on the map I made, using Google MyMaps feature) Also there is spec based on the fact that Basillie has purchased 25 acres in Waterloo, perhaps to build a new arena from the ground. However Kitcher is considerably smaller than Hamilton, and for this to work, one would speculate they'd be counting on drawing current Leafs fans from the Hamilton area.

If they go this route, the team would probably well served to call themselves the Ontario Predators (in the case they don't change the name), or South Ontario Predators instead of the Kitchner-Waterloo-Cambridge-Hamilton-London-Guelph-Brantford Predators.

The other ideas include a return of the NHL to Québec City or Winnipeg (The two largest Canadian cities without NHL teams). They already have a 15,000 seat arena (MTS Centre) ready in Winnipeg, however that may be too small for the NHL, especially since the Preds are already drawing 13,000 plus in Nashville. For that to work prices would have to be higher than average in Winnipeg (which is probably possible because Nashville prices are among the lowest in the league) to compensate and anything less than a sellout would be unacceptable. Québec City is in a similar situation, however their Colisée Pepsi (formerly the Colisée de Québec, the home of the Québec Nordiques until 1995 when they moved to Denver), is much older and doesn't enjoy the club and luxury seating of Winnipeg's MTSC.

If the team is to stay in the States Kansas City has to remain the front runner. It was their offer for the Penguins that ultimatley forced the city to improve their arena offer. Kansas City has a beautiful new building (Sprint Center) with no anchor tenant. There is some sentiment to return to Hartford, but honestly I believe that has more to do with the wishes of Bristol, CT based ESPN than anything. Also there has been speculation on Houston, Seattle, and Portland, and even Vegas,as viable NHL cities (see their demographic info here).

Why I bring this long list of cities up? Because I believe the relocation of the Predators is just the beginning. The Florida Panthers, Atlanta Thrashers, and Phoenix Coyotes should also be candidates to move once they see how the Preds have improved their situation.

These are the recent relocations and expansions under Commisioner Gary Bettman, these relocations/expansions were rushed, and based on population data alone, but not about how marketbale hockey is to these populations bases. This is why these relocations/expansions have not worked out as well as say San Jose, Tampa Bay, Ottawa, and Dallas (kills me to admit it, but the stars did succede in a post Bloomington world, though not nearly as well as the Wild are doing now, buisness-wise). However, all of these happened BEFORE Bettman, and would apper better thought out than Bettman's team moves/additions. I'm not even trying to make this a North-South thing, there are some so called "southern" teams that have done quiet well on the Pre-Bettman list.

Bettman's expansions/relocations have been motivated by demographic research that only factored in the size of a market (athough that wouldn't appear to be the case for Raleigh/Durham as the 40th TV market in the US), and not the demand for NHL hockey there. Which is why attendance has just been poor in these areas. I believe the expansions were motivated by millions in fees paid to the current owners, but underestimated the potential long term damage to the league. Under Bettman, only Minnesota and Columbus are expansions/relocations that have long term success, Carolina and Anaheim are starting to come around.

Teams are failing more than Gary wants to let on, and we're going to see teams need to move to stay healthy. Hopefully they get it right, cause the instability is bad for the game, but in these 4 cases (Nashville, Atlanta, Phoenix, and Florida) absolutly necessary. The Preds sale will prove to be the first domino to topple.

Original TSN Story: http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/news_story/?ID=208743&hubname=nhl