The Decline Of The Canadian Dollar Is Costing The NHL Hundreds Of Millions In Revenue

YardBarker-  NHL commissioner Gary Bettman spoke with Bloomberg Television earlier this week and said the league could lose as much as $200 million in revenue when its fiscal year ends on June 30. However, Bettman still expects the NHL to set record-breaking revenue figures at the end of next month.
“It’s a fact of life, it’s something we deal with,” Bettman said of the loonie. “If the Canadian dollar were still at par, we’d be $100 million or $200 million higher, perhaps, than we may find ourselves, but I do believe there will be a revenue increase over 2015.”

Luckily for the NHL’s bottom line, no Canadian hockey team made the playoffs for the first time in 46 years. This means all playoff revenue is in the stronger U.S. dollar because the games were all played within the American border. However, no Canadian teams has also meant less interest in the games.

ESPN reported that for first-round games, ratings on Canada’s Sportsnet channels and CBC were down 60 percent over last year when five of the seven Canadian teams made the post-season.




​This is your warning Canada. It's time you shape up or ship out. It's one thing to offer nothing of significance on the ice. It's actually kind of entertaining to poke fun at the lack of success of the teams that reside in the country responsible for the great sport of hockey. However, when you start messing with the bottom line then cutting bait becomes a real possibility. It's like a corporation buying up a mom and pop shop. If mom and pop don't bring shit to the table after their work gets inherited then it's only so long before they are getting taken out with the garbage. Something's gotta give when the NHL is financially forced into rooting against the massive media markets to the far North. Right now the NHL is basically the company from 'Office Space', and the Canadian teams are Milton. It's fiscally responsible to keep them jettisoned to the basement, but you risk them - knowingly or unknowingly - burning the entire operation to the ground. 

I know you guys created this game we all love so dearly, but if you are going to keep getting invites to the party then it's time to start showing up with something other than an inferior product, ever decreasing ratings, and a shit ton of debt. I don't know what you have to do to make it so your dollar is actually worth something, but now would be a hell of a time to get proactive before the NHL Zuckerberg's your ass. An idea can only be so good if you can't implement it, and Canada is unintentionally doing everything they can to sabotage the growth of their own creation. Their downright loonie if they think a league that is constantly in desperate of growth can continue to hemorrhage hundreds of millions just because the person that came up with the original blueprint can't manage their money properly.