NHL not concerned about World Cup revenues, attendance

TORONTO – The atmospheric differences were stark.

At 8 p.m. on a weekday, the Air Canada Centre in Toronto would come alive for the World Cup of Hockey. Nearly every seat was filled; the ones that weren’t had their tickets lingering on the secondary market at high prices. The fans were loud and engaged. It was everything you’d expect from a tournament featuring NHL stars, held in the center of the hockey universe.

But at 3 p.m. on a weekday, the Air Canada Centre was less than two-thirds capacity, and tickets for games like Sweden vs. Finland could be had for as little as $6 on the secondary market. The atmosphere was sedate. It’s not exactly what you expected from the World Cup of Hockey, although Wednesday’s game between Connor McDavid’s Team North America and Sweden was better attended and much louder.

Was the NHL happy with the turnout for its round-robin games?

“The answer to that is that we sold the tickets exactly right: In strips,” said NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, at a hockey technology summit held during the World Cup.

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The NHL made the decision early on to sell the tournament’s games in strips of tickets for the entire event. That created slow sales at first. Back in January, plenty of groups of four seats were available for the games in the “cheapest” ticket category – $1,643 for the 11-day tournament. A group of four tickets in the highest-priced ticket category ran $18,172. As of late August, Bettman told the Toronto Sun that “90 percent” of the tickets were sold.

There’s no doubt the tickets sold well, but there’s also no doubt that many of the tickets purchased in strips went unused for the afternoon preliminary round games on weekdays between “non-local” teams: Europe vs. the Czech Republic and Sweden vs. Finland.

Based on some conversations with ticket brokers and fans trying to unload their own tickets, the demand just wasn’t there. Yet it was also apparent that fans who didn’t have tickets to the tournament were unaware that the flood of inventory had deflated prices to lower than what you’d pay for a Blue Jays game.

Bettman wasn’t concerned with the unused tickets.

“Monday afternoon, people have to work,” he said of the Team Europe vs. Team Czech Republic game that was by far the worst attended of the tournament. “It’s about what we expected. The attendance for this tournament has been very strong. Remember, playing 16 or 17 games in a two-week period, there aren’t a whole lot of cities that can host that.”

When it comes to improving on how well tournaments typically do in filling the building for tournament games that lack a specific local appeal, Bettman gave Toronto high marks.

“If you’ve ever been to a world championship or an Olympics, the afternoon games with the teams that are perceived to be less marquee, our games were much more well-attended than tournaments I’ve been to, by a long stretch,” he said.

Overall, Bettman said the focus on the World Cup of Hockey shouldn’t be on how much revenue those fans, their merchandise or the tournament’s sponsors have generated, refusing to clarify how much the NHL and the NHLPA are making from this event.

“The answer is not as much as you would speculate or think, because the expenses are extraordinary,” he said. “But it’s not material. We’re a $4 billion-plus business. What we’re doing here for these two weeks isn’t about the money, it’s about growing the game. And it’s also about creating a buzz and excitement for the start of our season.”

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Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

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