Hockey purists is likely to be grumbling concerning the upcoming Stanley Cup Final as a result of it would don’t have anything however Sun Belt groups concerned. It fits Gary Bettman simply fantastic.
Bettman was honored by the Sports Business Journal on Wednesday with a lifetime achievement award for the NHL’s development throughout his 30 years as commissioner, from a enterprise that generated $437 million in income earlier than he took over to almost $6 billion now.
Fittingly, it comes with convention finalists in Las Vegas, Dallas, South Florida and North Carolina, given how essential Sun Belt growth and rising the league south of the Canadian border is to Bettman’s legacy.
“It’s more about the footprint: You do better in terms of interest at all levels of the game where you have franchises,” Bettman mentioned. “Creating a more national footprint, both in Canada and in the U.S., is important for growing the game.”
The NHL had a presence in simply 13 U.S. markets (three within the New York space) within the closing full season earlier than Bettman took over and it wasn’t televised nationally. Over the previous three a long time, that has ballooned to 25 American groups in 22 markets from coast to coast.
One of the challenges, Bettman mentioned, was demonstrating to TV networks that the NHL had “a compelling national story.” This postseason encompasses a closing 4 in cities that didn’t have groups earlier than Bettman acquired the job.
The Florida Panthers joined the league in 1993, months after Bettman came visiting from his publish on the NBA, at about the identical time the Stars moved from Minnesota to Dallas. Raleigh, North Carolina, acquired a staff later within the Nineties when the Hartford Whalers grew to become the Carolina Hurricanes. And the Vegas Golden Knights are solely of their sixth season of existence after changing into the thirty first franchise via growth.
In between, groups had been added in Nashville and Columbus, relocated to Colorado and Arizona, and rebirthed in Minnesota and Winnipeg. Along the way in which, Bettman has ruffled loads of feathers and upset followers in locations that misplaced groups, leaning on a lesson he discovered from the late NBA Commissioner David Stern to make choices, large and small, for the correct causes.
“You do your homework, you make as an informed a decision as you can and you don’t do it for political reasons because political and popular reasons can change in the moment,” he mentioned. “You got to do what you think is right because if you’re wrong, at least you did it because you thought it was right. And that’s how you sleep at night.”
Bettman prefers the time period “newer markets” over “nontraditional” to explain a lot of these locations, together with Tampa Bay, which has develop into a mannequin franchise and gained the Stanley Cup thrice since becoming a member of the league in 1992. He factors out that having groups in new markets results in extra rinks being constructed and the sport rising past a number of the conventional North American hockey hotbeds.
That’s partly why Bettman is basking within the high quality of play, even when the rankings for this yr’s closing won’t be as excessive as a yr the place powerhouse markets like Boston, New York, Chicago, Toronto or Los Angeles are concerned.
“What’s more important to me is the game: Is it exciting? Is it entertaining? Is it compelling?” Bettman mentioned. “Some markets will always be bigger than others, but to me it’s more about the game and how entertaining it is.”
The phrase, “The game on the ice has never been better” is a staple of Bettman’s state of the league addresses over time, and it’ll doubtless come up once more when he speaks earlier than Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final subsequent week.
Now 70 – he’ll flip 71 on June 2 – Bettman isn’t able to retire however says he’s “not going to do this into my 80s.” He mentioned he sees a time within the not-too-distant future when he’ll wish to take an extended journey along with his spouse, Shelli, to a spot they haven’t been and spend extra time along with his seven grandchildren.
“At some point, when you have a public-facing job, you need to say, ‘It’s time to move to somebody younger,’” Bettman mentioned. “There’s some other things I may want to spend my time doing.”
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