Monday, December 8, 2014

Rising Value and Popularity of Hockey



It is no surprise to hockey fans that Canadian teams dominate the upper NHL echelon in value, according to Forbes annual estimation and ranking:     
  1. Toronto ($1.3 billion)
  2. New York ($1.1 billion)
  3. Montreal ($1 billion)
  4. Chicago ($825 million)
  5. Vancouver ($800 million)
I love hockey, and it is the first sport I played when my family and I and our immediate relatives arrived in Chicago in 1968.  Among the four major sports in the US, hockey is last banana, but its popularity may be on the rise, along with its value.  The Los Angeles Clippers basketball team recently sold for an ungodly $2 billion, and I suspect that the amount former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer dished out will have upward ripples across not only the NBA but also other sports leagues like the NHL.  The Forbes article The Most Valuable Teams in the NHL points out that there are wealthy businessmen willing to buy losing teams and to pay enormous sums.  This, too, drives up value.

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