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Originally Posted by Janey
let's hope that the season starts with apology ticket prices. And with a shootout to end O/T ties during the regular season, keeping sudden death in playoffs, and no changes to the style of uniforms.
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Here! Here!
NHL may be in trouble even with apology-level ticket prices. How many people failed to renew their season tickets because of the strike? How low for how long before they can fully recover?
No independent sports league in recent memory has successfully recovered from the loss of an entire season, but then none were the pinnacle of play at the time either: USFL of the 1980s and World Football League of the 1970s. (The World League of American Football/NFL Europe survived losing the 1993 season, but they were and still are propped up by the NFL.) Baseball took 4 years to recover from the 1994 World Series That Never Was. ESPN and FOX Sports Networks regularly recorded almost the same ratings from poker than they would have received from hockey, and poker costs a whole lot less to produce; the next NHL TV contract will likely be LESS than the current one and have strike provisions included.
Maybe hockey can survive the lead poisioning from shooting itself in the foot to spite its union. We'll all see in the coming seasons.