In defense of Gary Bettman’s Hall of Fame induction

On June 26, Gary Bettman was inducted to the Hockey Hall of Fame in the builder category. The honor was incredibly well-deserved.

The Twittersphere was set ablaze nearly a week ago when Gary Bettman earned his call to the hall. While social media is polarizing on the best of days, this particular event was accentuated by a wave of debate and hot-headed opinions, the likes of which I haven’t seen in quite some time.

With so much hate and vitriol being hurled at the NHL commissioner, I found myself asking why. Why were there so many people that actually believe this wasn’t deserved, and why did I feel emboldened enough to utilize the platform provided to me to come to his defense?

Bettman has been used as a scapegoat by NHL fans for decades. From lockouts, to skipping Olympic participation and of course the wild conspiracy theories that contend he simply doesn’t want more Canadian franchises because he doesn’t like us. The fact is, there’s always someone on the other end of the table who should be shouldering blame as well. Emotionless, economical decisions aren’t always popular, but they’ve steered professional hockey to it’s current foothold on the world stage.

I’m not here to tell you Gary Bettman is perfect and without flaws — but a cold, objective look at the facts could lead you to no other conclusion than the one I’m about to lay out.

The Numbers

On February 1, 2018, Bettman rang in his 25th anniversary as NHL commissioner. When he took over, NHL revenues sat at about $400 million. Revenue for this past season is expected to be about $4.54 billion. That’s a compound annual growth rate of about 10.20 percent [(4,540,000,000/400,000,000)^(1/25)-1] x 100. I’ll repeat that: The NHL’s revenues have grown by an average of 10 percent every single year Bettman has been at the helm — that is seriously impressive when you take in to account three separate lockouts.

By comparison, the NFL’s revenue in 1993 came in at about $1.745 billion and this year topped out around $14 billion. That’s a compound annual growth rate of just 8.69 percent.

In the last 10 years alone, the average worth of an NHL franchise has increased to about $589 million. NHL expansion fees have also been a goldmine. In 1993 (Bettman’s first year), expansion fees for Florida and Anaheim topped out at $50 million. Just last year, the Vegas Golden Knights were forced to pay an amazing $500 million for the right to field a hockey team in the NHL. Quite a vote of confidence on the health and growth of the league under Bettman’s watch.

In 2018, the average NHL player salary was also $2.96 million, up from $572,000 (or an increase of 417 percent) in 1993. Granted, you won’t get an argument from me on the idea of NHL players earning more than 50 percent of league revenues under the current collective bargaining agreement. Escrow payments in 2014-15 alone shaved over 12 percent off player salaries.

After a few middling (by major professional sports standards) US TV deals in the ’90s, the 2004 lockout painted a bleak picture. Who could forget watching the NHL fight for space in the collective conscious by scraping by on the Outdoor Life Network? With rule changes and a concerted effort to shift the game from a fisticuff-fueled defensive deadlock, the league returned to television sets with a new emphasis on speed and skill. It took several years, but the league finally locked down multi-billion dollar deals with NBC in America, and Rogers Communications in Canada. Continuously on the rise, it is now the fifth highest-grossing sports league in the world.

Non-Traditional hockey markets

One of the biggest contributors of this explosive growth is Bettman’s aggressive approach to expanding in to non-traditional hockey markets. Under his watch, teams have been started in Florida, Anaheim, Nashville, Atlanta (who moved to Winnipeg), Columbus and Las Vegas. The Minnesota Wild also got their start under Bettman, though that’s hardly a non-traditional market.

It’s easy to point a finger at the situation in Florida, or the commissioner’s refusal to give up on the Phoenix franchise as monumental failures. To a lot of people, it simply smells of desperation and a refusal to admit defeat. To a lot of Canadian hockey fans, it also apparently means he’s anti-Canadian.

https://twitter.com/henry_hen5/status/1002175767143305221

Like most things, however, the proof is in the numbers (these numbers by the way, are available here via USA Hockey). In 1999, there were just 1,176 registered hockey players in Nashville’s home territory of Tennessee. By the end of this year, those numbers had improved by 303 percent to 4,740. In the same time span, Florida has seen an increase in hockey participation of 169 percent, from 5,606 registered players to 15,057.

In 2017, USA Hockey reported record growth in hockey enrollment from children eight years and younger in the state of California. Female involvement also increased a whopping 49 percent in that year alone. Participation among this age group is tremendously important to overall retention as these children grow up in a hockey culture surrounded by the game all year.

Phoenix has logistical issues that make their relevance in the surrounding area suffer. Playing out in Glendale doesn’t do the franchise any favors in terms of attracting fans to the Gila River Arena. I have no doubt that a location in downtown Phoenix and a consistently winning team would cure at least most of their pitiful numbers.

After the Predators’ first majorly successful season in 2005-06 where they recorded 106 points, hockey enrollment improved 20 percent the next year in that state alone. Winning really does cure all. His refusal to back down from a salary cap also helps ensure competitiveness throughout the league and allows Sun Belt teams to more easily gain a foothold which is a major strategic need for the league and hockey as a whole. You can’t pursue aggressive expansion and growth when the league is tilted so far north.

We may all give a collective eye roll every time a news story sheds light on more financial troubles for the Coyotes. There is, however, still hope and at least some sense of understanding in Bettman’s refusal to give up on the franchise while he waits for it’s executives to turn things around on the ice consistently. It’s safe to say that the NHL’s commissioner has gone above and beyond his mandate to expand the game in areas previously thought impossible. Who could have imagined we’d be anticipating watching a playoff game in Smashville?

Olympic participation

Gary Bettman was an NBA executive before being hired as NHL commissioner in 1993. After  having a court side seat for the NBA’s participation in the 1992 summer games, he noted:

"”The National Basketball Association’s worldwide awareness grew dramatically after the participation of the Dream Team” —Bettman in reference to Team USA"

Shortly after taking over the reigns for the NHL owners in 1993, he made it a priority to work out a deal to include his league’s players in the Olympics. In September 1995, the accord was signed and the hockey world set their sights on Nagano.

NHL participation was a regular occurrence until this past year in which the league passed on the PyeongChang games in Korea. As always, Bettman took the brunt of the blame from ornery fans as if he wasn’t an integral part of sending NHL players in the first place.

Why did the IOC not shoulder any of the blame from the general public? Refusing to cover insurance costs on player contracts, travel expenses and keeping a blackout on media are just a few of the reasons it made absolutely no sense for owners to loan their players out for nothing.

NHL participation may be more exiting for us, but it isn’t the only professional hockey league in the world. After all, it’s a showcase for the game itself at the end of the day — one could say it’s as much as an advertisement for the KHL, yet only one league is footing the majority of the costs. The IOC needs the NHL much more than the NHL needs the IOC.

Rene Fasel’s comments after negotiations broke down in 2017 strike a somewhat ignorant chord. Yes, negotiations will be different, but they will favor the world’s biggest hockey league. NBCSN ratings for this year’s men’s gold medal game were down an amazing 76 percent compared to 2014. Time differences as well as the actual countries playing will have served a role in producing these numbers, but it’s still an incredible statistic.

One that won’t be ignored when the world’s governing hockey bodies return to the negotiating table for China 2022. Gary Bettman has helped build the NHL in to a sought-after product, and you can be sure he will not concede assets to the IOC for nothing with the kind of leverage he now has.

Conclusion

Propping up these non-traditional markets has proven to be the single greatest strategy and accomplishment of this commissioner. It has helped spread hockey culture to previously untapped regions and expanded the league’s influence even beyond North American borders. These avenues also provide a continuous influx of talent from new sources which is incredibly important as the league continues to expand. Very similar to the arrival of large numbers of players from the former Soviet Union in the ’90s when the league was expanding aggressively.

Last year, the NHL and NHLPA also committed to sponsoring feasibility studies for the formation of Division-I hockey within the NCAA. Aggressive expansion and promotion of the game has been a hallmark of Bettman’s tenure.

This promotion goes well beyond building physical ice hockey infrastructure and teaching children (of which the league does through it’s innovative Industry Growth Fund). Bettman has been a long time advocate of the LGBT community — in partnership with You Can Play and the NHLPA, the NHL became the first professional sports league in North America to have all of their franchises release PSA’s in support of LGBT athletes and fans.

"“We certainly don’t want a player to come out for our sake. It should be what’s right for him and something that he has to be comfortable with. But I think it’s our job to create a culture and an environment where a gay player knows he is safe and welcome. If and when that happens, believe me, that person will have the full support of the commissioner’s office” –Bettman in 2016"

Canadian fans will continue to groan about a lack of franchises north of the border, but those decisions are born out of legitimate economical and logistical factors.

NHL players are paid in US dollars regardless of which side of the border they earn their living. With a volatile dollar, this means Canadian franchises can sometimes be paying upwards of 30 percent more than their American counterparts simply to field a roster. Financial derivative strategies can help minimize those costs, but it’s still an important factor.

The only Canadian-based group ready and willing to field an NHL franchise currently resides in Quebec, but the Eastern conference is currently out-of-whack and realignment has to be signed off on. Don’t expect Detroit to go back West. You can also ask the question as to why the NHL would continue milking a country that breathes hockey, when expansion in to non-traditional markets has grown the game exponentially. It’s certainly not because he’s “anti-Canadian”.

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There is perhaps no one more deserving of a Hall of Fame induction under the builder category. You don’t have to like the man — if the way he talks upsets you, you’re well within your right to state your distaste. Just don’t go telling people this is somehow undeserved.

The game we all love is healthy and thriving in areas many thought were not possible. I’m willing to hear you out on the idea that it may have been better to wait until he was retired, but that doesn’t change the facts.