History Meets
The Future.
Power vacuums fill in quickly. If the NHL goes dark
for up to two years, where will major league hockey fans get their jones?
The AAA level American
Hockey League (AHL) will have its own problems. Many of its players are on
the NHL payroll and subject to the collective bargaining agreement. It is
unlikely that the AHL could pony up the six-figure salaries of some of their
players earn without substantial outside funding. They can pilfer AA level
players, but attendance would surely suffer.
If a handful of men operating
out of Niagara Falls, New York, have their way, the WHA is coming back to
play.
Rolling The Dice: The New WHA
In 1999, the WHA alumni
including Bobby Hull and Gordy Howe, held a nostalgia reunion. Someone floated the idea
of reactivating the league.
"We said 'Wouldn't
it be cool if we could revive the league?'" said Peter Young, a former
color man on radio in the WHA. |
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Young has parlayed nostalgia for the league into
profitable television programming ventures in the past. "We didn't think
there was a possibility of it really happening at the time... We certainly
didn't plan on going head-to-head with the NHL." A bit disingenuous,
as any "major" league in hockey would have to compete with the existing
major league.
The WHA Reborn
Davidson was going to
let the copyright of the WHA name and logo lapse.
Alan Howell and Dr. Nick
Vaccaro took over the registered copyright, with the intent of doing so quietly.
A reporter who watches the copyright office caught the registration, and wrote
up a short piece on the WHA.
"People kept calling
us and offering support," Young tells MLN, after the article was published.
Allan Howell, who had
been with the Ottawa Roughriders and Dr. Vaccaro opened up an office in Niagara
Falls, New York, to investigate the possibility of bringing back the WHA.
In March of 2000, the WHA was reborn.
New leagues' credibility
largely rests in their upper management until they have proven themselves
as sound business entities. .
Dr. Vaccaro is a modestly
well-heeled chiropractor who qualifies for minor league ownership, perhaps.
He is not major league pockets.
Howell's place in the
league immediately casts a certain pall on the the luster of the new WHA His
history with franchise management has been anything but stellar. His Ottawa
Roughriders tanked after lackluster attendance numbers failed to prop up the
team. Charges of criminal money laundering against him were raised and dismissed.
(See "Al Howell's
Checkered Record")
The question is whether
something like past legal issues, or the track record of the principals, becomes
a red flag for potential owners or sponsors in the drive to generate about
$100 million in change to start a major league.
Lock-out Opens
Doors
As it became clear that
the NHL could face both a protracted lock-out of 18 to 24 months, or several
unviable NHL franchises might shut their doors, a window of opportunity began
to emerge.
"Last September
and October we started receiving 'significant interest' from people who felt
that there would be a need for major league hockey in 2004," says Howell.
Howell, Vaccaro and Young
went to work to devise a comeback for the WHA.
Everything You
Wanted to Know About the WHA, and Should Be Afraid to Ask.
The World Hockey Association
is set to re-open its doors in the fall of 2004 in 12 cities. The list of
cities floats around. Howell says that thirty markets are under consideration.
The league has started
its own minor league, the WHA2, from a split in the Atlantic Coast Hockey
League (See "The
Last Goldrush" for more on the WHA2)
The founding fathers
of the league vary somewhat about the criterion for selecting cities. A professional
basketball team and a decent arena that seats 12,000 to 18,000 seem to be
desirable elements.
Young said that the WHA
won't move into NHL markets. Then one of the first approved cities was Phoenix.
The Coyotes will be moving
to nearby Glendale, Arizona, leaving the America West Arena without an ice
tenant. The WHA seems to be banking on either two years without competition,
or the Coyotes folding as a result of labor problems, to establish itself
in that market.
Other potential cities
mentioned thus far are the twin dogs of the South: Birmingham and Miami.
There may be two thousand
core hockey fans in the greater Birmingham area. Hardly enough to fill the
17,000 seat BJCC arena there.
Miami is another touted
potential franchise city. Forget the fact that hockey is Jai Alai on ice to
many locals. The current crop of professional teams in the Big Orange struggle
mightily to attract audiences. The Marlins' AAA team, the Albuquerque Isotopes,
often draws more than the major league club.
Hockey legend Bobby Hull,
who gave the WHA life in 1972, will act as the Commissioner. Truly one of
the greats of the game, lending his name to the new enterprise helps it somewhat.
For credibility, the
league needs more name players from the NHL's ice, coaching staffs, and front
offices moving to the league. No one presumes that Hull, or anyone else in
the WHA organization to date, has that much pull.
Young says that the WHA
has learned the lesson of modern sports, and that it will make sure that its
players are a grass-roots part of the community. "The NHL is too out
of touch with their fan base," he notes. "We want to develop players
who care about who they play for." He wants people in the community to
see WHA players as role models.
WHA
Math Doesn't Add Up
One of the disturbing
deja vu moments of the old WHA that one sees in the new WHA comes when one
interviews their leadership. You get a lot of enthusiasm and math that doesn't
add up quite right.
Howell tells MLN that
the WHA will be economically more viable than the NHL because of its radical
new financial structure.
One marquee player will
receive annual salary of up to $3 million. All of the other players will split
a $10 million cap per team.
Young is insistent that
each team will have a total operating budget of $12-14 million. If both Young
and Howell's numbers are correct, that leaves precious little for front office,
arena leases, marketing and advertising. If not it is another area of fuzzy
math that needs clarification for the public to buy into the notion that the
WHA is the real deal.
The WHA teams will have
other costs as well. The league as a whole will also buy into one franchise
of the minor league WHA-2 in 2003. In 2004 and beyond, the league will either
require major league clubs to buy WHA-2 franchises where they can develop
players, or require the major league clubs to take ownership of the contracts
of players on a minor league club.
Assuming that a team
can operate for a generous $15 million each year, the worst case scenario
for owners isn't pretty.
The minimum for each
ownership group is $50 million in net worth. Howell wants them to assume that
it will take 3 to 5 years to make any money in the venture.
Assuming a total loss
for five years, each ownership group could end up carrying $75 million in
debt after five years, a twenty-five million dollar deficit to their total
net worth.
'Nobody is going to take
a total loss on their investment!,' WHA advocates will retort.
