WHA Revenue Engine is a 2-Cylinder.

The WHA talks of big sponsorships and television deals.

Granted, the market for sports television is greater now than it was in the seventies. Whether any of the major players in tube sports will take on the World Hockey Association remains to be seen.

ESPN might want the league as a way of sticking it to Fox's faded NHL coverage. The all-sports network has little love of anything that isn't football, basketball, or baseball, though. Extreme Snowboarding coverage on ESPN-2 might get more time than the WHA.

Fox might want the WHA to replace missing NHL coverage, but contractual agreements with the NHL most likely would prohibit a deal.

When asked who their major sponsors were, Howell told MLN that the league is just getting started when he was interviewed last month. We have seen no major announcements since then. The sponsorship people need to put some large sponsors on the plate to gain more credibility. That may be easier said than done. Those sponsors who like pro hockey are already committed to the NHL. The WHA might have to wait until a lock-out hit to gain badly needed revenue.

Which points out the high-risk nature of the WHA's gamble. Most of their player access and revenue plans hinge upon IF the NHL doesn't settle its labor problems; IF there is a lockout.

If none of those variables come to pass, the dice of the WHA's big gamble come up snake eyes, and the league stands a huge chance of tubing it.

AHL Correction

AHL players are not members of the NHLPA, despite their contractual status with NHL clubs.

Once assigned to the AHL players become members of the PHPA and remain members until such time as a recall to the NHL leads them to become dues paying members of the NHLPA.

This is not to suggest that an NHL labor disruption would not impact the AHL, but it is important to recognize that players could be assigned to the AHL by our NHL affiliates or could be eligible to play in the AHL as free agents.

We anticipate business as usual in the AHL in 2004-2005.

Thanks and continued success with minorleaguenews.com.

David Andrews
President and CEO
American Hockey League

 

The Credibility Gap

When the WHA gets a PR person, they will have their work cut out for them. Channeling the founders' obvious enthusiasm for the sport and for the revival of the league they love into a credible sports enterprise that can exist in the universe with the NHL will take a lot of work.

There needs to be some consistency and self-control in statements made by all of the principals of the league. Talk to Mr. Howell or Mr. Young and you can get very divergent ideas as to how things will go.

They will need to pull the reigns in on the wild speculation and launching of trial balloons about potential markets, owners, and sponsors with the media. Releases about discussions with Birmingham to be a major league market, or turning what will be a WHA2 Miami franchise into a major league city the following year are not going to win over an already skeptical press.

The Shockwaves Hit the Minor Leagues

The fallout of the NHL's labor problems and the WHA's arrival on the scene will have profound effects on the minor leagues.

If the NHL has a lock-out, the players under contract that it keeps in the AHL might be locked out as well.

For the AHL to operate, it would need to raid players from the AA leagues for the duration of the strike.

The AHL and the leagues of the AA level will also lose players to the WHA-2, if the major league goes into operation. Many players who see a shot at the big leagues, however remote, by way of the WHA might be willing to take the chance.

The CHL and ECHL would have to scrounge for players to replace the ones called up to fill strike positions, probably from the Canadian Juniors and perhaps older players from the UHL, and ACHL.

Watered-Down Talent Might Shrink Ice

The bottom line of this roster cannibalism is that the level of play in all of the leagues will suffer in the face of the strike. Even when the NHL settles the labor issues it faces, the existence of two major leagues is likely to permanently dilute the quality of play in all of the minor leagues, or cause consolidation of the leagues.

Leagues like the ACHL that are struggling to establish themselves might be unable to draw enough quality talent to fill their rosters with people that fans would pay to see.

The Future Looks...Smaller

Hockey has been on a break-neck expansion pace, both in the major and the minor leagues over the last decade. The number of quality, untapped markets that still exist out there are small to nonexistent. The damage from closings that have already happened as under-capitalized teams struggle in markets that they've spent too little time developing is significant.

In the face of a lock-out teams and leagues from the NHL to the ACHL will either shrink or disappear. The fall-out has the likelihood to poison the marketplace for hockey in cities throughout the U.S. for years to come.

The Irony of the Big Gamble

If the NHL does not avoid a lock-out, it will come back a much smaller and humbler league. It will also have sent every level of the sport into some degree of chaos.

Everyone who is involved with the WHA or the WHA-2 professes a deep love of hockey, which is seems to be true on its face.

If history is any indicator, the NHL will expend a lot of time and money squeezing the WHA back into the history books. The WHA will try to position itself in a way that keeps the NHL from harming it.

In the rush to relive the good times, and open up "affordable" hockey for the masses, no one seems to consider what two weaker major leagues might mean for the sport. Or what it will do to hockey's best potential ambassadors of the game, the minor leagues.

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