The soccer story would make me hurl.

Posted by Les Stockton from Eastern Oklahoma on 09/05/08 at 03:02 PM ET

Well in comparison to soccer teams in Europe the NHL is making a tons of money. While they pull more revenue than the NHL, player cost are so high the most teams lose boat loads of money and some of them our hundreds of millions of dollars in debt. I would guess there are more profitable NHL teams than there are Soccer teams in all of Europe.

They could have meant the NHL because Hicks and Gillete’s ownership of Liverpool is high profile and very controversial. On the other hand it could be a typo and they meant the NFL either way it still doesn’t make sense because both the NHL and NFL have basically the same model which is vastly different than the European soccer model. The NHL and NFL (in addition to MLB and NBA) are two highly self-regulated leagues with a salary cap and no relegation. It’s the exact opposite in Europe (England in this case)where everything it is unregulated and relegation basically kills any hope of those smaller teams being financially sound. Teams in the NFL and NHL make money because of league structure in place not because they are owned by billionaires.

Posted by jkrdevil on 09/05/08 at 03:54 PM ET

i love how this analyst in the article thinks… all this extra money is good because it forces every team to sell out to rich foreigners keen to make a quick buck out of their team. never mind the customers (sorry, fans), who maybe want the people running their team to actually care about the long-term future of the club rather than just winning as many trophies and milking as many markets as possible.

one of the great things abut the nhl, and a big reason as an english sports fan i enjoy following it, is precisely because it ISN’T like premiership football… you win by outsmarting the competition, not outspending them. english football is nothing like our NHL, and let’s hope it will always stay that way.

Posted by fredster on 09/05/08 at 04:50 PM ET

They’re most likely referring to our NHL. Odd story...I once dated a girl from the Al Nahyan family (yes, I fully admit, she was slumming it) and learned quite a bit about how they see America in the Emirates.  Because of ice hockey’s novelty over there, at least back in the late 90’s, it was perceived along the lines of polo - a spectator sport for the affluent. And because the NHL has a more international flavor than say the NFL or NBA, and because of Emirate business dealings throughout Europe and the U.S., the NHL is pretty well known over there.

On top of that, in general their knowledge of American culture is pretty limited. When she got here, my ex was amazed that everyone wasn’t rich and the roads weren’t paved with gold. (Which, apparently, was a common misconception about America in Abu Dhabai.) They know that the NHL is one of the “big four” sports leagues here, but I doubt they realize how big chasm is between it and the other three. So it’s not too surprising that an Arabic reporter would reference it.

Posted by Gabriel from San Diego, CA on 09/05/08 at 05:42 PM ET

it was perceived along the lines of polo - a spectator sport for the affluent.

That’s totally true in Nashville, where affluence is a function of having a pickup that can get you to the rink, or not.

Posted by HockeyinHD on 09/05/08 at 05:54 PM ET

Thanks everyone for making the picture a little clearer.  I thought maybe it could have been a typo, NHL instead of NFL, then I would have understood.

Posted by Paul from Motown Area on 09/05/08 at 06:07 PM ET

I would think they must have meant the NFL since a lot of hockey teams are losing money these days (one can only hope about 5-6 will move to Canada or fold in the next few years).  And no I am not Canadian!  I think all NFL teams are profitable since they get the majority of their money through TV contracts like the English Premiership, not gate receipts like the NHL.  The figures are astounding, the Premier League gets 900 million pounds in TV money a year, which would work out to almost 90 million dollars for each of the 20 teams.  I think each NHL team gets around $3-4 million from TV money per year.

Posted by Stevens #4 from Idaho on 09/05/08 at 06:13 PM ET

“The figures are astounding, the Premier League gets 900 million pounds in TV money a year, which would work out to almost 90 million dollars for each of the 20 teams”

it would if it was evenly shared out… but the whole reason the premier league was formed was so that wouldn’t happen. half the money is shared out equally, a quarter is given as prize money, and a quarter is given in proportion to how often team’s games get televised.

hence, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer… kind of like a reverse version of revenue sharing!

Posted by fredster on 09/05/08 at 09:05 PM ET

it would if it was evenly shared out… but the whole reason the premier league was formed was so that wouldn’t happen. half the money is shared out equally, a quarter is given as prize money, and a quarter is given in proportion to how often team’s games get televised.

hence, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer… kind of like a reverse version of revenue sharing!

yep, and it’s ruining ‘soccer’…

teams can’t compete with the ‘big 4’ anymore. the premierleague has become predictable and boring

Posted by Pharazon from England on 09/06/08 at 12:56 AM ET

There have been several stories out there recently about the finances of European football and a possible bubble and/or financial collapse of several teams. Very interesting if you are into that sort of thing.

What the article doesn’t touch upon is that European football will likely have to have billionaire owners to even survive the serious debt levels some of them have. The English Premiership league teams alone have $12 billion in debt on their books, with Chelsea and Man U owing about $3 billion. That’s some serious coinage. Think of how many seats they have to sell just to service the debt payments.

Posted by UMFan from Colorado on 09/08/08 at 04:58 PM ET