But Bettman's job isn't to market the league. His job is to represent the league in negotiations with the union, governments, and other entities the league conducts business with. On those fronts, he has successfully taken away 7% of labor's revenue, created a slush fund for southern teams, and secured $75 million over five years to subsidize the Phoenix Coyotes (tax dollars, natch). He's one dirty motherfucker for doing all those things, but he wanted to do them and he did.
Here's some info on John Collins, who is third in command behind Bettman and Uncle Fester:
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On April 20, 2011, the NHL and NBC Sports Group announced a 10-year broadcast deal reportedly worth $2 billion – roughly $125 million a year more than reported sums under the previous NHL deal with Versus. Starting with the 2011-12 season, NBC Sports Group is broadcasting 100 regular season hockey games across its networks and for the first time all NHL playoff games are broadcast nationally. By showing every game of the playoffs nationally, the NHL can create “eight weeks of nonstop coverage,” said Collins, who was the lead strategist on the deal.
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In February 2011, Collins negotiated a sponsorship deal for Coors to become the official beer of the NHL -- MillerCoors in the United States and MolsonCoors in Canada. Worth $375 million over seven years, The New York Times called it the biggest corporate sponsorship in N.H.L. history, noting, “For the N.H.L., the new beer sponsorship demonstrates its progress in recent years, especially in reaching young, affluent, technologically savvy fans who love their ice-cold suds.”
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In November 2013, Collins led the NHL negotiations to partner with Rogers Communications for exclusive rights to broadcast all national hockey telecasts in Canada. Estimated to more than double its Canadian television revenue, the 12-year deal is worth $5.2 billion.
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In 2007, Collins spearheaded the development of the NHL Winter Classic, played outdoors on New Year’s Day, with NBC Sports executive Jon Miller, who told The Boston Globe that the key to making the game successful was “Collins’s vision, energy, and passion.” The Classic’s success earned Collins Marketer of the Year by Advertising Age Magazine. Sports Illustrated columnist Dan Shaughnessy said of the new Winter Classic, “now hockey owns New Year's Day the way baseball owns the Fourth of July and football owns Thanksgiving.”
So there is someone at the NHL who knows what he's doing on the marketing front.
The truth is that Bettman should have lost his job after his first lockout. He bumbled the CBA negotiations so badly that the only way to get a deal done was for the league's strongest owners to go around him. This created a landscape with no safety net for small markets -- just the way Toronto, Philadelphia, and New York wanted it. This squeezed out Quebec City, Winnipeg, and Hartford, which ramped up Bettman's southern/western push at the expense of the league's stability. Because of the inequity among teams, the league was forced to expand beyond its means so that failing teams could keep getting expansion money. No salary cap, no way to check spending, and before you know it, the whole system is broken, time for another lockout. So while he may be a shrewd negotiator now, the NHL is a mess because of him.
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Molly Lambert wrote:
The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.
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