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Location: East St. Paul 651 forever (or North St. Paul) .
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I have heard there are a lot of French-Canadian retirees in the Tampa area, thus why they are a healthy franchise. Not sure the accuracy on that, but they have won a Cup in the last decade, which probably doesn't hurt any fanbase they have had to begin with.
I have heard there are a lot of French-Canadian retirees in the Tampa area, thus why they are a healthy franchise. Not sure the accuracy on that, but they have won a Cup in the last decade, which probably doesn't hurt any fanbase they have had to begin with.
There are way more in Broward and north Miami-Dade to be honest, but the Panthers are the least healthy of the two FL teams.
Retirees - cheap, old, go to bed at 7 PM?!? That's the basis for a professional league franchise? Surely not.
Tampa has a healthy franchise because they have an arena in Tampa, not dusty old St. Pete where the retirees live. The Rays have issues because they are in St. Pete with a poorly designed stadium and nothing around it. Think of everything bad about multi-use stadiums from the 1980s and they have it.
Miami's franchises are unhealthy because there are fewer and fewer die hard fans that can afford tickets. The business people aren't really interested in the Panthers doing well, they want just another expensive place to take the "rubes" and show how awesome "they" are. The Panthers should be moved post haste to anywhere north of Atlanta. Even Hartford would be a better market, for hockey at least.
While there is the talent for more teams, the lower number of teams does concentrate that talent. Also, it's a convenient number for divisions (4 divisions of 6 teams each).
On a side note, scrap the conferences. Weight the schedules towards divisional games (7 versus each division opponent, for 35 games; 2 or 3 for each non-division opponent, for 45 games). That gives a nice round number of 80 total games, fans in each city get to see each team at least once per year, and almost half the schedule is against the main rivals (the other teams in the division).
On a second side-note, the playoffs would consist of 12 teams. The four division winners are seeded 1 thru 4 and get a bye. Each team that finishes second or third also makes the playoffs, and these teams are collectively seeded 5 thru 12. After each round, teams are reseeded by record, highest hosting lowest, etc. This blows up the divisions and conferences (which no longer exist), so if the two best teams on year are in the east (Flyers and Penguins, say) or both in the west (Kings and Canucks, say) then it's entirely possible those two teams will meet in the Finals - even if they might be in the same division.
Location? Concentrate more teams in Canada. Canadian locations have a much denser population of hockey fans, which is why a comparatively small Canadian metropolitan area such as Winnipeg or Quebec (the city) has more likely butts to put in arena seats than does a much larger American city like Atlanta or Phoenix. It is also why Toronto would almost certainly support each of two teams better than a place like Nashville or Tampa supports one. So get rid of Carolina, Nashville, Tampa, Florida, Phoenix, Anaheim and San Jose, for starters. Los Angeles is worth holding, simply because the metropolitan area is so large. Dallas is a borderline case - I'd get rid of it, but it could stay as well. I'd scrap Colorado, too - Denver is saturated with teams in every major league, and all in all the team would probably do better in Canada. Columbus? The fact that it's the only show in town means it can probably hang, but it would be no tragedy if it moved north. New locales? Quebec and Toronto/Hamilton. Halifax and Saskatoon (serving the Maritimes and greater Saskatchewan, respectively) also deserve a look.
Will this happen? Of course not. The owners are addicted to the short-term cash-grab called expansion, and the fantasy that someday shoehorning those teams into apathetic southern and southwestern markets will result in a national fan-base and a resulting TV deal that reflects that fantasy.
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