Hockey as a Business

two very rich men

A common thread among sports fans is that they’ve had a role in all of our lives, no matter how unimportant or trivial they seem in the big picture. Many of us have always been a fan, though it’s not a requirement to be a “true fan,” despite the pretentious attitudes of some people. You could like one team, many teams, many players, many plays… but you like the sport, and that’s what draws you to it.

Growing up, I was a diehard baseball fan. I practically grew up at Shea Stadium (yes, it’s still weird that it’s Citifield all these years later), buying cheap tickets in the low of the Mets lows and “sneaking” down from the loge section to catch a better glimpse of whichever scrubs the Wilpons threw together. The Mets broke my heart over and over, but I was a fan of the game and, moreso, what it meant to me.

The toughest part of loving a sport, however, is when you remember that it’s a business. Businesses worth so much money it’s unfathomable. As a girl whose second sports crush was Alex Rodriguez (he was a baby Mariner and such a damn fine shortstop), I actually heard my heart break when he signed with the (Texas) Rangers. His contract, the largest at the time and still the third largest sports contract in history, meant he made north of $155,000 per game, $25.2M per year.

As a kid at the time, I couldn’t wrap my head around the magnitude of that cash flow. Fast forward several years later and I still can’t. One summer I followed the Oakland A’s and I realized that, no matter how hard they fight the astronomical budgets of so many rivals, their success was only ever so far. And so, when I met hockey, it seemed like less of a business since there is a cap, and for what it’s worth, the largest hockey salary is the 55th largest sports contract, and that’s because it’s a 13-year deal.

Except, spoiler alert: it’s still a business. It may feel more loyal than others due to the cap keeping a lid on too much movement, but players are still led by businessmen, and clubs are still franchises looking to make money. Hockey contracts that are signed by players are binding legal documents, lest we forget. A large scale view of this is the Phoenix Arizona Vegas? Coyotes, or the Islanders staying on Long Island and the saga that has been the Coliseum.

A more recent and relevant example is Carl Hagelin. Hagelin’s exit from the Rangers, having spent four seasons with the club, was a cap expense. As fans, we watched Hagelin grow. We watched him be publicly ridiculed by crazy Uncle Torts. We admired his speed and his effectiveness on the ice. We admired his hair. Hagelin was a true blue Ranger, and even though we saw his departure in advance, it still came as a shock. But the cold, hard truth about sports is that we needed that cap space to shore up several positions and still have enough to sign our offseason priority, Derek Stepan.

thanks Coach

New GM Jeff Gorton has been doing a fantastic job this past week, and there have been situations (cough cough Ryan McDonagh) where the business aspect can be fantastic, there are times it sucks too. Despite sports being a fanatical event where you’d be hard pressed to keep a level head, hockey is somehow the most sane of the bunch. This July has been an active one, one that may be much more amusing if most of the huge trades didn’t directly affect the Rangers’ division, but the reason these deals are so crazy is because loyalty isn’t so uncommon in hockey.

There are also positive aspects of businesses. The NHL and NHLPA family are very involved in charitable events, as you can tell by the NHL awards. The NHL Foundation Player Award and the King Clancy are two trophies handed out for charitable work and community work, respectively. These are beautiful pieces of hardware handed out despite your goal production. Next week, Dominic Moore will have wrangled together several hockey players and alums to raise money for two deserving foundations, something he does on his spare time. Lots of these guys are easy to cheer for, unselfish humans who are businessmen, but ones you don’t feel dirty cheering on.

Still, if Stepan holds out, you better believe I’ll be bitter about Hagelin for a long, long time.