NEW YORK, NY – OCTOBER 08: (L-R) Professional hockey player Patrik Elias; retired hockey player Rod Gilbert; National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman; a representative of the New York Stock Exchange; professional hockey player Thomas Hickey and retired hockey player Eric Cairns ring the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange on October 8, 2015 in New York City. Various members of the National Hockey League attended the ceremony. (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
NHLBy Ben Sieck on

The Canadian dollar is struggling, and now it seems it might be dragging the NHL down with it.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman spoke with Bloomberg Television earlier this week and said the league could lose as much as $200 million in revenue when its fiscal year ends on June 30. However, Bettman still expects the NHL to set record-breaking revenue figures at the end of next month.

“It’s a fact of life, it’s something we deal with,” Bettman said of the loonie. “If the Canadian dollar were still at par, we’d be $100 million or $200 million higher, perhaps, than we may find ourselves, but I do believe there will be a revenue increase over 2015.”

For reference, the league earned about $4 billion last year, which is the current high-water mark. The 2015 figure was up 8 percent over the previous year’s high of $3.7 billion.

The Canadian dollar was recently as high as 92 percent of its American counterpart two years ago. However, the loonie has steadily dropped in value since then. The Canadian dollar matched a 13-year low point in January when it devalued all the way to 68 U.S. cents. It has since jumped back up to 76 U.S. cents, but June is usually a bad month for the currency, so that figure could drop once again.

Luckily for the NHL’s bottom line, no Canadian hockey team made the playoffs for the first time in 46 years. This means all playoff revenue is in the stronger U.S. dollar because the games were all played within the American border. However, no Canadian teams has also meant less interest in the games.

ESPN reported that for first-round games, ratings on Canada’s Sportsnet channels and CBC were down 60 percent over last year when five of the seven Canadian teams made the post-season.

For instance, TNT’s reality dunking competition “The Dunk King” drew a bigger rating than Game 6 of the NHL Eastern Conference Finals between the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Pittsburgh Penguins.

The NHL will be just fine financially, but for a league continually losing ground on its peers the NBA, MLB and NFL, these latest developments hurt.

[Bloomberg]

About Ben Sieck

Ben is a recent graduate of Butler University where he served as Managing Editor and Co-Editor-in-Chief for the Butler Collegian. He currently resides in Indianapolis.

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