In 2005-2006, NFL teams earned on average $110 million in annual television-rights fees (with the number slated to rise to $140 million in coming years), while hockey teams earned an average of $3 million from the same. The bottom line: observations and arguments on the sports business. By Andrew S. Zimbalist Published by Temple University Press, 2006. Page 5.
Not relevant. This is not a comparative piece on the NHL vs. the NFL. Not to mention that trying to compare anything to the NFL is comical given how far ahead of the rest of the NA sporting world it is in terms of TV rights. Your source is also misleading, as it is speaking of national TV rights only. The NFL does not do local or regional TV deals, while the rest of the sporting world, including the NHL, does.
The NHL is in the worst shape of its history [my emphasis], having suffered from overexpansion in the past decade. The game itself has been dulled by a suffocating defensive style of play. Fights and hard hits are all the sport has to promote itself with in the U.S., as it does in commercials and widely sold videos of fights set to music...Hockey's bottom line is so bad that last month's league-sponsored report by former SEC chairman Arthur Levitt found that the NHL's 30 teams lost $273 million last season. "The results were as close to catastrophic as I've seen in a business of this size," Levitt said. Last season the average regular-season game scored lower ratings on ABC than bowling, billiards and poker. The NHL's contract with ESPN and ABC ends this season and won't be renewed in its current form, which yields only $4 million a year per team--compared with $77 million in the NFL. Title: Can the NHL Save Itself? By: Stein, Joel, Novack, Kate, Time, 0040781X, 3/22/2004, Vol. 163, Issue 12
An opinion piece written on the eve of a lockout? Your emphasis is meaningless, as that is simply a statement of opinion and could not possibly be treated as anything else if I were to include it in the article. Most of the rest of the examples are already in the article. It is stated that there is an opinion the league has over expanded. It is stated that the game had turned into a defensive quagmire, and it is stated that the league claimed to lose nearly $300 million in the season preceding the lockout.
This looks interesting: Parmar, Neil (2005, Aug 8). Breaking Ice: Humbled NHL Woos Back Fans. Wall Street Journal - Eastern Edition, 8/8/2005, Vol. 246 Issue 26, pB1-B4, 2p.
Another: Kang, Stephanie. (2008, Sep 23). NHL Will Expand Online Reach. Wall Street Journal - Eastern Edition; 9/23/2008, Vol. 252 Issue 71, pB8. "The article reports on the plan of the National Hockey League (NHL) to expand its online reach to serve its young, technology savvy fans who can not watch the games on television. According to the article, NHL games can only be viewed in the U.S. through Versus, a little known cable channel, and fewer than a dozen hockey games are shown on NBC. NHL chief John Collins said that they are not encumbered by big national rights and that aggressive move in the Internet is just as essential to the success of the league."
That the NHL is begining to form an online presence is pretty damn trivial when placed in context of 19 years of hockey history. I did state in the FA, long before you thought to complain about it, that a paragraph on the economic crisis might be worthwhile at this point. I could possibly add a sentence about this into that section.
