By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
And so it ended, the most unique Stanley Cup playoff tournament in National Hockey League history.
The Vegas Golden Knights bowed out to an opportunistic, defensive-minded Dallas Stars team in the Western Conference Finals in the Edmonton Bubble, while the Tampa Bay Lightning found redemption during this COVID-19 pandemic after being upset in the 2019 Stanley Cup playoffs.
The NHL team owners took a mighty financial hit with no fans and not ticket revenues. The NHL postseason is an especially lucrative time for the league and for team owners because they increase ticket prices big-time, with the league getting s nice cut of the playoff game ticket revenues.
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said ticket revenues, directly and indirectly, account for about half of the teams’ revenues.
That’s because the NHL does not command multi-billionaire-dollar TV rights contracts like the National Football League.
The NHL did a solid job staging its pandemic playoffs in Edmonton for the Western Conference teams and in Toronto for the Eastern clubs.
There were no fans, but the level of play was intense and the NHL tried to include some hometown touches for teams like having Golden Knights national anthem singer Carnell “Golden Pipes” Johnson sing the anthem via video before the VGK playoff games.
Now, it’s time for the NBA Finals in their Bubble in Orlando, while Major League Baseball today launches its wild card games.