Would the NHL benefit from adding a Promotion/Relegation system?

[VforTheCurseEndsHere]

I don't think the original question is a crazy one to ask. I have often wondered why North American sports don't follow this model, since it really seems to up the ante and prevent "tanking". Seems like a better fan experience for the lower leagues as there is a carrot to winning beyond a trophy.

 

I can see from the discussion here among those more knowledgeable than me though why it would never work here. It's a shame. Instead we are stuck with perpetual tankathons between lesser teams, which isn't particularly great for the game either. 

Edited February 6 by VforVasili

[Guest]

How would the draft work? Would teams being demoted miss the draft altogether? Would those now promoted get to draft?

 

What about salary cap?

 

I think this would work better if the NHL was 16 or so teams (and the rest are AHL)

[Thats a small body]

I dont want a relegation system, but if the league expands much more then i cant see it being anything but inevitable. 

[Caboose]

0% chance this can be implemented in North America.

 

Pro/Rel works in European leagues because they don't have a draft. Instead, teams are incentivized to develop talent from their youth. For instance, at age 13, Lionel Messi joined the famous Barcelona academy La Masia.

 

[Jess]

This was a discussion in some eSports leagues that had relegation/promotion systems and the core issue was sponsors. Sponsors are vastly less likely to invest in teams that aren't guaranteed to remain in the top league, so far less money runs through teams. I imagine this would be a very real issue in hockey too.

[Mando27]

Cheers for all the responses, there are definitely core issues with this that I did not think of.

 

How would the cap work?

The issue of Sponsorships

Drafting and Development

[joe-max]

10 hours ago, Elias Pettersson said:

 

If you are looking at the European soccer model, then if a team gets demoted to the AHL, then salaries would also need to change.  You wouldn't be able to pay a player $8 million per year if they are in the AHL.  Most of the teams that get demoted in the Premier League are shit teams that never get the top players.  Also, they don't have a salary cap.  Messi, Ronaldo used to get paid $50 million per year.  Players get sold and go to the highest bidder.

 

So, this wouldn't work in the NHL or any other pro North American league, especially the ones with a salary cap...

In theory possible. Many European soccer clubs that are not among the top teams (and virtually safe from relegation) often hand out contracts similar to NHL/AHL 2-way-contracts that are either only valid in the highest league or carry a lower salary for the lower league. So after relegation players can just leave as free agents or become cheaper.

 

7 hours ago, Miss Korea said:

The most notable fall from grace in football has to be FC Schalke 04.  It's a club that's been mismanaged to debt oblivion and now they're at risk of being double relegated.  But their fanbase is world class (4th biggest club member count in the world) and their stadium is world class (to be used in Euro 2024).

 

Even if Schalke gets double relegated, they do not necessarily cease to exist. The 3rd-division is also a professional league. It happens all the time in European/German football that highly successful, long-standing clubs get relegated, some recover and come back strong (e.g. VfB Stuttgart this year), some don't. Borussia Dortmund was very close to going bankrupt twice. 1. FC Nürnberg, Hamburger SV, Dynamo Dresden, 1.FC Kaiserslautern and many, many more won multiple national championships in the past and have been playing somewhere between 2nd and 4th division for years. Sometimes it is mismanagement, sometimes greed, bad luck or simply changing conditions that big, long-established clubs fail to adapt to.

[Miss Korea]

22 minutes ago, joe-max said:

In theory possible. Many European soccer clubs that are not among the top teams (and virtually safe from relegation) often hand out contracts similar to NHL/AHL 2-way-contracts that are either only valid in the highest league or carry a lower salary for the lower league. So after relegation players can just leave as free agents or become cheaper.

 

Even if Schalke gets double relegated, they do not necessarily cease to exist. The 3rd-division is also a professional league. It happens all the time in European/German football that highly successful, long-standing clubs get relegated, some recover and come back strong (e.g. VfB Stuttgart this year), some don't. Borussia Dortmund was very close to going bankrupt twice. 1. FC Nürnberg, Hamburger SV, Dynamo Dresden, 1.FC Kaiserslautern and many, many more won multiple national championships in the past and have been playing somewhere between 2nd and 4th division for years. Sometimes it is mismanagement, sometimes greed, bad luck or simply changing conditions that big, long-established clubs fail to adapt to.

 

You might be understating the incredibly dire situation of Schalke.  The DFL licenses Bundesliga 1/2, and the DFB runs the lower leagues, so you need a new competitive license.  And because Schalke is in crippling debt (€155M), SkySports Germany suspects the DFB will reject licensing them should they fall to 3. Liga.  Should that happen, they would automatically be forced down the 4th division, the Regionalliga.  That is a semi-pro league and without money to get them out of this hole, they're on the verge of absolute collapse.

[DeltaSwede]

8 hours ago, Miss Korea said:

We need @DeltaSwede in here to share his thoughts about the Swedish relegation system and if anything there could work here in the NHL/AHL.  My guess is a flat no.

You guessed right. I don't see how a relegation system would ever work in NA. Everything is set up differently and there is way more money on the line. Way more at stake.

Stockholm the capital and biggest city in Sweden doesn't even have a team in the top tier anymore. All been relegated. To me personally, I find that both hilarious and very enjoyable but I do understand that it's not a positive for Swedish hockey for example. 

In Europe it's a different setup entirely right, you can play for you "NHL team" from age 5 right up until you're a professional in the SHL. That doesn't exist in NA. I've watched my Modo get relegated and then stuck in the 2nd tier for like 7-8 seasons. Pain is not really the word for it, it's just darkness, but the euphoria of going up again was probably bigger or equal to Modo winning the SHL in 06/07. The skill level between the AHL and the NHL is also massively bigger than the SHL vs Hockey Allsvenskan for example. I guess with a relegation system that would increase the parity between the AHL and the NHL but not sure that would bring anything.. 

I might be wrong on this, but I'll share anyways, I think it's also difficult with the difference in fan support between Europe and NA. I might be generalizing now but NA is much more about wins and fans turning up to watch a win and be entertained. In Europe there is more of a love and pride in the organization itself. I hope that makes sense. We've got something called ultras that doesn't exist in any NA sport. There are not really any organized supporter groups either in NA. We are more invested in the club than the results of the club in comparison. There's nowhere near the amount of hoo-haa, snacks and giveaways at games. It's just about the game.

 

But yea, no way it would work. I don't really want it to either. I love the differences and I wouldn't want the SHL to have a draft for instance but I'd also stop watching the NHL if it would implement a relegation system and drop the draft. That was a lie, I wouldn't be able to stop watching the Canucks. Staying up for the Lindholm debut, let's go! 
 

[BCNeil]

No.  Teams would lose their season ticket holders.  Having no way to pay their current roster.

[Mr_ajcartier7]

17 hours ago, Mando27 said:

With the NHL wanting to expand more and more I wonder if a second league would be good for everyone. Teams that tank would be punished with the threat of being relegated and teams in the lower league would be pushing to try to get promoted to the first league. Thoughts on the idea? Just something I was thinking about if the NHL continues to expand like mad.

I personally would love this and have talked about this with friends of mine. European football has this system and it prevents teams from tanking like we so often see. Bottom 2 or 3 teams get relegated and top 2/3 come up keeps fresh blood moving in the league. Plus every game counts and you end up with excited games for the worst teams as they fight to stay out of relegation.

[LionofJudah]

1 hour ago, DeltaSwede said:

You guessed right. I don't see how a relegation system would ever work in NA. Everything is set up differently and there is way more money on the line. Way more at stake.

Stockholm the capital and biggest city in Sweden doesn't even have a team in the top tier anymore. All been relegated. To me personally, I find that both hilarious and very enjoyable but I do understand that it's not a positive for Swedish hockey for example. 

In Europe it's a different setup entirely right, you can play for you "NHL team" from age 5 right up until you're a professional in the SHL. That doesn't exist in NA. I've watched my Modo get relegated and then stuck in the 2nd tier for like 7-8 seasons. Pain is not really the word for it, it's just darkness, but the euphoria of going up again was probably bigger or equal to Modo winning the SHL in 06/07. The skill level between the AHL and the NHL is also massively bigger than the SHL vs Hockey Allsvenskan for example. I guess with a relegation system that would increase the parity between the AHL and the NHL but not sure that would bring anything.. 

I might be wrong on this, but I'll share anyways, I think it's also difficult with the difference in fan support between Europe and NA. I might be generalizing now but NA is much more about wins and fans turning up to watch a win and be entertained. In Europe there is more of a love and pride in the organization itself. I hope that makes sense. We've got something called ultras that doesn't exist in any NA sport. There are not really any organized supporter groups either in NA. We are more invested in the club than the results of the club in comparison. There's nowhere near the amount of hoo-haa, snacks and giveaways at games. It's just about the game.

 

But yea, no way it would work. I don't really want it to either. I love the differences and I wouldn't want the SHL to have a draft for instance but I'd also stop watching the NHL if it would implement a relegation system and drop the draft. That was a lie, I wouldn't be able to stop watching the Canucks. Staying up for the Lindholm debut, let's go! 
 

I agree with the bolded. NA is more about needing to see a game for who wins rather than seeing a game for the love of the game/team. 

 

Personally i would love if pro/rel could work but it would take a LOT of work to get it to. It definitely isn't something that could just happen from one season to the next. It would need to be a slow burn. Something that gets agreed upon and then over say a 10 year window slowly implemented. 

 

I also don't think it could be between AHL and NHL because most AHL teams are part of an NHL club. If say Abby is promoted we would end up playing against our own players. A new league would need to be started.

 

I could see it becoming a thing if the nhl wants to keep expanding though. A NHL-A and NHL-B league type beat.  Spilt the NHL current league down to 20 and add 8 more new teams to the new league. Each league at 20 teams. 

 

Even as I type this though there are so many problems that spring to mind. But it isn't impossible, just an extremely hard sell.

[Kevin Biestra]

On 2/5/2024 at 8:57 PM, Mando27 said:

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/bettman-list-six-nhl-expansion-cities

 

Houston, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Omaha, Nebraska. How many teams is too much? There's gotta be a limit right?

 

I can probably think of eight cities with some hockey history that in the abstract I would like to see with hockey teams.  Hartford, Houston, Quebec City, Kansas City, Cincinnatti, etc.  That said...we don't live in the abstract and the league has experienced many years of and only recently recovered from watered down talent.  And one Cup every 40 years on average for fans sounds pretty sad.  But that said...would be nice to see cities that had NHL / WHA teams get them back but probably not at the cost that would be paid in terms of on ice product and average wait between Stanley Cups.

[King Heffy]

3 hours ago, Kevin Biestra said:

 

I can probably think of eight cities with some hockey history that in the abstract I would like to see with hockey teams.  Hartford, Houston, Quebec City, Kansas City, Cincinnatti, etc.  That said...we don't live in the abstract and the league has experienced many years of and only recently recovered from watered down talent.  And one Cup every 40 years on average for fans sounds pretty sad.  But that said...would be nice to see cities that had NHL / WHA teams get them back but probably not at the cost that would be paid in terms of on ice product and average wait between Stanley Cups.

At some point, Toronto has to be considered for an NHL team.