NHL FE&A

Choosing a New Home for the Arizona Coyotes

by Drew Duffy 5/22/23

Just last week, the Arizona Coyotes received a harsh reality check from their fans in Arizona. A public vote showed that a new arena in Tempe would not be built, causing speculation as to just how long the team in the desert can call that place home. For the sake of the NHL, there may need to be a little bit of a shakeup. Having read about the topic over the last few days, there have been dozens of cities thrown around who are making a case for the Coyotes to wind up in a different location. With my prior research in sports market shares, coupled with some ideas about social media analytics that I am hoping to use this summer with the NHL, I have taken a look at some of the best potential locations in my eyes. The idea of the Coyotes moving locations is an interesting one, especially if the NHL eyes yet another expansion team in the coming years. There are a handful of cities where I think expansion would be better than relocation, namely Atlanta or Houston. Both of these cities are in major media markets, #6 and #7 in my sports market research, respectively. My gut tells me that an expansion team in these cities would be better for the league, as an expansion team generally brings an entire process along with it. The fanfare with the creation of marketing, infrastructure, and team-building may seem more appealing in cities of this size. I believe that they would want to own their own process and write their own beginnings, just as Las Vegas and Seattle have done recently. 

Thinking of a city to relocate into, I have narrowed some of my ideas to Salt Lake City and surprisingly, Milwaukee. My research has shown that Salt Lake City is ranked the 29th sized media market in the country, with only two major sports teams in the city at the moment. The Utah Jazz and Real Salt Lake occupy most of the market share in the area, leaving opportunity for another team to step in. Being a tourist destination, especially in the winter, Salt Lake City should have no problem supporting an NHL team with their current infrastructure. The external factors, like travel and divisional alignment would be relatively seamless, especially with Salt Lake City airport being a major hub for Delta. Apart from the market size, the social media following of the Utah Jazz has enhanced widely in the past year. Their followings have grown by 1.6 million in the past year, ranking 27th overall in sports teams by Bookmakers.com. This is a staggering figure, as the website lists followings in the 4 major leagues (no MLS). They are one of only three teams in the top 30 who have one major team in their city. This tells me that the fanfare in the area is there and they are individuals who support their teams well. Obviously not every follower of the team is located in the city where they play but the idea remains. 

The idea of Milwaukee is an interesting one to me and one that I went back and forth with a little bit. In a different way than Salt Lake City, Milwaukee has 3 major teams in their area as it currently stands. The Packers, Brewers, and Bucks have enhanced the culture around the city and has established it into one of the best sports towns in America, with great recent success as well. Even with the departure of Aaron Rodgers from the Packers, there is still an established and passionate fanbase who are unapologetically supportive of their teams. The Bucks have benefitted from recent success with the superstar play of Giannis Antetokounmpo. All of this is to say that Milwaukee is for real about their teams, and have a great existing infrastructure to bring about the best results for a team in the area. They are more than capable of being a host city for an NHL team, especially geographically in terms of hockey participation. The only gripe could be their close proximity to Chicago and the Blackhawks, though the other major leagues have balanced that well. The social media rankings show the Bucks at #18 overall, the Packers at #21, and the Brewers at #97. The current outlook in all three of these teams shows that the area is capable of supporting another team in the winter. 

Both of these hypothetical scenarios would place the Coyotes in better established sports towns, where the current fan bases are passionate about their home teams. The NHL conference structure would remain intact, as both of these cities can still be considered a part of the Western Conference and would remain with similar scheduling logistics. While it is not a foregone conclusion that the Coyotes are definitely moving out of Arizona, these two cities can make compelling cases for supporting a relocation. If the NHL is serious about enhancing the Coyotes team in a different city, they should keep the social media impact of the decisions, as fan bases are ever growing on social platforms, which often can drive public opinion. It will be an interesting offseason for the Coyotes as they hope to improve the on-ice performance while also addressing the lingering questions about their off-ice future.

We can see that the NHL has the most team specific podcasts out of all the major leagues, and the only one with over 50%. The MLB and NBA have identical figures, while the NFL has the most "other" or non-team specific podcasts. This makes me wonder about a few things...

1. We have seen the recent influx of athlete-driven podcasting, think Travis and Jason Kelce, Draymond Green, etc. The leagues who have more "other" kinds of podcasts may actually show a more diverse and malleable subject matter. I thought at first that more team specific podcasts would be better for the league, though looking at these figures I am not so sure. Every league except for the NHL has people talking about news, games, drafts, prospects, etc., in theory. Not that the NHL having more team specific podcasts is a bad thing, but it is one of note. 

2. The NFL having the fewest team specific podcasts is surprising as I thought the popularity of the league would allow for more content by individual fans of teams to speak to their specific fanbase. Like point #1, it makes sense though because the NFL has more news surrounding individuals, games, college games, prospects, etc. 

3. MLB and NBA being tied in both is a little strange, does not mean anything really but just weird how the numbers came out. 

I would love to see an active NHL player start to look into creating their own podcast much like some of the aforementioned individuals. Someone of large status would be cool to see, especially one with a younger tie, who can relate to a certain generation of fans, especially those who listen to podcasts regularly (hello McDavid, Matthews, or Trevor Zegras!~ someone of the like). 

Would love to hear everyone's thoughts!

Source:

https://chartable.com/

Explanation:

I ranked using preseason player rankings on fantasy numbers, or by the league's websites. Follower counts shown in middle, the MLB players do not match up exactly, though the players I chose have close numbers to those of the NHL guys. The point here is to show the difference in rank between the two leagues. Ovechkin is "on par" with some of the biggest names in baseball in Aaron Judge (though there are people with more followers than the Yankee captain). McDavid is the best player in the sport and he matches up with Vladdy Jr, who owns the 8th spot in preseason rankings. Then, it gets funky with Matthews who is nearly 120 spots better than his counterpart Anthony Rizzo. Evgeni Malkin matches with Alex Bregman, though Malkin has been one of the sport's biggest names for the past decade. Finally, Seguin aligns with Gleyber Torres, Seguin has an asterisk due to the fact that his name was not on one of the lists that I looked at so I graded him at 100 for simplicity. 

Conclusion:

Obviously, there are numerous different factors that go into judging a player's social media followings. Production on the field/ice does not necessarily correlate to a big following, though it can definitely help. I would say that the MLB is similar to the NHL in some senses when it comes to fan engagement through social media. As it stands now, these two leagues are probably the bottom two when it comes to marketing specific players. As I have discussed with some in the industry, the problem the NHL has is by nature of the sport. Players are tasked with completing a 40-50 second shift where sometimes there is not much action that gets fans out of their seats. The team nature and dynamic of the sport may not necessarily lend itself to overwhelming superstars as the NFL and NBA do with their marquee players. I think the MLB is in a similar way with this idea, as one player rarely has a huge impact, unless you are a unicorn like Shohei Ohtani. More often than not, a hitter comes to bat around three times per game and can only do so much to help his team. The same can be said for a starting pitcher who takes the ball every fifth day and can only control one side of the play. 

I am not trying to say that the NBA and NFL have it easy, it is just a different perception. Some players are touching the ball every play, like a guard in basketball, or a quarterback in football. The NHL and MLB are in a different position due to the nature of their sports. This summer I am hoping to find new ways to try and address some of these issues in the NHL, where players can have their names talked about for what they do pre/postgame or even off the ice, which to some is more important than what is done on the ice. There are a couple of different ways to do this, but I think the NHL is at one of the best times in the history of hockey, where players are more skilled than ever, coaches are more tactically sound than ever, and there is a growing demographic of people who are itching to learn more about the game. Uncovering a side of the players that has not been seen yet is a huge step in creating meaningful connections between fan and player. We fall in love with players because of their humanity, how they lead their teams, how they handle the media after a bad loss, and what they do to advance their community. In some sports, this is easy. In the NHL, it has not been so easy, but there is progress being made. The NHL has huge growth potential and the best time to become involved in making that change is now. We all need to hop on the NHL train before it is too far gone, and that is certainly one of my goals in the foreseeable future. In the meantime, we should all enjoy the Stanley Cup Playoffs, one of the finest representations of the sport and arguably the most competitive playoff atmosphere in all of sport. It does indeed start with the fan, so let's make some new favorite players over the next couple of weeks and encourage others to do the same. 

Quick dive into some of these figures:

NFL

Facebook - 21

Twitter - 8

Instagram - 3

NHL

Facebook - 6

Twitter - 23

Instagram - 3

MLB`

Facebook - 24

Twitter - 5

Instagram - 1

NBA

Facebook - 17

Twitter - 0

Instagram - 13

Teams of Note...

MLB: 

Padres only team that Instagram is most popular

NHL:

Golden Knights and Kraken with biggest following on Instagram, expansion team effect?

NFL:

Chiefs/Bucaneers/Rams with the most followers on Instagram, effect of marketable superstars and recent winning success? (last three Super Bowl Winners)

NBA:

No team with Twitter following as their biggest platform, close to split between Facebook and Instagram. Golden State crushing Instagram, thank you Steph...