Ontario decision could force Coyotes to relocate
The Ontario government made an announcement today that sporting events would be capped at a capacity of 1,000 attendees, while also announcing the plans for schools to potentially return with higher numbers in much smaller spaces. This decision by the province is intended to slow the spread of COVID-19, while also not providing any evidence that COVID was previously spreading at these types of events.
The repercussions could be extremely far reaching for the NHL and could travel well beyond the Ontario borders. The Toronto Maple Leafs are one of the most valuable teams in the NHL and because of the revenue they generate it enables teams like Arizona to pay their bills through a revenue sharing program.
If the Ontario mandates stay in place for an extended period of time the NHL will have very few options. Postpone the games, play with reduced capacity or move the team to a market where fans are allowed in attendance to generate some form of revenue.
None of these solutions are ideal for the NHL and obviously the league will look to mitigate any financial damages caused by these mandates. But questions will have to be asked how can the NHL continue their revenue sharing programs when teams like Montreal and Toronto are forced by Provincial mandates to continually close their doors whenever numbers begin to rise.
Teams like the Coyotes rely heavily on financial compensation from teams like New York, Toronto and Montreal to continue their operation and an impact to the revenue generated will drastically impact both revenue sharing cheques and the NHL's salary cap.
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