PWHL exceeds expectations in first year
Popularity soars and it’s just the beginning, owners say
Stan Kasten sat at the PWHL Draft last October something like an expectant father, hopeful but unsure, excited but tempered, but with no real knowledge of what the baby would actually look like.
Kasten’s sporting resumé is rather lengthy. He’s the current president of the somewhat dynastic Los Angeles Dodgers. He was previously involved in the great almost dynasty of the Atlanta Braves of the 1990s. When he wasn’t doing that, he was involved at the highest levels with the Atlanta Hawks in the NBA and the Atlanta Thrashers in the NHL and baseball’s Washington Nationals.
This is his first time starting a league. First time for everyone involved with the startup that has been the PWHL. He didn’t know what to expect and now he can’t stop gushing over the first season of PWHL hockey, which comes to its championship conclusion Wednesday night just outside Boston.
He gushes — but not with blinders on.
“In October, I had all these questions,” said Kasten. “I knew the game. I thought because it was hockey and hockey is fabulous we had something that would work as an entertainment vehicle. But we had no proof of concept. We had no proof it would work as a business.”
They have proof now. It is more than working as a business. It is already sprinting to its second season.
The six-team PWHL will remain at six teams for now.
The league has no plans to sell any of the franchises it owns, or sell expansion franchises, even though the price per team has already exceeded US$30 million in sporting estimates and that number, like the league itself, is on the rise.
All this happening at a time when women’s sports across North America are on an incredible run. How much has Caitlin Clark impacted her first season in the WNBA? Look at it this way: Last year, for Game 1 of the league final in Las Vegas, the cheapest ticket for sale was US$47. This early season, with Clark’s Indiana team playing in Vegas this month, the cheapest ticket was priced at $120. And three times the number of tickets were sold in the same arena for a regular-season game.
Much the same happened to the Toronto franchise of the PWHL. They played their regular season in the rather quaint former Maple Leaf Gardens. They sold out, almost easily. But then they sold out for a game at Scotiabank Arena and they sold out playoff games at Cocacola Coliseum.
What would a Toronto women’s hockey franchise be worth today? Larry Tanenbaum just paid $50 million for a WNBA team. The PWHL doesn’t have the television revenue to put that kind of price on a franchise — but the economics otherwise will be similar.
And the league, in absolute control, has no plans to sell franchises or alter their business model.
This is how the PWHL began. This was the plan. Mark Walter, the majority owner of the Dodgers, got together with tennis legend Billie Jean King and a few others and decided women needed a professional hockey league.
He didn’t do the usual thing and attempt to find owners for each city. He owns all the teams. Whatever the league was worth before it began on New Year’s Day, it is exponentially more right now.
The six franchises have to be worth at least $180 million, maybe more. The eventual expansion of the league, more than a year from now, will increase that value. The pending television agreements will bring more to the financial picture.
The first-year business of the PWHL has been great in five of six markets. New York has been a problem. It’s the off-season challenge for the league. What’s been an in-season problem, from start to finish, has been the league’s lack of offence.
Goal scoring is entertainment and there hasn’t been enough goal scoring in the PWHL. There hasn’t been enough offence and the league is aware of the challenge.
“We have been talking about this internally,” said Kasten. “I know there are theories on how to fix it, but right now they’re just theories. Smaller pads (for the goalies). I’ve heard about lighter pucks. I’ve heard about wider nets, and that’s not a serious suggestion. But we’re going to look at everything right now.”
What they can’t change is the essence of the women’s game. The goaltenders are simply better than the shooters.
“In a very small league, we have the six best goaltenders in the world, maybe more than six,” said Kasten. “I watched that 1-0 game (double overtime) the other night. You can’t say there was a deficiency of offence.”
He can’t say it. I will. There was a deficiency of offence in the game. That’s the league’s biggest problem. Interest is great. The game itself has to be better.
“We started out in smaller buildings,” said Kasten. “We blew through our expectations right away. Our crowds grew. Our fan base grew. Our TV viewing grew on a variety of platforms.
“We’re growing faster than we imagined.”
And this is just the beginning.