The issue is that Bettman has repeatedly not given teams to cities because he wants to spread the sport geographically. For example Milwaukee will never get a team because Bettman figures those people can either be fans of Minnesota or Chicago. Yet the LA and Anaheim arenas are just 35 minutes apart. I’m pretty sure if Anaheim didn’t have a team their fan base would just watch the Kings play.
It takes the same amount of time to drive from Milwaukee to Chicago as it does to get from Downtown LA to Anaheim at game time.
Milwaukee has 500,000 people and Orange County alone has over 3 million. I don’t think you’ll convince me that an expansion in Orange County doesn’t make sense.
It’s also easy to forget that until very recently, LA and California in general were the new markets true NHL was trying to establish a foothold in.
Milwaukee and Chicago are an hour and a half apart. Milwaukee county is about 1 million people. So it’s not small.
I’m not even saying their isn’t logic in tapping the big markets, but two that are on top of each other? And using that as the reason not to put teams elsewhere? That just doesn’t make sense. At least go to San Diego.
The issue is that Bettman has repeatedly not given teams to cities because he wants to spread the sport geographically. For example Milwaukee will never get a team because Bettman figures those people can either be fans of Minnesota or Chicago. Yet the LA and Anaheim arenas are just 35 minutes apart. I’m pretty sure if Anaheim didn’t have a team their fan base would just watch the Kings play.
It takes the same amount of time to drive from Milwaukee to Chicago as it does to get from Downtown LA to Anaheim at game time.
Milwaukee has 500,000 people and Orange County alone has over 3 million. I don’t think you’ll convince me that an expansion in Orange County doesn’t make sense.
It’s also easy to forget that until very recently, LA and California in general were the new markets true NHL was trying to establish a foothold in.
Milwaukee and Chicago are an hour and a half apart. Milwaukee county is about 1 million people. So it’s not small.
I’m not even saying their isn’t logic in tapping the big markets, but two that are on top of each other? And using that as the reason not to put teams elsewhere? That just doesn’t make sense. At least go to San Diego.