Just like any other sports leagues, the NHL has to make money for it to remain the greatest hockey entertainment league. So, how has the NHL survived through different seasons and centuries?

Merchandize

This is not the mainstream of income for the NFL, but since it is the most common term among hockey players, it is okay to analyse it first. Though the sales amount does not directly go to the teams, every business person who uses the team’s and the NHL’s logo has to pay a licensing fee to the league.

Tickets

The other common way that people know of how leagues make money is through tickets. The amount collected from this covers a significant percentage of the league’s expenses. Most of the time, game tickets get sold out in the first few days of them being released, showing how fast the league makes money from ticketing.

TV Ratings

If you did not know that when you are watching the game on TV, you are making the league earn a good amount of money, now you do. The league has deals of up to $200,000,000 on the US TV ratings and close to 5.2 billion dollars deal since 2014 with Canadian TV. This is approximately 500,000 dollars per year. It is, therefore, right to say that most team salaries are paid by the money the league earns from TV ratings.

Game Developers Royalties

When developers create FIFA or EA sports from the NHL league, they have to pay a substantial amount of money to the league as royalties. To keep the revenues coming in, the league attaches a percentage of the game’s income to royalties.

As you can see, the league generates a lot of income from these four significant channels. Their expenses are mostly due to player’s payrolls, which can be as high as 70% of the revenue. Other costs will include arena maintenance and ticket production fees.