SIMMONS: PWHL has grown exponentially in first season -- but there's one thing it can improve (2024)

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.

Article content

Kasten’s sporting resume is rather lengthy. He’s the current president of the somewhat dynastic Los Angeles Dodgers. He previously was 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 — the 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,” Kasten said. “I knew the game. I thought because it was hockey and hockey is fabulous, we had something that would work as an entertainment vehicle.

Article content

“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 already is 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 already has exceeded $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 is 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 $47 US.

Article content

Article content

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 Coca Cola Coliseum.

The playoff dates at Coca Cola Coliseum brought in well over $1.2 million per live gate. The Toronto playing payroll for the entire season was just over $1.2 million.

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.

Article content

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 of 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.

Article content

And they have done all this without a team owner, without a commissioner, without a single person in charge or, in the words of Kasten, “without a committee of any kind.

“You see expansion teams awarded in various sports and teams are announced two years before they play,” Kasten said. “You need that kind of time to get going. The fact we did all this in four months is a direct result of our decision to do single entity ownership. We have no plans to change that, even when we expand. And we do have plans to expand, just not for next year.”

The first year of business for 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 has been an in-season problem, from start to finish, is the league’s lack of offence.

Article content

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.

In what was called the worst of the dead-puck era of the NHL teams scored just 2.57 goals per game.

In the first season of the PWHL, just 2.46 goals were scored per game. Worse numbers than what was deemed unacceptable from hockey fans 20 years ago.

“We have been talking about this internally,” Kasten said. “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.”

Article content

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,” Kasten said. “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,” Kasten said. “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.

ssimmons@postmedia.com

twitter.com/simmonssteve

Article content