For those who follow hockey, you likely already know that as of Thursday night, the Pittsburgh Penguins will face off against the Nashville Predators in the Stanley Cup Finals this year. It's considered to be a dream matchup of sorts, with 2 fun teams that are offensively oriented, play a fun style, and have charismatic marketable superstars on both sides in Sidney Crosby and PK Subban respectively. In between all the chatter about how great Pekka Rinne is (psst, pretty damn good), how clutch the Penguins are as of late (pretty clutch), how banged up both teams are (pretty injured, including Nashville's #1 center Ryan Johansen), or how funny/cenile Don Cherry is (i'll let this speak for itself), one of the big talking points is how great of a hockey market Nashville has turned into over the last few years. It's already been talked about a lot, but the long story is that once the team decided to adapt to it's market and it's respective desires, along with the team becoming good again (which isn't a coincidence, fans want a winning team), the fans started to care and generate one of the best (and most ear shattering) experiences in sports. It's become a model that people are universally praising, yet it's still pretty crazy to think about how far they've come.

In 2007, owner Craig Leopold tried to sell the team to businessman Jim Balsillie. Meanwhile Leopold indicated that after the '07-'08 season, the future of the team was unclear. There was plenty of talk of moving, and to many it seemed like a when, not an if. Balsillie was interested in relocating the team to Hamilton, Ontario, which only added to the criticism that Canadian markets had of Nashville at the time (which understandably, they're still a little salty about today). After Balsillie faced opposition both legally and in terms of publicity, Leopold refused to sell him the team.

Soon afterwards, Leopold hoped to sell the team to Williams "Boots" Del Biaggio, a California businessman, who intended to move the team to Kansas City. He was a well-known investor who almost previously succeeded in buying the Pittsburgh Penguins and previously owned part of the San Jose Sharks. He was a seemingly reliable name with a contract and an arena in Kansas City, and he was sold 27% of the team.

This is where it gets juicy. Del Biaggio had to file for bankruptcy shortly afterwards, and upon further investigation, he was a fraud. He had illegally obtained most of his fortune, and effectively wasn't that different than John Spano, who famously almost bought the Islanders with a large amount of fraudulent money. He sold his stake, and was sentenced to 8 years in jail. The team stayed in Nashville, they gave it more time, and the team and fanbase became who they are today. The team was at least on track to sell out every home game this season, a first, and now the only thing people can criticize Nashville about is either having too much fun (although if Mike Milbury is criticizing you for something, you're probably doing something right), or taking a broad view about America in general, which translates to Canadian backlash/saltiness about "their sport" not being just theirs anymore:


Putting all that aside, let's look at the Predators right now: they have been successful on and off the ice, are profitable, and have made a truly unique, fun, culture in a place that many could have reasonably doubted was possible. It's something that is easy to take for granted, as realistically the examples of teams that have successfully penetrated the southern market and had success are few and far between, although the Predators, the Dallas Stars, and the Tampa Bay Lightning all provide good models, along with the St. Louis Blues and Columbus Blue Jackets faring alright, and not to mention the success the NHL has had in California with it's 3 teams: the LA Kings, the Anaheim Ducks, and San Jose Sharks.

I mention this because if you follow hockey, you know that the NHL decided to recently expand to Las Vegas, which will be a significant test of the sport's appeal. While I personally am skeptical it will work out, the NHL doesn't need to look far for it's model. First off, they need to win. Maybe not right away, but they do need to have a decent product in order for people to care about it, pretty basic. It also needs to have a good arena, in a good location, something fans in Arizona can relate to. The new arena, the T-Mobile arena, is just off the Vegas strip, which is a good start there. The biggest thing though is the team needs to willing to market to it's consumers, not the other way around, which is Marketing 101. In regards to the Vegas team, this isn't looking great, with the NHL's insistence on disassociating themselves with all gambling/sin city related things in regards to the team name and marketing the team. Sorry, but that is literally the first and last thing I think of when I think of Vegas, and in my mind, is pretty shortsighted. The NHL can't afford to be arrogant thinking people will show up no matter what, when evidence has proven to show the opposite. If they want the fans to show up, market to them. Simple as that.