from Kristen Shilton of ESPN,
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman says the league will generate record revenues of more than $5.2 billion this season. And that total may be conservative.
Holding court Wednesday with deputy commissioner Bill Daly before Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final between the Colorado Avalanche and the Tampa Bay Lightning, Bettman praised the league and its partners at large for completing the first 82-game regular season in two years. That provided the foundation for a much-needed financial recovery.
"What we've done is we've [continued to operate], we've done the fundamentals of our business," Bettman said. "We had a major increase in our national media revenues in the United States. Our buildings are back to basically where they were [with attendance], and maybe a little better. Our playoffs this year, the first two rounds generated 88% of the revenues that we did in the first two rounds the last time we had normal playoffs [in 2019]. We continued to put on NHL hockey under the most difficult of times. ... We were able to stabilize the business and power through."
Bettman expects the NHL to continue to boom.
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