from Craig Wong of the CP at Canadian Business,

And while the league has survived strikes, lockouts and even the cancellation of an entire season, Norm O'Reilly, who has studied the finances of sports leagues, says the league owners and players can't take their fans for granted.

O'Reilly, a sports marketing professor at the University of Ottawa, says another cancelled season could hurt not just bars and restaurants, but the league itself, even in cities like Toronto.
While the hard-core fans will always come back and fill the stands, that's not the whole picture, he says.

And as baseball hat, T-shirt and jersey sales as well as sponsorship deals become a larger and larger piece of the revenue pie compared with ticket sales, it is the more casual fans that may never attend a game that can make the difference.

"They may notice a decrease in television rights, and they may notice less following on websites, and they may notice a decrease in merchandise sales and less support of sponsors products," he said of teams if the season is killed.

"And as the NHL becomes more like the NFL and the bigger leagues who are less reliant on gate revenues and more reliant on media and marketing revenues, then those impacts become greater and greater."

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