Canucks leaving millions on the table in revenue with playoff miss
Posted April 8, 2025 7:33 am.
Last Updated April 8, 2025 7:40 am.
The Vancouver Canucks are on thin ice and could potentially be officially eliminated from playoff contention as early as Tuesday. But missing the postseason doesn’t just leave fans disappointed; it leaves millions of dollars in possible revenue on the table for the organization.
The disappointing regular season has been a hard pill to swallow for fans. The team has had some incredible performances followed by a string of losses where they looked, at times, as disinterested as those watching from home.
There’s also been a lot of outside noise — think the J.T. Miller-Elias Pettersson debacle and Miller’s eventual trade. The team has also been hampered by ongoing injuries, including to star players Thatcher Demko, Quinn Hughes, Brock Boeser, and Pettersson.
With the team very likely to miss the playoffs, sports business commentator and Sportsnet 650 host Tom Mayenknecht says the Canucks are losing out on big money.
“The entire NHL business model is based on making the playoffs. There’s definitely a missed opportunity, especially for them to follow up on last year’s unexpectedly wonderful season that created feelings the marketplace hasn’t had since 2011. You’re looking at north of $6 million in ticketing revenue per playoff game, and that doesn’t include food, concession, and merchandise — that’s much more in the neighbourhood of $7.5 to $8 million gross per game.”
“What they do roster-wise and what they do business-wise in the next 12 to 18 months is going to be pivotal to mapping out the long-term future.”
He explains missing the playoffs is not going to sit well with fans and businesses that profit off of the team playing well.
“It’s a fall from grace from the period of late 1990s, sort of 2000 and 2001 right through to 2014 when the virtual sell-out streak ended — the Canucks were playoff teams for a decade and a half. This marketplace was spoiled in a lot of ways, but in the last decade, they’ve been holders of just one meaningful playoff run, that was last year, the COVID bubble year in Edmonton and a very forgettable playoff round against the Calgary Flames. That’s all that they have to show for the last decade-plus and that over the long term certainly is affecting the franchise valuation too.”
It is the 13th or 14th richest franchise in the National Hockey League of the 32 teams, so nobody needs to worry about the Aquilini ownership group not getting a good return on investment because they have, and last year was a reminder of what it can be. It’s just they aren’t building it where it matters most for fans. Yes, this is a business, but at the end of the day, the fans want to win.”
The lack of momentum to be an exciting team to watch is not being lost on a fanbase desperate for the Cup.
“Fanbases are very, very savvy. This Vancouver fanbase has a lot of knowledge going all the way back to the 1970s… But this particular edition of the team, from an expectations management point of view, has been so frustrating for the fans. They weren’t able to build out any consistency. They didn’t show the same kind of capacity to come back in games and play solid 360-degree hockey, and that’s been very frustrating. When you’ve got low expectations like last year, you overperform and everyone is a happy camper. But when you have higher expectations and you fail to meet them, that’s certainly something that affects the fanbase.”
Mayenknecht says the next year will be crucial for management.
“There are a lot of people who believe the approach should be not just to become a playoff team, but to make the decisions in terms of roster that will allow them to become a Stanley Cup contending team. Certainly, if this team goes through some roster changes, it’ll be very tough timing because the real lynchpin here is the unicorn that is Quinn Hughes. He’s got a couple of years left on his contract. If the Canucks feel they have to tear things down, I’m not so sure that’s going to be a long-term play for Hughes, and that would be one of the biggest missed opportunities of all.”
Others who may or may not be with the team past the summer include Boeser, Pius Suter, and Rick Tocchet.
Mayenknecht says the heartbreak right now is with national unity as strong as it has ever been; it would have been nice to see another Canadian team make the cut.
The Canucks are on a short road trip Tuesday and take on the Dallas Stars at 5 p.m. PT.
