The NHL is doing just fine, thank you

In the most recent issue of ESPN the Magazine, (the October 22nd edition with Willie Parker on the cover) Peter Keating’s “The Biz” articleon page 12 has some perhaps stunning news for everyone out there, including, probably, his employer. Financially, the NHL is doing just fine.
Unfortunately, the article isn’t online, but it has some interesting points, but the most fascinating was a graph in the bottom right corner that features leagues, their revenues and their TV contracts. The NHL ranks 4th, below the NBA but above NASCAR, which really isn’t a surprise, but what is a surprise is the margin between the NBA and the NHL. The total revenue is 3.1 billion for the NBA and 2.2 billion for the NHL. The TV contracts are respectively 765 and 70 million dollars. If you can do the math, and even ignore the probably spike in merchandise sales, the only thing separating the NBA and NHL is their TV contracts, which means that the NHL is certainly doing something right.
Keating attributes this success to hockey’s embracing and successful use of new avenues for providing their sports content, particularly the internet, with sites Google video getting the highest attribution. Additionally, attendance is through the roof across the nation in hockey arenas, and ticket sales have always been the main source of hockey revenue. So who cares if the TV revenue isn’t there? Everyone knows that hockey games are better in person anyways.
(One potentially unmentioned factor in the NHL’s surprisingly high revenue is their popularity overseas and in Canada. With so many players from Europe, that has to factor into some merchandising revenue, I would suspect. Additionally, TSN’s contract with the NHL is unlisted. Even so, the results are surprising, to say the least.)