• 40: Age when Bettman became commissioner
• 0: As in degrees Fahrenheit of the first outdoor game under Bettman’s watch. On Nov. 22, 2003, 57,167 fans braved the elements at the Heritage Classic, played at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton.
• 105,491: Attendance at Michigan Stadium Winter Classic on Jan. 1, 2014
• $572,161: Average player compensation in the 1993-94 season
• $3.01 million: Average player salary in the 2016-17 season
• $8.9 billion: Amount of facility construction since Bettman took office; 28 of the 31 teams play in an arena that opened since the start of his tenure.
• $650 million: Expansion fee for the next new team
• 12: Different teams that have won the Stanley Cup during Bettman’s tenure
Gary Bettman in 1993getty images
• 0: Number of medals won by U.S. and Canadian NHL players in the 1998 Olympics, despite being the heavy favorites. NHL players were prohibited from playing in this year’s Olympics.
• $31 million: Average annual value of Fox’s rights deal signed in September 1994. At that point, the NHL had been without an over-the-air deal since the 1974-75 season.
• $400: Initial cost to produce each prototype glow puck that Fox experimented with in 1996
• $2 billion: Value of 10-year deal with NBC through 2020-21
• $5.3 billion: Combined rights payments for Canadian TV rights by Rogers Communications (SportsNet) and TVA, for 12 years through the 2025-26 season
• $100 million: Value of 10-year agreement with XM Satellite Radio that began in 2007
• 8.54 million: Average number of TV viewers in the U.S. that watched Game 7 of the 2011 Stanley Cup Final between Vancouver and Boston on NBC, the biggest such audience of any game during Bettman’s tenure
• 3: Number of times players have been locked out
• 468: Games lost to the lockout in 1994, the league’s first lockout
• 3: Sponsors that have been with the NHL since Bettman became commissioner (Kraft Heinz Foods Group, The Upper Deck and EA Sports)
• $300 million: Value of the league’s apparel deal with Adidas, if all incentives are met. The 7-year deal began in 2017.
• $16 million: Amount raised since 1998 by the league and its stakeholders for Hockey Fights Cancer
• 38: Number of stops the NHL Centennial Fan Arena made over the past year to celebrate the league’s 100th anniversary
• 5: Expansion teams: Nashville (1998), Atlanta (1999), Columbus and Minnesota (2000), and Las Vegas (2017)
• 4: Relocated teams: Quebec Nordiques became the Colorado Avalanche (1995); Winnipeg Jets became the Phoenix Coyotes (1996); Hartford Whalers became the Carolina Hurricanes (1997); Atlanta Thrashers became the Winnipeg Jets (2011).
• $732 million: League revenue in 1993
• $4.5 billion: This season’s projected revenue.
Source: SportsBusiness Journal research
