Arshdeep Bains Earns the Canucks 5 Times His Salary?
I came across an interesting study from UBC Okanagan that made me stop and think about something we don't always bring up in the hockey conversation. The research question was “What is a hometown player actually worth to an NHL team?”
Worth wasn’t about his goals, his expected goals, or whatever number we're using this week. It was about dollars and cents. It was about whether a local player put fans in the seats. And, by local, the study meant the player who grew up down the road.
What was the study and what were its findings?
The study, published in the Journal of Sports Economics, looked at 14 NHL seasons between 2005 and 2018. The researchers found that when an NHL team had an additional locally born player playing a full season, home attendance increased by roughly 12,000 spectators over the season.
The estimated impact on team revenue was about US$4.8 million a year. Now, before we get carried away, the researchers aren't saying that every hometown player magically produces $4.8 million for his team. There are lots of variables involved. But the relationship is pretty interesting.
Related: Canucks' Liam Ohgren Sees the Game a Little Differently
What about Arshdeep Bains and his impact in Vancouver?
And the study got me thinking about the Vancouver Canucks and Arshdeep Bains. Bains was born in Surrey, B.C. He grew up playing hockey in the same general community that now gets to watch him play for Vancouver.
Think about that for a minute. Some youngster sitting in a rink in Surrey can look at Bains and think, He came from here. There’s a connection. Even more interesting is another part of this story that’s worth acknowledging. Bains is also part of the growing Punjabi hockey community in the Lower Mainland. For a young Punjabi kid watching the Canucks, seeing someone who grew up in Surrey and made it all the way to the NHL can make the dream feel a little less distant.
It isn't just that he came from here. It can also be, someone from my community made it here. And that's different from simply cheering for a player wearing your team's jersey.
Let’s look at the math for Bains and the Canucks.
And Bains is making $850,000 this season. If we were to apply that $4.8 million estimate to Bains, it would mean he brings in five times his salary to the Canucks coffers. In fact, $4.8 million ÷ $850,000 = 5.65 times. If you want to be precise.
Why? Because the UBCO researchers argued that locally born players can strengthen the connection between a team and its community. They become something more than athletes. They become local representatives of the team.
And hockey may be particularly suited to this because of the way we talk about where players come from. We know where our players were born. We know where they played minor hockey. We know their hometowns. Maybe that matters more than we realize.
That doesn’t suggest that the Canucks should keep a player simply because he was born in B.C. Hockey teams still have to make hockey decisions. But maybe another number sits beside the salary and the statistics.
Where a player is from can matter for more than curiosity.
And maybe that's worth something, too. That's a pretty interesting thought for an old research professor to carry around for a while.