The Athletic just released an article early yesterday morning, with their NHL owner rankings after grading every NHL team based on their ownership.
About 4,000 readers completed a detailed owner survey. The answers were placed into four key categories: willingness to spend, organizational stability, treatment of the fan base, and franchise vision. The Athletic combined that with their own ranking on team performance—regular season and playoffs —ownership’s reputation and influence, according to their reporting. The results are based on 50% fan perception of their favorite teams’ owners and 50% of The Athletics view on the ownership performance.
Out of the 32 NHL franchises, here is where the Edmonton Oilers ranked:
The Oilers being ranked this low will come as a surprise to some, and not a surprise for others. I know I’m personally surprised that they are ranked this low.
Team breakdown
Since Daryl Katz took over as majority owner of the Edmonton Oilers in 2008, the team ranks 16th based on their regular season in that span, 13th in terms of their playoff wins and as we all know very well, have zero cups to show for these results.
One of the biggest reasons why the team breakdown is ranked the way it is, is because the Oilers have had 11 different coaches, six general managers, and two interim general managers.
Fan base evaluation
Like the chart shows above, the Edmonton Oilers were ranked fourth by the fans based on the ownership’s willingness to spend.
Since 2015, the Edmonton Oilers have spent roughly $792M on player expenses. The team value as a whole was listed at approximately $455M in 2015, and has since sky rocketed to approximately $2.7B in 2024.
The organizational stability, treatment of the fan base and franchise vision, were all ranked 22nd or higher. Organizational stability was probably ranked 28th because of the fact that the Edmonton Oilers have had six different general managers and 11 coaches since Daryl Katz took over. That just tells me that there is a lack of stability and long-term vision with the organization.
Treatment of the fan base was ranked 24th, and according to The Athletic, “many complained about costs at the arena. So there’s still work to do to win over folks in the Alberta capital.” I guess from the fans perspective, they are not treated well in terms of the costs of attending a game. This could be from parking costs, ticket costs, food and beverage prices and merch and apparel prices.
Confidence in owner: 2024 versus 2025
The chart shows that 11% of readers had higher confidence in the Edmonton Oilers ownership this year compared to last. 38% had lower confidence, while 51% of readers felt the same.
With Stan Bowman being named the General Manager of the Edmonton Oilers on July 24, 2024, it’s not surprising that 89% of readers that completed the survey, either felt the same or worse with their confidence. It hasn’t even been a full calendar year for Bowman yet, so there’s still lots for him to prove and bring to the organization. We need to wait and see what Stan does for the Oilers, before we start comparing him to the other GM’s and voting based on our confidence.
To be determined
This was a very neat idea by The Athletic, and it was cool to see how the other NHL team owners were ranked, and what the fans thought. Do you agree with the Edmonton Oilers grading? Has Daryl Katz done better for the team than the stats shown?
If the Oilers win a Stanley Cup with this ownership group, then we’ll know it was an okay decision. Until then, I’ll stay optimistic and keep my fingers crossed. Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.
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