You didn't think the NHL was about winning, did you?

I'm quite surprised to see NHL team values published for free by Forbes. This is an enlightening Forbes article, which goes into the NHL franchises turning from being in the red to being in the black after the salary cap. Near the end of the article is a brief observation that profitable teams don't win Stanley Cups and non-profitable teams do.

Considering that the Vancouver Canucks (worth $211 million) are a profitable franchise (made more so by the salary cap and the rising Canadian dollar), it makes me question whether we'll ever see the Stanley Cup.

Here's an interesting snippet from Nathan Vardi's article focused on the Toronto Maple Leafs:

To the most rabid hockey fans in toronto, Richard Peddie, chief executive of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, is a bum. The Toronto Maple Leafs, the company's biggest asset, are off to another mediocre start this season, with a 5-5 won-lost record. The team hasn't won the Stanley Cup since 1967; in the four decades since the last Cup, the Maple Leafs have won 1,298 regular season games and lost 1,378.

But in the eyes of the owners, Peddie is a hero. In nine years running the parent corporation of the Maple Leafs, Peddie, 60, has created quite a silk purse, tripling the enterprise value of the privately held company to $1.5 billion through clever marketing and shrewd dealmaking. (Enterprise value is the market value of a business' equity, plus its interest-bearing debt, minus its cash equivalents.) Of this sum the hockey team accounts for $413 million of value, according to FORBES' estimate. We figure the next most valuable hockey franchise is the New York Rangers, worth $365 million.

How can one of the National Hockey League's sad sacks be the most valuable franchise in the sport? The answer lies in the fact that sports valuations are founded on more than championships; they are also a function of player costs, stadium real estate and the population of the home market. Peddie, of course, is acutely aware that the fans don't put much stock in economics. "My fear," he says, "is that people will say, 'Sure you increased enterprise value, but you never won anything.'"

Unlike most sports teams, the Maple Leafs are not a plaything of the rich nor an excuse to fill airtime by a media conglomerate; it's controlled by 271,000 teachers, principals and administrators, active and retired. The Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan owns 58% of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, and it's thrilled with Peddie's management.