If you haven't heard, the NHL is off to it's hottest start financially in the history of the game. Maybe the lockout wasn't such a bad thing.

When you start to break down the numbers though, you realize why ESPN has the NHL on the back burner when it comes to tv highlights and top 5 stories on their website.

Below are the different revenues for the big 4 sports in North America. The NHL, MLB, NBA and NFL.

Think we pay a lot for an NHL ticket?

The average ticket price for an NHL game is $61.01.

The MLB $26.98.

The NFL $81.54.

Maybe not so surprising, being number 2 here is the NHL's highest ranking out of revenue related incomes.

The average (weighted) ticket price in the NBA is $50.99 per seat. However, 19 of the 30 teams have average ticket prices below that mark.

Let's look at the average attendance per game. The NHL and NBA start to get singled out here with the lack of available paying seats.

And of course there are those giant TV contracts bringing in additional revenues.

But it's not all money in. The biggest expense of each league is the payroll for players. Here's how it looks for the average payroll per season.

It's no wonder hockey gets pushed to the side for air time in the US.

What order is your top 4? Please post below.

data collect from the following sites:

http://www.nfl.com/n...r-each-nfl-team

http://www.bloomberg...-tv-rights.html

http://bleacherrepor...-every-year-wow

http://espn.go.com/nhl/attendance

http://espn.go.com/b...-average-ticket

http://www.businessi...2#ixzz2o4yN2wIt

http://www.fancostex...0020_pdf001.pdf

http://sportslistoft...eams-2008-2012/