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It is rare for teams in the same league to share a building, but not unprecedented in North America.

The example that may most closely mirror what may develop in Toronto, should a second NHL franchise call the Air Canada Centre home, can be found in Los Angeles, where the Staples Center houses both the Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Clippers of the NBA.

As would be the case at the ACC, there is a third major winter sport on hand too, with the Toronto Raptors playing the role of the Los Angeles Kings at Staples.

The result is an incredibly busy arena staff, charged with managing the transitions among roughly 300 events a year — sometimes two in the same day.

But sharing a building doesn't mean an equal share of anything, and last in will likely mean last choice of dates and a smaller cut of arena revenues.

"Each team's deal is different, based on what they can negotiate, and the Clippers were the third team in. The building was originally going to go ahead with the just the Kings and the Lakers," said Lee Zeidman, the Staples Center's senior vice-president and GM.

In Los Angeles — where the Anschutz Entertainment Group owns the arena, a majority share of the Kings, a minority share of the Lakers and the Clippers' lease — each of the teams playing at the arena receives a different cut of revenues from the luxury suites and premium seats, and there are few if any economies of scale. "They have nothing in common," says Zeidman of the Lakers and the Clippers. "They have a different floor, a different lighting system, their own baskets, their own press seating configurations — it's totally different."

The fan experience is fairly uniform until they actually reach the inside of the bowl because the Staples Center has 12 founding sponsors — including the title sponsor — that are reflected in the signage around the arena.

Each team controls the advertising inventory surrounding the field of play: on the playing floor, the dasher boards, the playing surface — right down to the sponsors of each club's dance team.

Each team also has its own permanent dressing room. Games between the two see the signage change according to whoever is designated as the home team on the given night.

Having a second NHL franchise playing out of the Air Canada Centre may have some benefits to the NHL and even to MLSE, which could anticipate revenue from the additional 41 or so home dates and likely command a share of all the revenues their new tenant might generate.

The trick would be to avoid the temptation to be too greedy.

"You need to strike a balance so that the second team has a chance to be competitive there," said David Carter, executive director of The Sports Business Institute at the University of Southern California. "The goal shouldn't be — though from the Leafs' point of view, who could blame them — to extract as much money as possible from the second team in the building because if they are too aggressive, they will undermine the success of that team and that hurts the NHL."