Photo by ssteege1.

The Caps may soon again take the ice, but the games they haven’t played have certainly cost D.C. in lost revenues from the sale of tickets, beers, merchandise and so on.

But by how much? It’s tough to say exactly, but the office of D.C. Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi recently provided Councilmember Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) with an estimate: around $200,000 per game. Gandhi spokesman David Umansky further explained in an email:

Our folks estimated that the NHL lockout is costing about $200K in foregone sales tax revenue per game and would cost about $10 million for the entire season. As previously noted, there is no way for us to isolate NHL-generated sales tax collections from monthly sales tax collections. These estimates are based on average ticket prices, an assumption about likely spending by a typical NHL game attendee and that each game would fill the arena to capacity.

So, how much revenue has D.C. missed out on from the games that haven’t been played so far? Roughly $6.4 million, if you assume that the NHL will manage to pull 50 games out of what’s left of the season.