NHL ticket revenue

[bush_cheney2004]

.... Maintaining unprofitable teams in places where the game will never be more than a novelty and requiring successful teams to prop them up through revenue sharing is hardly good business.

Moving the goal eh? The Ottawa Senators look to be losing money...again. Why should the successful teams have to prop them up? Does this mean they are "shitty"?

http://www.obj.ca/Local/2010-05-17/article-1097654/Senators-lose-money-for-second-straight-season/1

[Shady]

Maintaining unprofitable teams in places where the game will never be more than a novelty

The longer a team stays in a market, the better chance it becomes more than a novelty and instead part of the city and community. I'm not saying that a couple of US teams shouldn't be relocated. But a reflexive "pull out of the US" mindset is counter productive.

[Black Dog]

Moving the goal eh? The Ottawa Senators look to be losing money...again. Why should the successful teams have to prop them up? Does this mean they are "shitty"?

Are the Sens paying into or benefiting from revenue sharing? If not, they aren't being propped up.

[Black Dog]

The longer a team stays in a market, the better chance it becomes more than a novelty and instead part of the city and community.

How long? It's been 20 years since the last round of expansion/relocations. Carolina and Tampa Bay each won a Cup in that time; they're still drawing flies.

I'm not saying that a couple of US teams shouldn't be relocated. But a reflexive "pull out of the US" mindset is counter productive.

Good thing I'm not doing that.

[guyser]

Now you are being purposely obtuse to try and prove your point.

Am I? Seriously,lets go back to the point I countered.....You said....

They have the least population (~700,000) of any NHL city.

I said they dont, Buffalo has less people living in their NHL cityand that is true.

Teams draw fans from a distance, not just the city centre. 1.2 million versus 700,000

However, Winnipeg probably has more hockey fans in that smaller population. Like, WB stated, it probably evens out somehow, or maybe Winnipeg is actually a "bigger market" if you look at just hockey fans. Hard to say without having data....

Teams do draw from a wide range outside the city.

Manitoba is the draw fro the Jets, alongside the people who live in N Ont close to the border.

Winnipeg may have more fans, but the stat that makes more sense is the per capita income of the two.

Buffalo 's is $15,000 and Winnipegs is $36,000. Thats a huge disparity and the reason in the past that Buffalo came close to losing the team.

TV rights for local games, concessions, corp boxes,jersey sales.....all adds up to Buff being smaller.

Add to that a woeful commercial base in Buffalo , and in comaprison to Winterpeg not even in the same stratosphere, and you have what anyone would call a very small market, especially if you compare it to Winnipeg,although I imagine Columbus is in tough too.

Look at Atlanta, there wss no one at all willing to even look into buying and keeping the Flames. Atl is a huge market but yet, not a single peep was heard.

[The_Squid]

I said they dont, Buffalo has less people living in their NHL cityand that is true.

ok. Change that to region. Obviously, you knew what I meant.... and it is true that the Buffalo region has more people than Winnipeg region.

Teams do draw from a wide range outside the city.

Manitoba is the draw fro the Jets, alongside the people who live in N Ont close to the border.

A team can't draw Province-wide for long. THere will always be a trickle of some fans from afar, but not the bulk of fans. Right now the Jets are a novelty and draw from great distances I'm sure.

Look at California teams... they draw a substantial crowd from Vancouver! But I wouldn't consider that their fan-base.

Winnipeg may have more fans, but the stat that makes more sense is the per capita income of the two.

Buffalo 's is $15,000 and Winnipegs is $36,000. Thats a huge disparity and the reason in the past that Buffalo came close to losing the team.

TV rights for local games, concessions, corp boxes,jersey sales.....all adds up to Buff being smaller.

Add to that a woeful commercial base in Buffalo , and in comaprison to Winterpeg not even in the same stratosphere, and you have what anyone would call a very small market, especially if you compare it to Winnipeg,although I imagine Columbus is in tough too.

Look at Atlanta, there wss no one at all willing to even look into buying and keeping the Flames. Atl is a huge market but yet, not a single peep was heard.

I agree with all of what you said... however, everything will change if the Cdn dollar dips significantly below the US dollar. No one can say what the dollar values will be in 10 years from now.

70 cent dollar equates to almost a 30% increase in salary costs. That's huge!

Edited January 4, 2012 by The_Squid

[LonJowett]

A team can't draw Province-wide for long. THere will always be a trickle of some fans from afar, but not the bulk of fans. Right now the Jets are a novelty and draw from great distances I'm sure.

Have you been to the Prairies? There's nothing to draw from. I've done the drive from Winnipeg to Regina many, many times. Cows don't attend hockey games.

[The_Squid]

Have you been to the Prairies? There's nothing to draw from. I've done the drive from Winnipeg to Regina many, many times. Cows don't attend hockey games.

Not sure what your issue is..... I said that they draw from the Winnipeg region (pop. ~700,000) for the most part.

[guyser]

The easist, and perhaps the smartest from a short term revenue angle, is to move/contract some teams to Canada.

But that doesnt solve all the problems being discussed.

It appears that LA Kings, Ana Ducks,SJ Sharks are all doing well enough and fans fill the arena night after night. The first and last are near 100% attendance with Anaheim at something like 88% , but thats cuz they suck so far this year.

So 3 teams, all Cali based doing well. But then you fly an hour east and voila, the woeful (at the gate) Coyotes. Dead last in attendance at 66%. They havent been very good I grant you but they have a great rink and location and lots of people live there. Some of the housing crunch may be some of it, IIRC Phoeniz wsas one of the worst areas for under water mortgages so spending may be a problem.

Jump over a bit and one arrives in Dallas. They too are tanking at attendance, slightly better than Phoenix (not much tho) yet they appear healthy, from both a fan and corp base.

But then we get to Florida and Georgia.Even tho the FLA teams have been in Stanley Cups, (1 win) the game does not seem to fit the lifestyle or imagination of the people who live their. Why? I syre as hell dont know. But it has been tried and continues to be tried in the face of smart business sense. And this is the only real hassle I have with Bettman. He knows business better than he knows hockey .

He has grown the game in the US, improved attendance, improved rev's for teams, improved revenues for the league rights to TV games, improved merch sales for all. The Winter classic is now a staple and gets serious interest from all markets in the States , if even as a novelty once a year to those places that have no coverage.

My only quibble with him, and I really cant blame him, was the waffling with Basillie. Seems Bettman got his nose out of joint and dug in his heels for no opther reason than he has to be Master, even if he isn't, it must appear he is. He is also the mouthpiece for the other owners who are well knonw to say one thing (" We love Balsillie/RIM and the money") and then do the other ('Tell Basillies its our way and stop being an ignorant ass) (side note:look how Winterpeg got the team-no press, no boasting, just quiet due diligence and honesty)

Bettman should move one of the FLA teams, Panthers based on attendance, but where do they go?Seattle seems the best place, contraction is out of the question because theywould have to pay them the losses for the future . Seattle has people,commercial interests and a great rivalry should develop with Vancouver.

London, Markham, Hamilton all have problems with the Leafs being here. London is too small for business interests, although their draw is from a wide area and they could fill the rink but they would do so at the expense of the Knights. Hamilton I suspect will never get a team since that impacts TO and VBuff, and I think Bettman smart enough not to create waves in both those towns.

Markham is a no brainer, too close, cant afford the fees to buy in.

And that gets to the crux, all the owners want expansion, not contraction or move a team, because the real money is buying the rights to own.All the onwers share that , what is essentially free money, and none of them want to give that up.

I would not be surprised to see contraction in FLA , ....a wait period.....then granting a franchise to Quebec City. See the cash angle above as to why.

I can only see Seattle and Q.City as hopefuls in the long term.

Edited January 5, 2012 by guyser

[LonJowett]

And that gets to the crux, all the owners want expansion, not contraction or move a team, because the real money is buying the rights to own.All the onwers share that , what is essentially free money, and none of them want to give that up.

Not really. They can add a relocation fee that is just as much a blank cheque as an expansion fee. Look at what the Atlanta Thrashers owners got to keep of the $170 million purchase price.

[bush_cheney2004]

...And that gets to the crux, all the owners want expansion, not contraction or move a team, because the real money is buying the rights to own.All the onwers share that , what is essentially free money, and none of them want to give that up.

Why should they? You are right...and things have never been better for NHL marketing and revenue:

Best-ever business year

[LonJowett]

Why should they? You are right.

No, you're wrong because they aren't even looking at expansion as an option now. The only cities that could get teams right now are Quebec, Kansas, Seattle, and longshots Milwaukee and Las Vegas. They could easily fill those with existing underperformers if only to avoid contraction.

I can dream of Regina getting a team, but I agree it ain't happening.