sjb3599 said:
The way I figure, four teams should be cut immediately: Florida, Carolina, Pittsburgh, and Washington, with a select few others being relocated.
Why not cut the Rangers, who lose revenue and have for years, play in front of thousands of empty seats (the Knicks last year had 12-13,000 season tickets so the Ranger are absoutely lower than that despite padded numbers because they are Msg's signature tennant) and are almost completely invisible in the NY sports market yet drove up prices because James Dolan decided to spend more of Cablevisions money because he had no faith in prospects and is a big part of creating this absurd player market and is a big reason why there is a work stoppage?
If the Blues (who do fill every seat and have a better facility in Saavis center) lose 30-40 million a year there is little doubt the Rangers lose that much, regardless of how out of touch TSN is with hockey in the metro area.
The Arena Football Dragons had equal ratings in New York to the Rangers on ABC and have going back as far as 1999 when they got a .9 rating vs Detroit. Msg continues to lose sports programming and has to split any television revenue 60/40 with Rupert Murdoch. The Garden has laid off employees and cut it's programming and just lost Mets baseball for good, which means millions in advertising is gone after 2005. Not a good future outlook. They even owe the Islanders 13 million for broadcast rights, the entire league got sixty million from Espn, another bad deal.
Hockey is one of those sports today where it would do better outside of a major city like New York, like MLS. The past attention for hockey here is over and nothing a 31 million dollar Ranger team could do to take any attention away from the Yankees, Mets, Giants, Jets, Knicks or Nets. Leetch got moved and Joe Torre got the back page.
They could not get any attention with all-stars, bad place to put a 80-94 million dollar team. That's only going to get worse in the future.
Those markets you mentioned will get good ratings and attendance will improve as soon as they are allowed to be competitive for free agents on the same level as everyone else. What the last few years have proven is the Rangers even with name stars are virtually invisible.
Those markets with affordable prices and lower salaries will do what Msg has proven they cannot do any longer.
