Mallards To Cease Operations The End Of This Season
- Thread starter Growlers
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JMCx4
Censorship is the Sincerest Form of Flattery
210
Registered User
Which isn't relevant to it not being an option financially for the current owner.
CrazyEddie20
Hey RuZZia - Cut Your Losses and Go Home.
You pay to watch hockey games. He gets paid to watch hockey games, write about them, and get you riled up. And he likely knows how to properly differentiate when to use "a" or "an."
Who's an idiot?
210
Registered User
He's also an AHL Ellery Award winner...something idiots tend not to win.
royals119
Registered User
I like how the SPHL seems to act on controlled growth. The SPHL strategically places franchises. If the league extends its footprint its usually done just adjacent to the previous footprint, nice slow controlled growth unlike the AHL or even ECHL whom both went from eastern seaboard bus leagues to out of control footprints which required some "gap" filling years later. The unintended consequences of increased travel costs put un-necessary burden on some teams.
CrazyEddie20
Hey RuZZia - Cut Your Losses and Go Home.
Don't kid yourself. While the league has (mostly) controlled expansion within its own footprint, it has also had numerous shaky ownership groups (Bob Kerzner, Danny Smith, the Mississippi Surge). The league has kept going year-to-year, but it has also burned a lot of markets within the footprint.
Quad City is +/- 14 hours to Fayetteville, which is one of, if not the, longest ride in the league, and they're remote (and likely requiring an overnight stay) to every other league market except Peoria and possibly Evansville. They'll have one of the highest travel budgets in the league. They'd better be able to make the financials work better than they did in the ECHL - where they had a sweetheart lease and still lost six figures annually.
It could work. It could be another disaster. It all depends on how well the owners are willing to capitalize the business and how much they're willing to spend to get the team off the ground. If you've followed and/or worked in minor league hockey as long as I have, you know that the odds are slim that the owners will properly capitalize the business and be willing to suffer losses to grow the business into one that breaks even or suffers marginal annual losses.
Overall though the league has properly controlled its growth. The thing with the Quad Cities is that they want a team in that arena. With that being said if the arena wants a team established and locally owned they will come to favorable financial terms to give it a strong shot at sustainability. The SPHL does some things right that many casual fans really enjoy. They have a shorter schedule which means by the time the warm weather is upon most SPHL cities people are ready for outdoor recreation, including baseball. I think eventually this model will appeal to more markets outside the normal SPHL footprint, especially as northern and northeast markets start losing their AHL/ECHL teams. Hockey is growing in the south, people are leaving the northern and northeast states behind. The ECHL was really hurt by their swap with the AHL, their hands were forced by the NHL & AHL. The AHL saw attendance growth in the south and west while average attendance fell in the ECHL. Collective bargaining resulting in higher costs for team owners is a tough balance teams in the AHL and ECHL who have no room to grow attendance and revenue wise are going to see the pinch.
CrazyEddie20
Hey RuZZia - Cut Your Losses and Go Home.
I wouldn't say they've controlled their growth so much as there is a very limited quantity of markets that could host an SPHL team and there is very limited interest in owning a team in a league that is unaffiliated with the NHL, provides little if any support and league-wide sponsorship to its members, has no real prospects and is two steps above a beer league.
That really depends on where you're from. In most of these markets they care more about the entertainment then watching prospect players make early exits for bigger and better opportunities. Nothing irked me more then watching AHL teams whose players arrived in town already bitter about being cut from the NHL roster. Players so entitled they actually played like garbage for a while, even at the AHL level. This I found to be an insult to the fans, and the towns they played in. When you are a "league of their own" so to speak, minor pro hockey at its purest level the players know where they are playing with, signing with. They are signing to play for a city, to get paid by that team playing for that team and city. Beer league will take anybody who pays, and helps pay for the partying. They play for the love of the game yes but anyone with the funds can join. I know plenty of "beer" senior league players who couldn't find their way to the SPHL, guys accomplished in high school, junior college, and NCAA DIII
JMCx4
Censorship is the Sincerest Form of Flattery
The SPHL has shown since their expansions to Bloomington, IL and Peoria and more recently Evansville that they are willing to accommodate unbalanced regular season schedules for the sake of reducing travel costs for most teams. The Rivermen will have played the Thunderbolts 13 times by the end of this regular season, and the Rivermen-BLM Thunder face-to-face schedule in Bloomington's single SPHL season was almost that heavily weighted. So should the League gain a Quad Cities entry, I would expect a large mix of QDC & PEO & EVN games with Mississippi RiverKings match-ups sprinkled in (Southaven being another SPHL town within approx. 8-hour drives of those three). Overnight stays are becoming common place in the SPHL with 2-or-3 game weekends scheduled, so I don't see that expense factor being burdened further by admission of another Midwest team.
I think this (among other things) is what will doom an SPHL franchise in the Quad Cities. During our one season in the IHL 2.0, the heavy repetition of a few opponents on our home schedule really annoyed the fan base. We would most certainly again experience something like that with the SPHL.
Bloomington's time in the SPHL was short-lived, and I'd expect a similar result if QC joins the league. If your market wasn't enthusiastically supporting AA hockey, it's hard to see how a single-A league (where you're always playing the same three opponents) will draw enough fans to make it profitable. The operating costs might be less, but the drop-off in fan support is likely to overtake those margins.
It really seems like QC is in a tough spot. The ECHL was a decent geographic fit, but the operating costs didn't seem to work. The SPHL's operating costs are more manageable, but the geographically isolated. Their best geographic fit is certainly the USHL, where they'd be right in the middle of the footprint with many teams a short drive away. But despite the great quality that the USHL brings, I get the sense that junior would be a tough sell in the QC market.
From what I've been told, the arena's director (Scott Mullen) has tried to stay away from bringing in the USHL. He also oversaw the arena when the AHL and CHL teams folded during their respective off-seasons. In those two instances, he regarded the USHL only as an absolute last resort. There's no doubt attendance would take a hit with a junior team replacing what had always been a professional team.
The larger point is this: Hockey has been a failing sport in the Quad City market for over a decade now. Whatever league comes here next -- assuming one even does -- it will be carrying that baggage back into the market. The late 1990s are long gone. The Mallards aren't going to have 50-win seasons and championship trophies to hoist all the time. Any team owner coming into the QC had better accept the fact they will always lose money. It's simply a matter of minimizing those losses so that ownership isn't rapidly draining their bank account trying to keep the team afloat.
The TaxSlayer Center is attempting to keep hockey in the Quad City market with a ticket drive for a yet-to-be-determined team:
TaxSlayer Center announces 2018-19 Hockey Season Ticket Drive
This was exactly what happened back in 2009 after the Quad City Flames announced their intentions to fold. The IHL ended up coming in for just one season, then was absorbed into the CHL a year later.
TaxSlayer Center announces 2018-19 Hockey Season Ticket Drive
This was exactly what happened back in 2009 after the Quad City Flames announced their intentions to fold. The IHL ended up coming in for just one season, then was absorbed into the CHL a year later.
JMCx4
Censorship is the Sincerest Form of Flattery
Woo Hockey
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JMCx4
Censorship is the Sincerest Form of Flattery
CrazyEddie20
Hey RuZZia - Cut Your Losses and Go Home.
According to Scott Mullen, there were several interested parties in operating a hockey team in the Quad Cities. The problem is, nobody knows what kind of financial backing these individuals have and whether they could withstand the years of financial losses that any hockey team in the QC would generate. Minor league hockey in general is a money-losing proposition. That's especially true in the Quad Cities.
Bringing in yet another hockey team (in a different league) right on the heels of the Mallards' ECHL collapse is a recipe for failure. Mullen just wants to keep a tenant in his building. That's a very short-term plan, and one that seems bound to repeat the mistakes of past seasons.
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