Why do some folks still consider NYC a big hockey market?

[Son of Steinbrenner]

It's not 1994. It's not 1980 when the Islanders were offered the Canyon of Hero's, when they won, things have changed.


I discussed everything you wrote in prior posts at length. All three teams are invisible in an enormous baseball market. Nothing they do can change that.

face facts you just don't like the rangers and it bothers you that even though they have been awful they still dwarf the islanders and devils.

11 years ago showed the nhl what a succesful new york franchise can do for the league.

please provide proof that the rangers do not average a little less than a sell out a game over the course of the season. please come back with attendance figures for the islanders and devils and compare it to the rangers. you see you have no point to your argument other than to take a cheap shot at the rangers which you do oh i would say about once a month.

 

[OlTimeHockey]

NYC is the media. The press jumped all over the Rag$ and the Oilers on said team when they won.

Then they forgot hockey existed when the Rangers no longer were winning (coincidentally when the former Oiler dynasty left the team).

I'm not bashing the Rag$ per se, as I don't need to. I bash the U.S. media for running with the winner and forgetting they existed when things turn.

The Rag$ were their NYC top lead story. The Devils are ten times the success the NYR were, yet no fanfare, "feel good" media nonsense. I attribute it to the adage, "if a tree falls in a forest...."

Either the Ranger$ win every year or the mass media forgets hockey exists. The simple truth.

The press start thinking of ice skates and cold arenas and run for the warm lawn bowling greens or the US Open, where it's more comfortable to report or something. They just don't like the game.

As for your last paragraph: Manhattan is people on top of people on top of people. They're going to sell out. The wealthiest real estate in the world so packed with people and seven thousand trains bringing people in right under the ice.

If they could put an arena in Calcutta, I'm sure they'd sell out every game with that population density. Well, maybe not at $120 a seat.....


And would you consider the fact that the game was better back in 1994 (they fought and hit and skated hard back then), after years of successful buildup and media campaigns? It went downhill with Bettman's lack of marketing, the trap and overexpansion, not because the Rangers went downhill.

 

[NYIsles1*]

face facts you just don't like the rangers and it bothers you that even though they have been awful they still dwarf the islanders and devils.

I'm not a Ranger fan but I am a hockey fan and see things for what they are. If the Rangers only have 60,000 homes in a eleven million fan market tuning in for games that's a small market with one fan demographic.

11 years ago showed the nhl what a succesful new york franchise can do for the league.

It's not eleven years ago. Not in hockey and absolutely not in baseball. That era is gone forever. Baseball grew ten times over ten years. (without steroids) Hockey regressed since 1994 and no one brought in could save it here. This is a very small hockey market. Sports fans here are not interested in hockey, the media has no interest or space to be bothered covering it or talk about it on the radio or television. Hockey has it's small hard-core group and that's it. The Ranger spent over 500 million dollars in seven years and still fell off the NY sports landscape, the Islanders got back in the playoff and get television ratings lower than when they were in last place with a fifteen million dollar payroll, but play on limited Metro and FSN. There are perception problem here that go beyond wins and losses.

Before you answer me go pick up a local NYC paper today. Look at all the Nets coverage. When was the Rangers ever got that kind of attention in seven years?

please provide proof that the rangers do not average a little less than a sell out a game over the course of the season. please come back with attendance figures for the islanders and devils and compare it to the rangers. you see you have no point to your argument other than to take a cheap shot at the rangers which you do oh i would say about once a month.

I go to the games at the Garden and have gone for over twenty years and always make at least 10-15 games. I know when the seats are filled and when they are empty. I see the 11-13,000 people in the seats on most weeknights and even the open seats on some weekends. It's been this way for a long time now. I do not need to read Dolan's, Wang's or Vanderbeek's reported posted attendance at a Ranger, Islanders or Devil games to know most nights they are badly overstated. Why do you think Msg stopped bothering televising games on the road during the preseason when they used to televise games from Anaheim? Not enough people are interested to put in the time or money the way they used to.

Why do you think Dolan scheduled Richter's retirement ceremony on a Wednesday against Minnesota? He needed a weeknight to sellout against a Western Conference Team.

You cannot blame the team managements, they have to make it seem they have larger fan bases than they have and it's all very political. The free spending Yankees, Red Sox, Mets and interleague baseball made all three hockey teams invisible year round here. I call it what it is and it's not limited to the Rangers.

Go look at the Boston Bruins and all the open seats, prices are too high, the public never warned up to the European players. They have passionate die-hard fans (like Rangers, Islanders and Devils) but things changed, they were changing even when the Rangers made the semi-finals and it had no major impact.

 

[nyr7andcounting]

I go to the games at the Garden and have gone for over twenty years and always make at least 10-15 games. I know when the seats are filled and when they are empty. I see the 11-13,000 people in the seats on most weeknights and even the open seats on some weekends. It's been this way for a long time now. I do not need to read Dolan's, Wang's or Vanderbeek's reported posted attendance at a Ranger, Islanders or Devil games to know most nights they are badly overstated. Why do you think Msg stopped bothering televising games on the road during the preseason when they used to televise games from Anaheim? Not enough people are interested to put in the time or money the way they used to.

Why do you think Dolan scheduled Richter's retirement ceremony on a Wednesday against Minnesota? He needed a weeknight to sellout against a Western Conference Team.

You cannot blame the team managements, they have to make it seem they have larger fan bases than they have and it's all very political. The free spending Yankees, Red Sox, Mets and interleague baseball made all three hockey teams invisible year round here. I call it what it is and it's not limited to the Rangers.

Go look at the Boston Bruins and all the open seats, prices are too high, the public never warned up to the European players. They have passionate die-hard fans (like Rangers, Islanders and Devils) but things changed, they were changing even when the Rangers made the semi-finals and it had no major impact.

Your argument about attendance at MSG doesn't make any sense. Look at the schedule from last year, a year when they were horrible... not one game was under 17,000. And if, as you say, this is an inflated number, what's wrong with that if other teams, as you say, infaltes their numbers as well? If every team in the NHL does it, than how can you pick out one team and say they don't have attendance they simply post more than it really is. Obviously there is nothing wrong with that, if everyone does it, and obviously if everyone stopped doing it the Rangers would still be ahead of most teams as far as attendance.

From a business point of view, the Rangers sell out all the most expensive tickets and they sell all the tickets on most gamenights. How many people are actually in the building for games depends on a lot of things. But, if you are talking about contracting a team or proving a team is a small market, than the only thing you can go by in respect to attendnace is how many tickets they do sell and how much they make off of it. The Rangers sell almost all the tickets, and make a lot off of them, and that's all that needs to be said.

 

[Son of Steinbrenner]

I'm not a Ranger fan but I am a hockey fan and see things for what they are. If the Rangers only have 60,000 homes in a eleven million fan market tuning in for games that's a small market with one fan demographic.


It's not eleven years ago. Not in hockey and absolutely not in baseball. That era is gone forever. Baseball grew ten times over ten years. (without steroids) Hockey regressed since 1994 and no one brought in could save it here. This is a very small hockey market. Sports fans here are not interested in hockey, the media has no interest or space to be bothered covering it or talk about it on the radio or television. Hockey has it's small hard-core group and that's it. The Ranger spent over 500 million dollars in seven years and still fell off the NY sports landscape, the Islanders got back in the playoff and get television ratings lower than when they were in last place with a fifteen million dollar payroll, but play on limited Metro and FSN. There are perception problem here that go beyond wins and losses.

Before you answer me go pick up a local NYC paper today. Look at all the Nets coverage. When was the Rangers ever got that kind of attention in seven years?


I go to the games at the Garden and have gone for over twenty years and always make at least 10-15 games. I know when the seats are filled and when they are empty. I see the 11-13,000 people in the seats on most weeknights and even the open seats on some weekends. It's been this way for a long time now. I do not need to read Dolan's, Wang's or Vanderbeek's reported posted attendance at a Ranger, Islanders or Devil games to know most nights they are badly overstated. Why do you think Msg stopped bothering televising games on the road during the preseason when they used to televise games from Anaheim? Not enough people are interested to put in the time or money the way they used to.

Why do you think Dolan scheduled Richter's retirement ceremony on a Wednesday against Minnesota? He needed a weeknight to sellout against a Western Conference Team.

You cannot blame the team managements, they have to make it seem they have larger fan bases than they have and it's all very political. The free spending Yankees, Red Sox, Mets and interleague baseball made all three hockey teams invisible year round here. I call it what it is and it's not limited to the Rangers.

Go look at the Boston Bruins and all the open seats, prices are too high, the public never warned up to the European players. They have passionate die-hard fans (like Rangers, Islanders and Devils) but things changed, they were changing even when the Rangers made the semi-finals and it had no major impact.

you go to ten to 15 ranger games a year? are you sure you aren't a rangers fan

hockey could have grown in the us if they didn't lockout the players after the 94 season. hmm nhl has no national tv contract in the united states rangers win the cup and all of a sudden hockey is on fox.

i looked at the nets coverage and all i can find is they played the knicks last night. i wonder why there is so much coverage. could it be because marbary said he is a better point guard than kidd and than got shut up last night? :lol

do you remember when the rangers televised games from aneheim? i do it was gretzkys first season with the rangers and the game was in aneheim but in las vegas. they televised every preseason game that year. perhaps msg doesn't show preseason ROAD games anymore is because the rangers have been awful but they still show the home games. how many preseason games do the islanders have on tv?

lets not beat around the bush here. you just wanted ro rip the rangers and you have pretty flimsy argument. anybody that has read your agenda posts on the rangers board knows not to take one word you say seriously.

 

[Big Cat Davo]

You are not reading

NYIsle1, and all

Dude you are obviously not reading, or just choose to ignore stuff. Rangers games are close to sold out. They have big corporate dollars holding tickets. Those tickets do not always get used. Which is why the paid attendance numbers are vastly different to your "witnessed" numbers. As another member pointed out, there are 6 beat writers and 3 columnists writing on the Rags. We are in the middle of a 4 month old lockout, the Rags are not in the news. . . oh my why could that be . . Oh that is right, they have not played a game in 8 months, and will not play one for another 9. Lets fill the pages with that.

It seems that everybody has a different idea of what the problem is, and everybody talks about the game being broken . . . yet nobody really want to remember how the game used to be. Me, I would still love the game if it were as violent and barbaric as it was is the 70's and 80's. I would love the Dynasties of that era . . . and ya know what . . . the players had squat for rights, only the games very, very best made real money, the rest played for the sheer love of it. If fixing the game means bringing back the John Kordics and line brawls and turfing the instigator rule then I am all for it. But I think that many of the people whining about the broken product on the ice, are the same people that thought Donald Brasher was the innocent victim in the McSorely incident and Steve "I head hunt premier players" Moore, need to be protected from people that are wrecking the game.

Maurice Richard broke a stick over a players head, then asked for another and broke it over his head as well. Gordie Howe beat a man so badly it made people sick. Hockey, right from day one has been a perfect hybrid of skill, beauty, passion and violence, aggression and intimidation. If mainstream America has a problem with this then nuts to em. Changing the game to suit mainstream America is what is breaking the game, agents and ego's and dollars are breaking the game . . . so leave the game alone let is be was it was meant to be, in the 50's and 60's. Let the owners get the big bucks, leave us with players that want to be there and leave it all on the ice, every night.

It may not be the PC thing, but that is what it boils down to.

Dave

 

[NYIsles1*]

NYIsle1, and all
Dude you are obviously not reading, or just choose to ignore stuff. Rangers games are close to sold out. They have big corporate dollars holding tickets. Those tickets do not always get used. Which is why the paid attendance numbers are vastly different to your "witnessed" numbers.

Sorry, I do not feel I'm ignoring anything. I'm well aware of the differences between a situtation where all the seats are sold vs a team that just cannot sell their tickets to the public. A team that only has a television rating equal to 60,000 homes in a market with eleven million fans while the Knicks only having 13,000 season ticket holders as the primary tennant at that facility are not selling out anything.

I think fans and media outside NY see the Yankees whenever they see anything New York and only recall 1994 for the Rangers and are not interested in putting in much time on hockey.

As another member pointed out, there are 6 beat writers and 3 columnists writing on the Rags.

While hockey was still being played for years now it's been six papers, one article per day per paper unless those editors use a.p coverge and do not bother going on the road. No columnist cover hockey here with any kind of consistency unless you want to count Sherry Ross writing one article every few weeks and disappearing for a month. All the teams here only have the one beatwriter. The sporting news stopped doing team reports, faceoff.com became Canada.com. There is no revenue to be made covering hockey here for a newspaper.

 

[Big Cat Davo]

Still not adding up

A team that only has a television rating equal to 60,000 homes in a market with eleven million fans while the Knicks only having 13,000 season ticket holders as the primary tennant at that facility are not selling out anything.

Apples to oranges . . . what do Knicks season tickets have to do with Rangs TV ratings . . . nothing.

Dave

 

[Trottier]

I've noticed that only Ranger haters (Read: Islander fans) say that NYC isn't a big hockey market. Even though the Rangers suck, they still have a tremendous crowd and still have a waiting list. That's more than most teams *CoughIslandersCough* can say.

Stereotyping is the result of lazy thought. Might want to READ a bit before grouping ALL NYI fans in the same category.

Seems to me that in this thread, there is but one NYI fan promoting the idea that NYR's impact on the league is overrated. Or that NHL hockey cannot survive/compete in NYC or other big markets vs. other major sports. Both pure myth, IMO.

And one person's opinion. Not representative of "Islander fans".

 

[jratelle19]

NYIsles1: Your signature suggests that NYC is Islander country. That alone eliminates any credibility from your point of view. LOL

Look, as a diehard hockey fan living in the NYC metro area all my life, I'll be the first one to tell you that hockey is plain and simply a cult sport in this area. Diehard Ranger fans, however, are passionate about their team, even when they suck. Overall, NYC is a baseball town, always was and always will be. In the winter months, hockey gets back page coverage most of the time, while Derek Jeter takes a dump and it makes headlines. Trust me, it's hell for a "non-baseball fan/hockey nut who should've been born Canadian" like myself. Thank God for Internet streamlining so that I can get hockey coverage 24/7 from Canadian sports radio stations.

The NYC market is a key market for the NHL television-wise, only and if only, the Rangers are doing well. The ESPN ratings for the 1994 playoffs were so incredibly high, they were enough to land the NHL a sweet national TV deal with FOX. The NHL then dropped the ball. With the lockout and shortened season, they did not strike while the iron was hot and did not take advantage of the problems in baseball which could've elevated hockey even more. Team that up with the way the NHL brass stood idly by while the league trapped its way into oblivion and over-expanded, and you have the low TV ratings of the last 6 or 7 years.

The NYC market is mostly a Ranger market, plain and simple. One poster wrote that east of the Hudson River, no one cared about the Devils success. Guess what? You'd be amazed how many peope west of the Hudson River didn't care, either. To a lesser extent, the same can be said about the Islanders. I have lived in the 5 Towns now for over a year and frequented Nassau County a lot in my life, and it is quite clear that Ranger fans outnumber Islander fans around here. That is not a knock on the Islanders, by any means. Ranger fans, like myself, would love to be able to experience 4 Cups in a row. That was an amazing feat and it was done without a bush-league tactic in a watered down league (*cough* *Devils* *trap* *cough*). Even though I have always rooted against the Islanders in the playoffs, no one can say that those playoff series in the '80s were not entertaining as hell. Still though, the long tenure of the Rangers in the NHL built a hardcore fan base of what was once a six-team league. It is hard for a team that plays in a suburban area here to compete media-wise with a team that has been around for 80 years and plays at MSG. Most fans in New Jersey and Long Island have easier access to MSG with public transportation than they do for The Meadowlands or The Colisseum.

Joe Benigno made a point once about the NYC sports fan, however. He opined that the a lot of NYC sports fans are frontrunners, meaning that unless they are passionate about their team, they will support whichever NYC area team that is winning. I don't think that the Rangers are immune to that, either. However, it has been proven that the TV ratings for hockey in the NYC area improve greatly when the Rangers are doing well.

To conclude, hockey is a cult sport in NYC, but the Rangers fan base is deeper than those of the Islander or Devils. Does it cause the kind of media frenzy as it would in Canada? Absolutely not, unfortunately. (or fortunately, depending on how one wishes to look at it).

P.S.: Happy New Year, by the way! To you and everyone on the board! Hope we see an NHL in 2005!

 

[NYIsles1*]

Happy New Year to you also.

All due respect I would not question your credibility because of a screen name which is after a former Ranger, but I will talk some hockey.

I grew up in New York City where the Islander fan base got to see the team on WOR. I lived in the city when they won the cup and there were celebrations on the streets of Manhattan that day because no one ever saw a cup won by a home team in this region. The Isles were also offered the Canyon of Hero's by the city and had television specials on every New York City sports program. But that was then and this is now, just like 1994.

The Islanders never were a team that was limited to Nassau and Suffolk county because they grew up on free television in the NYC market. Unfortunately the Devils were never on free television long enough in the early part of their history to have the same impact.

Overall, NYC is a baseball town, always was and always will be. In the winter months, hockey gets back page coverage most of the time.

Hockey never get's the backpage in NY during the season. Leetch was traded and it did not get the backpage in NYC last season. Joe Torre got it because it's baseball's town. It has to be a very quiet sports day and a major event for hockey to see any backpage in this town. Before Msg cut programming they used to have a show called Angles where they would bring in writers to talk sports, when hockey would come up, the panel would basically laugh at Al Trautwig if he tried to introduce hockey into a discussion, nor did most of the people they brought in know anything about hockey. It was interesting when Trautwig brought on a hockey writer who during the Islander-Leaf series called the Coliseum the loudest he has ever heard a crowd at a New York sporting event when Trautwig basically cut him off because the show aired from Msg. That game drew a rating equal to 200,000 homes before the next game went right back on Metro.

Today's media people here put their noses in the air when hockey is the subject unless it's Bertuzzi or Danton so they can complain about the violence and go right back ignoring hockey. How often does WFAN talk hockey? The SF Giants get more airtime in NYC than all three teams combined. WFAN even dumped the broadcast rights to both of Msg's teams and took the Nets and Devils.

The NYC market is a key market for the NHL television-wise, only and if only, the Rangers are doing well. The ESPN ratings for the 1994 playoffs were so incredibly high, they were enough to land the NHL a sweet national TV deal with FOX. The NHL then dropped the ball..

1994 is over. That era in pro sports in this region is over. The Yankees are setting all-time attendance records for their franchise and are a 365 day story now. They have a 200 million dollar payroll that is going up fast. When the Rangers won the cup the highest payroll in baseball history was the 39 million dollar Mets. There used to be an off-season.

The NYC market is mostly a Ranger market, plain and simple. One poster wrote that east of the Hudson River, no one cared about the Devils success. Guess what? You'd be amazed how many peope west of the Hudson River didn't care, either. To a lesser extent, the same can be said about the Islanders. I have lived in the 5 Towns now for over a year and frequented Nassau County a lot in my life, and it is quite clear that Ranger fans outnumber Islander fans around here.

The NYC hockey market does belongs to the Rangers. That said the hardcore hockey market is so small vs the sports competition it makes no difference. If the Rangers have a hundred fans and the Islanders have sixty while the Yankees bring a five thousand what market is there? The only window for hockey to get attention is going to another final before the Yankees and Mets play in June and take the backpage the next day. Nothing that happens from October to April will change hockey's perception anymore in this market. The Ranger have been in playoff races, no one in the media paid attention to it.

The Islanders developed a strong fan base forever on free television when they had their dynasty all over the tri-state area market and frankly made the Rangers more popular by giving fans the best local sports rivalry for 20 years, but aside from the die-hards that is over too. The Devils also sellout when the Islanders play in New Jersey (like the Ranger) because of how loyal the cult Islander fan base still is. The market expanded in the 80's to New Jersey because of the Islanders proven success in this market with the public. An Islander-Ranger game at Msg always attracts large numbers of Islander fans just as a Ranger game at the Coliseum brings a large number of Ranger fans. It was this way when the Islanders missed the playoffs for seven years and went into Msg and cheered as they knocked the Rangers out of contention and it was the same when the Rangers let the Islanders have it good when they swept the six game series this year.

The die-hard cult on both sides are still there.

Joe Benigno made a point once about the NYC sports fan, however. He opined that the a lot of NYC sports fans are frontrunners, meaning that unless they are passionate about their team, they will support whichever NYC area team that is winning. I don't think that the Rangers are immune to that, either. However, it has been proven that the TV ratings for hockey in the NYC area improve greatly when the Rangers are doing well.

I will grant you sports fans are front runners. You also have to understand here ratings are manipulated here because one team owns the rights to three teams telecasts. All I can say is the Rangers making the semi-finals in 1997 did not have much impact on sports fans or hockey at all. Meanwhile hockey's popularity continued to decline and prices continue to go up where many people are priced out of games.

To conclude, hockey is a cult sport in NYC, but the Rangers fan base is deeper than those of the Islander or Devils.

Which means absolutely nothing because the cult is very small for all three teams. This is a sport full of Europeans playing in a market that only attracts one demographic while other sports dominate the public's interest and all demographics..

 

[NYIsles1*]

Apples to oranges . . . what do Knicks season tickets have to do with Rangs TV ratings . . . nothing.

Dave

If the Knicks have only 12-13,000 season tickets no one can make an argument the Rangers are more popular than the Knicks and sellout every game or even come close, especially with such poor television ratings.

 

[thinkwild]

So great then, New York is just like any other hockey market. Win and you generate excitement, interest, and money. Spend and lose - nothing. Spending doesnt help you win. Winners have money to spend. Perfect. Why would Detroit or Colorado be any different from New York with a losing team reagrdless of its cost?

Hockey doesnt need to be the most popular sport in a big market. Even without a lot of interest in New York, the NHL is a $2bil+ industry. Nothing wrong with that. I would never expect hockey to be as popular as baseball in New York or football in Nashville. It doesnt need to be. The goal isnt to match NFL or MLB ratings and numbers. The goal is to provide a good league for the fans that generate all that money. If, when and where it grows - great. Fans have this obsession with matching Canadas games revenues and television numbers with Americas games. Accept 5th place with pride.

Did poker get better national ratings than todays browns-texans game?

 

[jratelle19]

The Isles were also offered the Canyon of Hero's by the city

Offered the Canyone of Heroes for what? So that 1,000 people could show up coming in on the LIRR? Sports fans in 1980 were buzzing about hockey because of Team USA's winning the gold in the Olympics. Having a former Olympian on the team in Kenny Morrow didn't hurt matters, either. Please don't be so delusional as to think that a parade on Broadway would draw anywhere near what the 1994 parade had drawn. You seem to be more intelligent than that.

Hockey never get's the backpage in NY during the season.

Sorry, I should not have used the term "back page". I meant that the hockey articles get last billing in NY papers, even during the season. I think we agree on this.

It was interesting when Trautwig brought on a hockey writer who during the Islander-Leaf series called the Coliseum the loudest he has ever heard a crowd at a New York sporting event when Trautwig basically cut him off because the show aired from Msg. That game drew a rating equal to 200,000 homes before the next game went right back on Metro.

OK, so I guess this writer's opinion and overuse of superlatives is the word of God? Who was this writer? An Islander or Leaf beat writer? Wow, now there's an objective opinion. And as far as whining about Islander telecasts on a Cablevision owned station, let Wang start his own channel like the YES network, and he won't have to worry about being moved to Metro anymore. Look, I hate the Dolans more than anybody. Little Jimmy can't drop dead soon enough for me. But if you think that the owner of the Rangers, who is also the owner of Cablevision, is going to give cross-area rivals the top billing, then you are living in a fantasy world. Believe me, Wang would do the same thing in Dolan's shoes. As far as I'm concerned, the NHL should adopt the NFL policy of owners having no interest whatsoever in media. Bob Tisch was CEO of CBS when he wanted to buy Tim Mara's share of the Giants. He had to resign first before the NFL owners approved the purchase.

All I can say is the Rangers making the semi-finals in 1997 did not have much impact on sports fans or hockey at all.

Excuse me, but when Gretzky scored a hat trick against Florida in their series it was on every highlight reel on TV sports shows. Besides the fact the pictures of Messier and Gretzky on the bench together in a Rangers uniform was causing a stir. The Devils series was drawing a lot of hype before the first game. When the series became one-sided, the buzz faded fast. The Flyers series was one-sided in Philly's favor and the Finals were a sweep. None of the Conference Semi-finals or Conference Finals went seven games, which is a better TV draw. The Colorado-Detroit series went 6 games, the rest never went past 5 games.

Which means absolutely nothing because the cult is very small for all three teams.

Yes, the cult is small for all three when compared to baseball. But it is significantly larger for the Ranger fan base. In the greater scheme of comparing the popularity of hockey in the NY area, it means nothing. But in your indirect suggestions that the Islander fan base is anywhere near as large as the Ranger base, it does mean something. I refer to my comment above noting that an Islander parade on Broadway would be hardly an afterthought compared to what the Rangers drew in 1994. Are you suggesting to me that the Islander parades up Hempstead Turnpike drew a similar crowd?

 

[GKJ]

It's because the Rangers are so bad. That is it. The only reason why interest has waned in New York. If the Rangers were contenders every year they would have much more press.

 

[NYIsles1*]

Offered the Canyone of Heroes for what? So that 1,000 people could show up coming in on the LIRR? Sports fans in 1980 were buzzing about hockey because of Team USA's winning the gold in the Olympics. Having a former Olympian on the team in Kenny Morrow didn't hurt matters, either. Please don't be so delusional as to think that a parade on Broadway would draw anywhere near what the 1994 parade had drawn. You seem to be more intelligent than that.

I could care less about who would have drawn more to a parade ten or twenty years ago. The point is the Islanders were popular enough in the tri-state area (built on the free television market in this region) that winning the first NY cup at home in this state was a major New York event at the time on the heels of Lake Placid and NYC wanted to give the Islanders a parade. This teams television fan base was from the tri-state area on WOR, it was not some cable station in Uniondale and you should know that yourself. You kidding yourself if you underestimate how popular those Islander teams were and still are within the city limits with dwindling
die-hards. All the great road games televised in the late seventies were all Islander games and Islander hockey caught on all over the area. The Kate Smith game with Philaelphia in 1975, the 80's finals road games, the war with Boston and Terry O'Reilly, the late night games with the Kings. Even the game Toronto eliminated the Isles were all televised. Including the game on CBS where the Islanders won the cup in overtime.

Within a few years hockey was large enough to expand to include a third team based on the success the Islanders had.

In that era Islanders and Rangers played doubleheaders on Ch9, few distinguished where they played in New York, both were very popular but the Islanders had incredible stars and drawing power while the Rangers finished last. Islanders never had a problem getting the back page in NYC in those days but sports were different. Much different from today.

as far as whining about Islander telecasts on a Cablevision owned station, let Wang start his own channel like the YES network, and he won't have to worry about being moved to Metro anymore. As far as I'm concerned, the NHL should adopt the NFL policy of owners having no interest whatsoever in media. Bob Tisch was CEO of CBS when he wanted to buy Tim Mara's share of the Giants. He had to resign first before the NFL owners approved the purchase.

I have metro so I have no complaints other than the people owning the hockey trust restrict the market to benefit themselves and in the end hurts hockey in general in this region by limiting it's general exposure. That's my complaint because I think restricting the Devils hurt hockey here. John Spano signed the Isles television deal and it runs until 2030, it also nets the Islanders more than 300 million. The Devils just signed a similar deal. Based on Forbes estimate the Islanders made about a million less than the Rangers on Msg last year. (17 million vs 18 million) The Devils just received a substantial increase from the eight million they were getting so Msg is losing money on television rights to have a monopoly on three teams.

The Devils series was drawing a lot of hype before the first game. When the series became one-sided, the buzz faded fast. The Flyers series was one-sided in Philly's favor and the Finals were a sweep. None of the Conference Semi-finals or Conference Finals went seven games, which is a better TV draw. The Colorado-Detroit series went 6 games, the rest never went past 5 games.

The point being markets did not produce the hockey interest with Colorado-Detroit, Philadelphia and the Rangers. The so-called big market matchups were not enough by themselves. Which proves 1994 was not about just the Rangers, it was about great hockey.

Yes, the cult is small for all three when compared to baseball. But it is significantly larger for the Ranger fan base. In the greater scheme of comparing the popularity of hockey in the NY area, it means nothing.

We agree on something. I would suggest both teams have their share of hard-core die-hard fans here and both have strong fan bases in the tri-state area and in each others market. If one team has sixty thousands fans watching on a large network and the other has thirty thousand on a limited network and both have not won anything other than a playoff spot over a combined 18 seasons I'm not sure what's significant about either team.

You want to refer to things back in 1994 vs today as the basis of anything in 2004 in this market I completely disagree.

 

[NYIsles1*]

It's because the Rangers are so bad. That is it. The only reason why interest has waned in New York. If the Rangers were contenders every year they would have much more press.

So bad? The Rangers were never the worst team in the league. Many years they had a reasonable chance to get into the playoffs going into the final month and added enough star players where they should have gotten some attention in the media but they could not compete with the other sports in the area. Bad is when thanksgiving rolls around and your team is double-digit points out of playoff contention and the season becomes a fifty game pre-season to nowhere. Isles saw a few of them during their seven years without playoffs. That is bad.

In April 2003 all the Rangers had to do was win one game vs the Islanders and they likely would have beaten them out for the eighth seed. No one noticed, same as when they were in first place, nine games over five hundred in Dec 2001.

 

[jratelle19]

You want to refer to things back in 1994 vs today as the basis of anything in 2004 in this market I completely disagree.

That is not what I am trying to do, but if you want to convince yourself of that, don't let me stand in your way. You seem to be the one that refers to this love affair with the Islanders that you suggest that NYC had in the early '80s as a means of equating the Islander fan base to that of the Rangers. If the Rangers could win four Cups in a row (which I don't see ever happening in my lifetime, btw) the buzz over this team in this area would be immense.

Based on Forbes estimate the Islanders made about a million less than the Rangers on Msg last year. (17 million vs 18 million)

OK, so a team with playoff aspirations still made one million less than a team that couldn't put together 3 wins in a row and put together 2 wins in a row a handful of times.

Within a few years hockey was large enough to expand to include a third team based on the success the Islanders had.

It was? Really? I completely disagree and the poor attendance for a franchise who has won 3 Cups in 9 years will tell you that. Yes, the Devils were already behind the 8-ball with getting little coverage on free TV before the SportsChannel era. Difficult to market a new team in any area when people have to pay to watch them, but 3 Cups in 9 years and they still can't sell out their arena. Please spare me the rhetoric about poor public transportation to the arena. That doesn't stop 80,000 people from driving to football games. This glutton started with the 1980 USA team, the Islanders on their Cup run, and the NYC area already having a huge Ranger following. It wasn't going to work and I knew it then as I know it now. This team can win all the Cups that they want. No one is going to care. Try sitting in a bar in Bayonne with the Finals Game 6 against Dallas (the winning game) being played (in OT) and no one is paying attention, but have their eyes glued to the Yankee game. Don't even begin to tell me that the same scene would take place if it were the Rangers in the Finals. Afterwards, you can hear some people saying, "Oh, did you hear that the Devils won the Stanley Cup tonight?" I had to laugh to myself that in the state where this team plays, the Devils winning the Cup was merely an afterthought.

 

[Trottier]

The funniest thing about this bizarre thread topic:

Pose the original preposterous question to Gary Bettman or any TV executive:

"Why do some folks still consider NYC a big hockey market?"

It would be at least ten minutes before they could pick themselves off the floor from laughter. :lol

There's your definitive answer. End of story.