Confirmed with Link: Albany Devils moving to Binghamton, NY

[Zippy316]

The only place in NJ that may make sense down the road for a Devils minor league team is to build a new arena in the area between Red Bank & Neptune, East of the GSP.

There is a large population shift from North Jersey down that way in recent years and it should continue.

New Brunswick is too close to Newark for it to make sense.

I'd say even further South. Somewhere in between Lakewood/Brick and Toms River would have some pretty large populations to draw from. Then you also have to consider the bigger towns inland like Manalapan and Freehold and the towns further North of there like the are you are talking about.

But then two main problems arise.

Will a team in that area stop fans from southern Monmouth County and Ocean County from making the trip to Newark?

Who builds/funds/etc an arena in that location and where?

 

[devilsblood]

I'd say even further South. Somewhere in between Lakewood/Brick and Toms River would have some pretty large populations to draw from. Then you also have to consider the bigger towns inland like Manalapan and Freehold and the towns further North of there like the are you are talking about.

But then two main problems arise.

Will a team in that area stop fans from southern Monmouth County and Ocean County from making the trip to Newark?

Who builds/funds/etc an arena in that location and where?

1)Again, I say the opposite happens. It helps build the fan base. Youth Hockey is growing at a good clip in NJ, such a move helps keep that moving fwd, while also bringing a higher % of those fans in as Devil fans as opposed to NYR or Philly fans.

2)This is the bigger question. Perhaps where I am Pie in Sky mode. who builds it? Obviously someone with $$$. Where? Close to an interstate, or the GSP, about 1 hr away from Newark, and near people.

 

[DatBoyJPP]

Well Lakewood drew 350k+ plus fans this past season. Average attendance 5350. They have led the south atlantic league every year of their existence. Stands at 16 years and counting.

We've already gone over why you can't compare single A baseball to the AHL

 

[Zippy316]

We've already gone over why you can't compare single A baseball to the AHL

Well yes, but AHL could likely work in the Lakewood/Brick area.

The trip to Philly, Newark, or NYC to Lakewood is pretty decent trip so you have some separation as far as that goes. There's very little competition as far as alternative options especially in the winter.

You have a pretty sizable population to draw from in the immediate area. Lakewood is growing quick and is now the 7th most populous municipality in NJ. In addition, you have good sized towns to draw from further North like Middletown, Freehold, Red Bank, Holmdel, etc. By comparison, within a 30 mile radius of Binghamton, there is 317,000 people. I'd be willing to bet there's a way larger population within 30 miles of Lakewood/Brick.

There's also a pretty big youth scene in the area. Brick, Red Bank, Toms River, CBA, etc. all field high school hockey teams and there's a good deal of local rinks in the area for youth hockey.

You also have a pretty big distributor base to pull from as far as sponsorships/partnerships with the team as well.

It could work there, but then again, it's all a moot point until there's an adequate arena.

 

[devilsblood]

We've already gone over why you can't compare single A baseball to the AHL

Apples and Oranges. The Blueclaws are a Class A team. People go there for cheap family fun, not to see future MLB prospects.

Wait, why is the bold only relevant to single A baseball? Why would that not be relevant to hockey?

 

[DatBoyJPP]

Well yes, but AHL could likely work in the Lakewood/Brick area.

The trip to Philly, Newark, or NYC to Lakewood is pretty decent trip so you have some separation as far as that goes. There's very little competition as far as alternative options especially in the winter.

You have a pretty sizable population to draw from in the immediate area. Lakewood is growing quick and is now the 7th most populous municipality in NJ. In addition, you have good sized towns to draw from further North like Middletown, Freehold, Red Bank, Holmdel, etc. By comparison, within a 30 mile radius of Binghamton, there is 317,000 people. I'd be willing to bet there's a way larger population within 30 miles of Lakewood/Brick.

There's also a pretty big youth scene in the area. Brick, Red Bank, Toms River, CBA, etc. all field high school hockey teams and there's a good deal of local rinks in the area for youth hockey.

You also have a pretty big distributor base to pull from as far as sponsorships/partnerships with the team as well.

It could work there, but then again, it's all a moot point until there's an adequate arena.

For that to work it would have to be the immediate population. People won't be traveling an hour plus consistently. They'll pick and choose select games and promotions which then comes back to a previous point of mine that you'd need to locals to pull their weight with season tickets. Is it possible, sure, but I wouldn't hold my breath on it. It would certainly be a gamble to move there

 

[DatBoyJPP]

Wait, why is the bold only relevant to single A baseball? Why would that not be relevant to hockey?

Because the area is definitely more of a baseball community currently

 

[devilsblood]

Even the Flyers figured that out and moved the Phantoms out of Philly

Think they moved cause they tore the old spectrum down. Phantoms drew very well in Philly. Just one season here, but Phantoms led the AHL in Attendance in 97-98, averaging over 12K per game, while the Flyers averaged 19K.

Phantoms apparently sold out a 17 K arena 8 times in the regular season, and then a bunch more in the playoffs. Also had 17K+ for their final game in the Spectrum.

Have to hand it to eastern Pa, they do support some hockey.

 

[devilsblood]

Because the area is definitely more of a baseball community currently

As evidenced by the support of the BlueClaws?

 

[Triumph]

As evidenced by the support of the BlueClaws?

As evidenced by tv ratings for baseball which probably beat hockey 5 to 1.

 

[devilsblood]

As evidenced by tv ratings for baseball which probably beat hockey 5 to 1.

You have TV ratings for the Lakewood area?

I can't find them. If you also have TV ratings for Eastern PA, which supports a ton of minor league hockey, that would be an interesting comparison.

 

[CHIP72]

Maybe I'm just really cheap, but $20 sounds like a lot for a minor league game.

That's about the price I typically pay to see the big Devils. And that's only if I didn't get them for free.

If you look at non-resale ticket prices for nearby AHL teams like Lehigh Valley and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, the going rate for most non-premium tickets is in the $25 range. Even Reading in the ECHL doesn't have that many single-game tickets too far below $20.

Incidentally, minor league hockey tickets have always seemed expensive to me too, especially compared to minor league baseball games (where for most teams you can get in for $10-12 and in some cases less).

 

[Zippy316]

Some interesting context on the A-Devils move to Albany. As expected, it seems purely financial. Binghamton is basically covering all loses which is not a bad deal to pass up especially when they said the Devils were losing "multi-seven figures" (!!!) in Albany and footing the bill.

http://www.timesunion.com/sports/ar...-spurs-Devils-move-to-Binghamton-10898654.php

None of that matters to New Jersey. The city of Binghamton and Broome County inherit the operating costs. Weber said the AHL team's losses in Albany were "multi-seven-figure."

"That's one of the reasons the Devils are leaving here," said McClaine, speaking on behalf of the arena because building GM Bob Belber is out of town. "I don't know how they're doing it, but I wish them the best of luck."

Weber said the team's primary attraction to Albany when the Devils landed here seven years ago was its proximity to Newark. It made it easy to shuttle players between the NHL and AHL.

"Albany was always a great option for us making sure that we were having the infrastructure around them and getting them to the big club," Weber said. "At the same time, what we hoped to achieve, in addition to the investment we were making with the players, is to try and get the business expense and the revenues to balance out. Instead, it was a pretty big drain, and has been for a long time."

 

[Devils Dominion]

Some interesting context on the A-Devils move to Albany. As expected, it seems purely financial. Binghamton is basically covering all loses which is not a bad deal to pass up especially when they said the Devils were losing "multi-seven figures" (!!!) in Albany and footing the bill.

http://www.timesunion.com/sports/ar...-spurs-Devils-move-to-Binghamton-10898654.php

Having regular 334 Club crowds during the weeknights in Albany didn't help keep the team there too.

 

[Zippy316]

Having regular 334 Club crowds during the weeknights in Albany didn't help keep the team there too.

Well the low crowd numbers combined with a large facility (believe TUC can hold 13,000) definitely meant they were incurring heavy losses.

Binghamton is definitely a far inferior facility, but it's probably much cheaper to maintain and run. It's basically a decent college rink, but you don't really need much more than that at the AHL level.

 

[mmazz22]

Binghamton and Broome county are not covering any losses. That article is wrong. The local Binghamton group would not do this if they were losing money. They have operated Binghamton AHL franchises for almost 30 years.
They are not losing money.
This deal is win for NJ as they no longer have operating losses and will make money on affiliation fee.
It's a win for Bing because AHL stays and a win for local group because they'll make a little coin.
The Albany paper article is very inaccurate.

 

[Devils Dominion]

Binghamton and Broome county are not covering any losses. That article is wrong. The local Binghamton group would not do this if they were losing money. They have operated Binghamton AHL franchises for almost 30 years.
They are not losing money.
This deal is win for NJ as they no longer have operating losses and will make money on affiliation fee.
It's a win for Bing because AHL stays and a win for local group because they'll make a little coin.
The Albany paper article is very inaccurate.

Yep, a lot of opinion and speculation by the Albany paper writer.

 

[thecoffeecake]

Just a few last points because you have no idea what you're talking about.

High per capita tourists only means the base population is low, which is bad because the team would have no season ticket holders to fall back on

New Jersey gamblers are flocking to Sands and Parx and are not going to AC in numbers like they used to. Trying to rely on out of state tourists that don't care about the Devils in any way shape of form would fail and fail spectacularly.

AC's busiest months are the summer, aka not in hockey season

AC relies a lot of Asian tourists and gamblers, which in a way will sound terrible, but are not hockey's target audience

Doing better than Albany's poor attendance numbers is a very low bar for metrics and doing it for one game a season is a very poor sample size

The base population is low, just about the same as Binghamton. Good work.

When was the last time you were in Atlantic City? You're vastly overestimating the share of Asians that vacation there.

Atlantic City has lost a lot of the diehard gamblers to other casinos, but that's not the tourist population you're relying on for any economic impact outside of the casinos themselves anyway. It's still an incredibly popular short-vacation destination locally. I can speak on Ocean County and Philadelphia, it's probably the most popular party/weekend destination for those areas. The stadium wouldn't be filled with tourists, but it gives AC a major advantage over Binghamton in terms of raw number of people available to attend a game, period. You can argue AC has lost tourists, there are more in the summer, whatever, but there are still drastically more people around to catch a game in AC than in Binghamton because of the tourism factor.

Hockey in Atlantic City, between the old ECHL days and the few shows the Albany Devils put on there did better than Binghamton, too. Why are we putting the team there if they only marginally outdrew Albany last year?

The argument here isn't between Atlantic City/Trenton and Milwaukee or Quebec City or Cleveland or either Portland or Charlotte or Baltimore. What we're talking here is two small cities of about the same size in lightly populared areas. There is no reason the team shouldn't be in New Jersey unless the place they were putting the team had a major advantage over a potential New Jersey location. Binghamton absolutely does not, the team should be here.

We've already gone over why you can't compare single A baseball to the AHL

Because the area is definitely more of a baseball community currently

As evidenced by tv ratings for baseball which probably beat hockey 5 to 1.

America prefers baseball to hockey, save for a few specific regions, so what exactly is your point? Again, are we supposed to export all of our minor league hockey to areas where hockey is the more popular sport? You tried arguing minor league sports don't work in New Jersey, you tried arguing affiliations different from the major professional team popular in the region don't work, but the BlueClaws succeed under these factors.