WC Handy said:
Keenan's last year attendance was nearly 17K and I've never been to a game at Savvis that had anywhere close to only 12K seats filled.
You didn't make some of the games early in the 1996-97 season. Trust me, there were many games where 13,000 in actual attendance was an optimistic figure. The Anaheim game (listed below) stands out - I sat in the club seats (free tix!) and there were maybe 11,000 there. The lower bowl was less than half-full, the upper bowl was perhaps half-full. We had 5 other people in our row the entire game. People at Keenan's last home game said there might have been 12,000 people there.
Bottom line, fewer people were buying tickets in '96, and even fewer were actually showing up. That was lots of revenue lost - revenue that could have gone to paying off debt. (Or, signing Adam Creighton to a 3-year, $12 million contract - take your pick.)
And the paid attendance figures for the Blues home games in the '96-97 season before Keenan got the axe:
Oct 4, vs. Colorado - 16,668
Oct.6, vs. Chicago - 15,128
Oct.17, vs. Toronto - 15,173
Oct.20, vs. San Jose - 15,657
Oct.26, vs. Washington - 15,329
Nov. 1, vs. Buffalo - 15,282
Nov. 3, vs. Dallas - 14,386
Nov. 14, vs. Tampa Bay - 14,615
Nov. 16, vs. Calgary - 16,384
Nov. 17, vs. Anaheim - 14,853
Nov. 21, vs. Phoenix - 15,552
Nov. 23, vs. Florida - 19,304
Dec. 1, vs. San Jose - 16,606
Dec. 5, vs. Phoenix - 16,459
Dec. 13, vs. Chicago - 19,634
Dec. 15, vs. Vancouver - 14,368
Laurie didn't buy the team for any amount.. he assumed the team's $100M debt and virtually got the team for free.
Yes...you're right. In essence, he did pay $100 million for the team - had he written a check, it would have paid off the team's debt.