The AHL is undergoing an existential issue right now. What should it serve to minimize? NHL-AHL call-up times, travel times between AHL games, or monetary losses?
It is cannot serve all of those constraints for long. If there is an advantage to having your farm players "close by", as in "within a 2-3 hour car ride" - and I suspect there is primarily for salary-cap reasons - then there are significant problems with these cities in the AHL: Portland, Syracuse/Binghamton (one could possibly partner with Ottawa), Milwaukee, Bakersfield, St. John's (we know they're going), Utica.
Basically you would end up with an AHL that aligned very closely with the NHL - for each NHL city, draw a 150 mile map and find a place to put an AHL team. That strategy increases the costs of travel, and also forces teams to play long road trips.
If you go in the other direction, then you need an NHL that is tight enough to keep travel costs down - but you either need 30 teams in one geographic area (not likely), or you need separate divisions that can play more or less independently. But neither of those strategies works with the "must be within 150 miles of the NHL team" philosophy.
For the third thing, attendance, the AHL used to be a 3,000 to 5,000 persons per game league, with a couple of outliers. It is now a 5,000 to 10,000 persons per game league, and is trying hard to become a 7,500 to 10,000 persons per game league. That is at odds with both the other strategies because larger cities are more spread out, and larger cities are often not near NHL cities.
Regarding Springfield, there are a few issues which I'd like to address. First off, a team doesn't garner fans simply by being there - they have to sell and market themself. The current ownership of the Falcons was abysmal. I would attribute a 1,000 fans decrease per game due to the ownership and the team president. They didn't know what they were doing at all, they didn't follow up on leads for tickets, they didn't even know how to sell tickets. I asked my season ticket representative about having more flexibility with seats this year, and he said "well, maybe season tickets just aren't for you". That is preposterous for a salesperson to say.
Next, a team needs to have at least some winning seasons. Prior to their Columbus affiliation, the team was legitimately bad for 12 straight years, making the playoffs just once in that period (it was when the AHL expanded the playoffs with a Qualification Round). They had four seasons where their winning percentage was in the 0.300's, and if you omit the percentage inflation due to SOL/OTL, in their worst season they were under 0.300 until the final game of the year, which put them exactly at 0.300. In another of those years, the Falcons had a 17 game losing streak. Winning matters, people do not want to go to game after game to see the team lose more than 70% of the time. I would estimate that the losing cost the franchise, cumulatively, another 1,000 fans per game.
The Columbus affiliation was a step in the right direction. Not only was the team winning, but they played a better brand of hockey. It was more exciting to watch. Attendance went up a bit, but the ownership group did not promote the team. That culminated with this final season with the only newspaper in Springfield not covering the games with a reporter. They only printed a small blurb in the paper written by the team's radio broadcaster (or by a computer - the writeups were poorly done). There were no day-of-game articles, and the team even stopped sending updates to its email list (which I bet must have several thousand names on it). I'm curious, is there any other AHL market where the news media doesn't even cover the team?
The Springfield market can't compete with San Diego or Ontario CA - it's not going to get 8,000 fans per game. However it is possible to get 5,000 fans per game with a decent team and a decent front office. Unfortunately that isn't the direction in which the AHL is moving. They want higher attendances, and they want a geographically diverse league aligned with NHL teams. There are just 5 Atlantic NHL teams (excluding the Canadian teams who will likely want their affiliates in Canada due to exchange issues), that means there can be just 5 Atlantic AHL teams. When there are 10-12 teams in the Atlantic seaboard, Springfield can fit. It just isn't in the top 5.
It is cannot serve all of those constraints for long. If there is an advantage to having your farm players "close by", as in "within a 2-3 hour car ride" - and I suspect there is primarily for salary-cap reasons - then there are significant problems with these cities in the AHL: Portland, Syracuse/Binghamton (one could possibly partner with Ottawa), Milwaukee, Bakersfield, St. John's (we know they're going), Utica.
Basically you would end up with an AHL that aligned very closely with the NHL - for each NHL city, draw a 150 mile map and find a place to put an AHL team. That strategy increases the costs of travel, and also forces teams to play long road trips.
If you go in the other direction, then you need an NHL that is tight enough to keep travel costs down - but you either need 30 teams in one geographic area (not likely), or you need separate divisions that can play more or less independently. But neither of those strategies works with the "must be within 150 miles of the NHL team" philosophy.
For the third thing, attendance, the AHL used to be a 3,000 to 5,000 persons per game league, with a couple of outliers. It is now a 5,000 to 10,000 persons per game league, and is trying hard to become a 7,500 to 10,000 persons per game league. That is at odds with both the other strategies because larger cities are more spread out, and larger cities are often not near NHL cities.
Regarding Springfield, there are a few issues which I'd like to address. First off, a team doesn't garner fans simply by being there - they have to sell and market themself. The current ownership of the Falcons was abysmal. I would attribute a 1,000 fans decrease per game due to the ownership and the team president. They didn't know what they were doing at all, they didn't follow up on leads for tickets, they didn't even know how to sell tickets. I asked my season ticket representative about having more flexibility with seats this year, and he said "well, maybe season tickets just aren't for you". That is preposterous for a salesperson to say.
Next, a team needs to have at least some winning seasons. Prior to their Columbus affiliation, the team was legitimately bad for 12 straight years, making the playoffs just once in that period (it was when the AHL expanded the playoffs with a Qualification Round). They had four seasons where their winning percentage was in the 0.300's, and if you omit the percentage inflation due to SOL/OTL, in their worst season they were under 0.300 until the final game of the year, which put them exactly at 0.300. In another of those years, the Falcons had a 17 game losing streak. Winning matters, people do not want to go to game after game to see the team lose more than 70% of the time. I would estimate that the losing cost the franchise, cumulatively, another 1,000 fans per game.
The Columbus affiliation was a step in the right direction. Not only was the team winning, but they played a better brand of hockey. It was more exciting to watch. Attendance went up a bit, but the ownership group did not promote the team. That culminated with this final season with the only newspaper in Springfield not covering the games with a reporter. They only printed a small blurb in the paper written by the team's radio broadcaster (or by a computer - the writeups were poorly done). There were no day-of-game articles, and the team even stopped sending updates to its email list (which I bet must have several thousand names on it). I'm curious, is there any other AHL market where the news media doesn't even cover the team?
The Springfield market can't compete with San Diego or Ontario CA - it's not going to get 8,000 fans per game. However it is possible to get 5,000 fans per game with a decent team and a decent front office. Unfortunately that isn't the direction in which the AHL is moving. They want higher attendances, and they want a geographically diverse league aligned with NHL teams. There are just 5 Atlantic NHL teams (excluding the Canadian teams who will likely want their affiliates in Canada due to exchange issues), that means there can be just 5 Atlantic AHL teams. When there are 10-12 teams in the Atlantic seaboard, Springfield can fit. It just isn't in the top 5.
