Dale Tallon: Panthers lose "between 28 to 30 million dollars per year"

[Lonewolfe2015]

I’m not expecting sellouts but I’m surprised at just how empty the arena is on a given night.

It's 4 hours between TBL and FLA. If you live mostly anywhere inbetween or north of Tampa, you're going to Tampa to see a game of hockey. And most people in Florida are Tampa Bay fans (better team, still Florida). And that's assuming they even know what hockey is, the average person in Florida probably hasn't even seen a game before unless they moved from up north. The market is too hard for two teams to co-exist honestly.

 

[Skinnyjimmy08]

Usually when teams say this in professional sports that it actually means that they don't make what they are projected to make....

ive always heard/read that if a team says at the start of the year that they project to make 50 million this season but only make 22 million, that is considered a loss of 28 million dollars that season

 

[BB88]

Now imagine the coyotes.

Get rid of these joke teams seriously. It’s for the good of hockey.

I think adding Q+ Panarin+ Bob would quite quickly change things for Florida.

They start selling the arena and become a regular playoff team.

 

[covfefe]

Owning a pro sports team is a pet project for really rich individuals and/or consortiums of really rich individuals. Like the Pegula quote above - if these guys wanted to generate cash, they would do it elsewhere.

But even all the money in the Blackrock's, Renaissance Technologies, etc, of the world still can't buy you a Stanley Cup. Which is what some of 'em really want to have, once they've run the proverbial scoreboard up so far that it's run out of digits...

 

[Gentle Man]

ITT: People caring over something that shouldn't matter.

Where is the cry to relocate Ottawa? Give me a break. You aren't the ones losing money. Does it hurt you that much that Florida still has a team or you guys just need to cool off

Ticket sales increased immediately after signing Q. All the fans ever want is for ownership to finally put into action what they promised they are committed to do.

Provide a winner and they will show. Don't compare South Florida to other cities. Hockey isnt all there is there. Quality product = Sales.

Shit product = Shit Sales. It's not rocket science. Get over it.

 

[Nihiliste]

If Florida starts winning, miami and broward fans will bandwagon on. But as soon as they stop winning they’ll be back off the train.

 

[FinlandPanther]

I assure you Florida loses more

And I assure you New Jersey doesn’t make a profit either.

 

[Hischier and Hughes]

And I assure you New Jersey doesn’t make a profit either.

Youd be very wrong

Read up on it sometime

 

[mr figgles]

The Flyers didn't get Quenneville, but they still get to pay his salary.

 

[FinlandPanther]

Youd be very wrong

Read up on it sometime

You’re bankrupt. Just Becuase you won the lottery doesn’t mean you have money. Jersey is broke.

 

[ovythegiraffe]

Isn't it pretty common for a sports team to lose money though? Simple formula, there are lots of people to whom sports is more important than money so they over-pay players in order to be competitive. And then the teams that were financially successful before need to over pay players too to stay competitive.

I know Finnish Elite League is pretty notorious for it. Pretty much every organization loses money and players get payed much more than what revenue they generate. Some of it has even been compensated with tax-payer money which is f***ed

 

[WingsFan95]

Tampa until maybe past few seasons and the Panthers have never maintained a consistent fanbase. I was pleasantly surprised with my trip to LA that Anaheim despite a poor season was able to largely fill out a stadium but I got tickets for $10 so gotta weigh that.

The reality in financial terms is if you're able to consistently get decent seats in the range of $10-15 on the resale market the team isn't doing as well as it should. A 17,000 seat stadium getting 80% capacity averaging $25 a ticket for example means $340,000 on the night in box office. Obviously there's a lot of variables, those are resale numbers, you also have vendors and what they make etc, etc. But basically if a team's salary alone is 80 million that means you want to average at least 2 million in box office for the home games. Do that on paper covering team salary with ticket sales and you'll likely be in the green with parking, merch, vendors covering stadium and staff costs plus net income.

But when you got half empty arenas and resale market is about $10 I can't imagine the team is doing well.

 

[Hischier and Hughes]

You’re bankrupt. Just Becuase you won the lottery doesn’t mean you have money. Jersey is broke.

Lmao factually incorrect

Keep it going though

 

[WingsFan95]

Isn't it pretty common for a sports team to lose money though? Simple formula, there are lots of people to whom sports is more important than money so they over-pay players in order to be competitive. And then the teams that were financially successful before need to over pay players too to stay competitive.

I know Finnish Elite League is pretty notorious for it. Pretty much every organization loses money and players get payed much more than what revenue they generate. Some of it has even been compensated with tax-payer money which is ****ed

Really depends on the money involved. Minor leagues these days are often used for tax write-offs. If you're making say 200 million in revenue from businesses not related to hockey and are in line to cough up $70 million in taxes, you really shouldn't care if your minor league team loses close to that amount because you'd basically have to pay that in taxes anyway and at least this way you have bragging rights and free advertisement for your other ventures. Quite simple really.

On the NHL level however it only makes sense if you're into the billions and since the coverage is so much bigger it's less appealing to have a loser team and government keeping a closer eye on your books. Charity donations help though.

 

[Beezeral]

Ahh the nice, look how much money we are losing comment, please ignore that Taylor Swift just sold out 2 straight nights while the team was on the road and Maroon 5 is already sold out for next Sunday comments.

 

[King In The North]

31 Thoughts: Breaking down major NHL Awards races - Sportsnet.ca

Well regardless of the accounting going on within the team's books, it's nice to know they have a committed ownership.

Panthers could really go places.

 

[SotasicA]

They could easily make all that money back by reintroducing the Spacey in Space sweater.

 

[Edmonton East]

I'm gonna make an ugly analogy as I sit in a pointless meeting.

Sports teams are like houses in that you don't necessarily buy with the intent to make money each year. Rather, you make a solid return on the sale as the value appreciates - demand for buying a team increases while the Supply remains mostly the same.

 

[Voight]

If Florida starts winning, miami and broward fans will bandwagon on. But as soon as they stop winning they’ll be back off the train.

I'm not too sure about that. IMO one of the reasons the Lightning do so well other than being really good is that when football season is over, the winter is all theirs. The Panthers have to compete with the Heat as well as various NCAA BBall teams. In a non traditional area nonetheless. Lightning dont have much to compete with for ticket sales/eyeballs, Rays have always had problems so they dont really even interfere with them.

 

[Leaf19]

Really depends on the money involved. Minor leagues these days are often used for tax write-offs. If you're making say 200 million in revenue from businesses not related to hockey and are in line to cough up $70 million in taxes, you really shouldn't care if your minor league team loses close to that amount because you'd basically have to pay that in taxes anyway and at least this way you have bragging rights and free advertisement for your other ventures. Quite simple really.

On the NHL level however it only makes sense if you're into the billions and since the coverage is so much bigger it's less appealing to have a loser team and government keeping a closer eye on your books. Charity donations help though.

That is not how it works at all. If they have a $70 million tax liability on $200 million in net profit, the minor league team would have to lose $200 million to negate that $70 million tax liability. That’s like saying you should turn down a $2000 bonus because it will put you in a higher tax bracket. If the minor league team loses $70 million, you’re only saving $24.5 million in taxes based on the same ratio you used (70/200).

 

[Voight]

Ballmer is the most-hilarious story. He was such an incompetent CEO that his personal shares of Microsoft rose $2 billion on the day he announced he was quitting. The Clippers were basically a gift to him for retirement.

The Lakers/Knicks loved it because their values went thru the roof but the best part was the NBA wanting Sterling out and then him receiving 2 billion for 30 years of mediocrity. Then you had the Bucks (who were average at the time) sell for more than half a billion.

All 29 other owners love Ballmer.

Sorry, what? There's plenty of teams that generate positive cash flows, and even for the teams that do lose money, the franchises value just keep rising yty which can make even non-profitable teams a worthwhile investment by the time the owner wants to resell the team.

For example, the Molson family bought the Habs for 500M in 2009. Forbes recently valued the Habs franchise at 1.3B$ 10 years later.

Even ignoring the operating income, you're looking at a 160% yield over 10 years, which is roughly a 10% increase in value per year.

And again, that's ignoring the operating income of the franchise.

They really only get their Golden Parachute/egg when they sell. Loria lost metric tons of money running the Marlins but sold them for over a billion.

 

[tarheelhockey]

I get the people want to spend thier hard earned money on a winner but the panthers weren’t exactly a bottom of the Barrel team. They have Barkov who’s one of the best players in the NHL.
I’m not expecting sellouts but I’m surprised at just how empty the arena is on a given night.

I’m an isles fan and when I went to the game they happened to be playing the rangers. So many New Yorkers in FLA and the place was probably half ranger fans. I can’t imagine how empty the building would have been had they not played a New York team.

Again, this is heavily driven by season tickets. Say you get down to 6000 STH, to draw a decent crowd you're now talking about selling 10000+ tickets at a much higher price point as walk-ups... at the same time that many of those STH are trying to scalp their seats. It's incredibly hard to do that, especially when the games are meaningless. The only way to reach a strong attendance number is to float it with a large STH base.

So the next question becomes, how do you sell those season tickets? Why would someone spend $5000 to get the whole slate of games, when they can just as easily pick and choose from the games they actually want to see? The answer is "playoff priority", so if playoffs are a distant fantasy you have a REAL problem in your sales office. They are selling people on something which economically doesn't make any sense at all.

This is why even huge hockey markets like Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh will see deep declines in attendance during long losing stretches. When season tickets stop holding value, the bottom falls out.

 

[Bounces R Way]

Feels pretty good knowing I made more money than the Florida Panthers last year.

 

[RadekBong]

View attachment 211917
Lmao factually incorrect

Keep it going though

Not questioning the validity, just curious what those numbers mean. Mind posting a link / screen grab of the top of the chart?

 

[Hischier and Hughes]

Not questioning the validity, just curious what those numbers mean. Mind posting a link / screen grab of the top of the chart?

Gladly, ill tag you in it when I get back home and can post the link