Good little article: When is enough enough for southern markets?

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Fidel Astro

Registered User
Aug 26, 2010
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Winnipeg, MB
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The team in Saskatoon/Regina may struggle in terms of corporate support, but I believe that the fan support would definitely be there. Package that with television rights and I don't think the team would struggle too badly. At the very least it should make a small profit which is huge for a franchise that has bled money for decades.

Unfortunately, I don't think there's ever going to be an NHL team in Saskatchewan.
 

MoreOrr

B4
Jun 20, 2006
24,420
438
Mexico
more southern NHL team bashing
even I am tired of this

It all has become rather repetitive, hasn't it.

Perhaps, at least for HFBoard members, we should all be limited to one franchise that we get to pick on, to point the finger at, and argue that it shouldn't exist. You select your franchise, and no bashing of any other teams allowed (this doesn't include teams you hate as rivals).
 

BeachBolt

Registered User
Jun 2, 2010
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Tampa
Agreed.

Tampa Bay (one of the top teams in the league, only drawgin 83.7% capacity)



Why do you use % capacity? The St Pete Times forum (cap 19,758) is one of the largest arenas in the NHL. If we were playing in Nashville (17,113) or San Jose (17,562) or any other smaller building, but were still drawing mid 16k on average, would it really matter that our % capacity was a few percentage points higher? If we played in Nashville's arena, our % capacity would be 97%, if in San Jose's building we'd be at 94%. If we were pulling those kinds of % numbers right now in our current building we'd be top 10 in the league in attendance.


Look, I wish our attendance was better, however I don't believe this is anything to be embarrassed over. In fact, I'm really looking forward to seeing it jump during our mega home stand coming up. Also, if one truly understands the demographics as well as the current economic state of the area you would be able to better grasp this franchise. It's easy to sit on a computer in Canada and look at raw numbers and make statements, but its another thing to fully understand a region and it's people and what affects those raw numbers.

Everyone agrees that the economy is bad everywhere, but Tampa, which is largely a blue collar town to begin with focuses on real estate, shipping, and tourism economically....all of which are in the crapper. There are obviously a ton of these out there but this study shows Tampa as being the second worst NHL city to find a job in, according to one web site.

http://www.careercast.com/content/10-worst-cities-find-job-0

Of NHL cities, Detroit is 2nd worst, Tampa is 4th, LA is 7th, and St. Louis is the 8th worst. Those are the only NHL cities in the bottom 10.

The top 10 best cities to find a job in includes the following NHL cities... 1. Washington DC, 2. Boston, 6. Atlanta, 7. Chicago, 8. NYC, and 9. Denver.


I'm not making claims that our attendance is good because I too think it can and should be better, but being one of the smaller markets in the NHL, as well as having one of the worst economies in the league currently, it's not all that hard to figure out how our attendance is not outstanding.
 
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bacon25

Unenthusiastic User
Nov 29, 2010
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My suggestion is for Canada to get 2x bigger if they want your idea to happen.

Good point, and when Canada is projeted to become 2x bigger we Canadians are going to have a heck of a time selling the game to those that have come from around the world. Canada's growth comes from immigration and soon I predict we are going to need to be selling hockey to Canadians.

But I must mention just because a city has a massive population does not nessecesarily mean more ticket revenue, no offense Phoenix.
 

y2kcanucks

Le Sex God
Aug 3, 2006
71,229
10,319
Surrey, BC
My suggestion is for Canada to get 2x bigger if they want your idea to happen.

Population size is not necessarily the best indicator of team support. Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal have a combined metro population of 2.1M which is 3 times less than that of Atlanta (for example). Yet support in Vancouver is extremely high.

Metro Edmonton and Metro Calgary have populations just over 1M and yet those teams are much better supported than any of the previously mentioned Southern teams. And all these Canadian cities are paying much higher ticket prices than these Southern teams as well.

So really, I fail to see what a cities population has to do with team support when these previously mentioned examples suggest otherwise.
 

tarheelhockey

Offside Review Specialist
Feb 12, 2010
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So really, I fail to see what a cities population has to do with team support when these previously mentioned examples suggest otherwise.

If you're going to advocate for the relocation of an entire division, I reserve the right to dismiss your idea by saying "Canada's too small" without further explanation.

One half-baked idea deserves another.
 

y2kcanucks

Le Sex God
Aug 3, 2006
71,229
10,319
Surrey, BC
If you're going to advocate for the relocation of an entire division, I reserve the right to dismiss your idea by saying "Canada's too small" without further explanation.

One half-baked idea deserves another.

Except it's not all that half-baked when you look at the numbers. A franchise that isn't drawing fans, that isn't generating even mediocre TV ratings, that is consistently losing money on a yearly basis, obviously isn't a healthy franchise. If they all happen to be in the same division/geographical location, maybe that's telling about the demographics in that area and that hockey just isn't working in that market in general?
 

MoreOrr

B4
Jun 20, 2006
24,420
438
Mexico
If you're going to advocate for the relocation of an entire division, I reserve the right to dismiss your idea by saying "Canada's too small" without further explanation.

One half-baked idea deserves another.

Let me help you a little with that...

Combined population of North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida = 38,194,120
Canada = 34,238,035
 

Brodie

the dream of the 90s is alive in Detroit
Mar 19, 2009
15,399
359
Chicago
It's not just population but also lack of corporate support and TV presence. The NHL could put a team in Saskatoon or Regina and hope for some Green Bay Packers style magic, but they wouldn't make any money off of said experiment and it would be a drag on the league.
 

Jamin

Registered User
Aug 25, 2009
4,924
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So why is it considered trolling southern teams?

Do they sell out? Are they losing money yearly? Do they generate tv revenue?

If carolina cant sell out after winning the cup when are they ever gonna sell out? As someone said if tampa being a top team in the east cant sell out when will it happen. If two teams fail to survive in Atlanta why is it considered trolling southern fans? Everything I said is true. If you say baseball/basketball/fottball suck in canada we dont cry about it
 

Acesolid

The Illusive Bettman
Sep 21, 2010
2,531
319
Québec
But Canada's too small.

Yea, and many of the US's cities have large sections of slums and ghettos plagued by very high criminality, very low land value, very high unemployments and even blocs and blocs of empty foreclosed homes. Not exactly NHL fan material.

Quebec city has almost no unemployment and an high-tech jobs and government focussed economy. (on top of being hockey mad) It more then makes up for the population differences.
 

headsigh

leave at once!
Oct 5, 2008
9,867
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Atlanta
ofthesouth.blogspot.com
It's not just population but also lack of corporate support and TV presence. The NHL could put a team in Saskatoon or Regina and hope for some Green Bay Packers style magic, but they wouldn't make any money off of said experiment and it would be a drag on the league.

I couldn't see the NHL getting that golden grail TV deal with teams in Saskatoon or Regina. Winnipeg is a stretch in my humble opinion and I think the best candidate for the NHL would be Quebec City.

As much as we'd like to think it's still Canada's game I think it's pretty obvious that the NHL in Bettman's eyes is a primarily American league and he doesn't care much for those markets, and most likely the sponsors he's trying to woo aren't.

On paper, it's a lot more easier to sell to ESPN Atlanta vs St. Louis or Tampa Bay vs New York than Minnesota vs Moose Jaw or whatnot. Obviously they can do the marketing handwave for Montreal and Toronto seeing they have big american fan bases but they're shy to catch up to other markets and if the numbers are any indication the average american is too. 07 Stanley Cup finals were low in the US, and I'm going to take a gander is because Ottawa's not an attractive locale for US watchers. Chicago-Philadelphia was, and Detroit-Pittsburgh as well.

Maybe I'm rambling but the NHL revenue-wise is probably better with (successful) US markets than small canadian ones. It's been shown that when given the chance to not suck horribly, each of the southern/modern expansion markets can sell out. Dallas showed it as they were top 10-15 in attendance until last year's nosedive. Nashville shows it, Carolina shows it, the california teams show it, Florida showed it in '96 and Tampa in 03. In the right climate, any of the struggling markets can succeed. Atlanta had its first sell-out in quite some time this year vs Boston, and make no mistake that the attendance and interest picked up because of the team ACTUALLY DOING SOMETHING. The question is, does Bettman have the patience of the canadian media or want to wait it out so these franchises can get on a good note and start drawing interest?
 

tarheelhockey

Offside Review Specialist
Feb 12, 2010
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Bojangles Parking Lot
It's not just population but also lack of corporate support and TV presence.

Nah, it's all population. If you're not the size of Raleigh or bigger, you don't deserve a team.

Quebec city has almost no unemployment and an high-tech jobs and government focussed economy. (on top of being hockey mad) It more then makes up for the population differences.

But it's too small. Sorry.
 

danishh

Registered User
Dec 9, 2006
33,018
53
YOW
the bottom line is that the NHL BOG and bettman want to move away from being a gate-driven league. There are limits to how far a gate-driven league can grow. In a gate-driven league, there will always be teams that lose money when they are losing.

The NHL needs the tv contracts. That is why we are in 'the south'. I'll wait and see what happens with the next round of contracts before i make up my mind on whether the strategy is working or not.
 

Ogopogo*

Guest
Let me help you a little with that...

Combined population of North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida = 38,194,120
Canada = 34,238,035

The only problem is of the 38 million in those three states, there are about 50,000 hockey fans.

Of the 34 million in Canada, there are 10 million hockey fans.
 
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