Strachan Blames Nashville for Big Market Foes

[BlueAndWhite]

They have a waiting list for season tickets, the best selling merchandise in the league, and the highest TV ratings in America (more money from MSG) despite being in one of the leagues smallest and poorest markets.

Any sources on the "best selling merchandise in the league" and "highest TV ratings in America" ?

No offense but I find that slightly hard to believe.

 

[joshjull]

Any sources on the "best selling merchandise in the league" and "highest TV ratings in America" ?

No offense but I find that slightly hard to believe.

Mostly because I'm lazy today I don't have a link. But in the Buffalo News it has been reported that they are the top selling merchandise. That shouldn't be too hard to believe since they have new unis to sell and they are playing well. As for the ratings. I do recall last year they had the highest ratings for Versus (then OLN) for the Cup finals. I believe they had about 20% of the total viewership. Those ratings didn't include folks like myself that watch the games on CBC.

 

[KzooShark]

They got Havlat for one year of Tom Preissing, two fringe prospects and a second round pick. That's a song for one of the better young players in the game.

That's what happens when one of the better young players in the game says he's going to test the free agent market in a year. Chicago then paid through the nose to keep him past that one year.

 

[nomorekids]

i'd be bummed about this, if it weren't..well, you know...al strachan.

call me when someone with some credibility is saying this stuff.

 

[daynus]

i wonder

where a team like philly fits into the picture. i know in the past, the detroits, New York Rangers and Flyers were, well from a canadian perspective, the Alberta of the NHL, throwing money to keep the small caps afloat, and now my flyers are a rock bottom team, i wonder if they are still an "Alberta" of the NHL, which is ironic to myself personally as i am a moderate politically, fiscally conservative and left wing socially. it would be mind boggling if the flyers payed into the pot to keep small market teams afloat. so as clarke would say we pay to give away our own players,to a uh socialist (receiving) team.

god i hope there is a loophole for poor Ed Snyder. cuz its gonna be a few years for us to reload.

 

[MLH]

Any sources on the "best selling merchandise in the league" and "highest TV ratings in America" ?

No offense but I find that slightly hard to believe.

Well, believe it. Here's a link for the merchandise sales on NHL.com. http://www.hockeybuzz.com/blog.php?post_id=3561 (I know it's hockeybuzz, but it's cut and pasted from NHL.com) Sabres merchandise sales up nearly 1200% and 5 of the top 9 selling jerseys are Sabre players. As for getting jerseys in the Buffalo area, good luck. There are half hour waiting lines in the "Sabres Store" in HSBC after games and they can't keep merchandise on the shelves.

As for the TV ratings, Buffalo is the highest in America by a wide margin. They averaged a 5.0 rating last season and are hoping for a 7.0 rating this season. I think Detroit is second with a 4.1 rating. Buffalo had the highest loacal ratings ever for a regular season game on Versus (over a 10) and during the playoffs Buffalo was drawing in the mid thirties, the highest local rating Versus has ever gotten. Buffalo averages a higher local rating than every teams highest ever rated regular season game except for Detroit, Colorado, and Pittsburgh. For the Stanley Cup Finals, Buffalo was the third highest rated market in the US only behind Raleigh and barely behind Charlotte. Buffalo drive Versus' ratings in the playoffs last season. It's rare for TV execs to be rooting for a small market team to advance, but Versus wants Buffalo on the schedule as much as possible. There are links (now only available to subscribers, but they're quoted) in another thread where it is discussed. The search feature isn't working for me with the boards being slow, but I'll add the link to that thread later. Buffalo is unquestionably the NHL's best TV market in America and no one is really remotely close.

 

[Schitzo]

Does Al Strachan not realize that the point of revenue sharing is that not every market in the NHL has 8 million rabid hockey fans? Or does he just think that the leafs should get to build a powerhouse by default because they have the income to do so?

I couldn't find his email address, but here's an analogy I'd love to send him. Alberta has been blessed with a ton of oil and natural gas. Easterners rightly want a share of the revenues from these resources because, hey, we're all a part of Canda, and it's pretty much luck of the draw that Alberta has all the oil. Ok, fair enough.

In the NHL, Toronto has been blessed with a huge market of hockey fans, and other cities in the NHL want a share of the revenue from those resources. Hey, we're all teams in the NHL, and not every market is lucky enough to have that sort of fanbase.

You decide, Al. Revenue sharing, or Alberta seperates from Canada and names itself the Kingdom of Ralphonia? The power is in YOUR hands!

 

[1971]

Does Al Strachan not realize that the point of revenue sharing is that not every market in the NHL has 8 million rabid hockey fans? Or does he just think that the leafs should get to build a powerhouse by default because they have the income to do so?

I couldn't find his email address, but here's an analogy I'd love to send him. Alberta has been blessed with a ton of oil and natural gas. Easterners rightly want a share of the revenues from these resources because, hey, we're all a part of Canda, and it's pretty much luck of the draw that Alberta has all the oil. Ok, fair enough.

In the NHL, Toronto has been blessed with a huge market of hockey fans, and other cities in the NHL want a share of the revenue from those resources. Hey, we're all teams in the NHL, and not every market is lucky enough to have that sort of fanbase.

You decide, Al. Revenue sharing, or Alberta seperates from Canada and names itself the Kingdom of Ralphonia? The power is in YOUR hands!

Easterners rightly want a share? What right? What great good have the great Eastern provinces ever done for Alberta? I like the salary cap, it's not perfect, but it's a start.. I don't like teams having to bail out teams that cant make any money. If they cant make any money then get rid of them. Fold them or move them to a hockey driven market... Like Hamilton, Winnipeg, Quebec City and even Hartford, I bet Portland would go nuts for a team, they're small market but have a strong hockey fan base and would support a team like the Preds. It wouldnt take 5 years for Portland fans to slowely warm up to hockey, they would jump in and sell out right from the start. It was a joke watching Carolina go through the playoffs with all those empty seats. That was emberassing. When the time comes for Carolina to rebuild and it will, that place will be empty again. The emberassment of a league that lets a team leave Hartford with 15,000 average fans a game for Carolina and an average attendance of 9,000 a game for the first 2 years.

 

[nomorekids]

Easterners rightly want a share? What right? What great good have the great Eastern provinces ever done for Alberta? I like the salary cap, it's not perfect, but it's a start.. I don't like teams having to bail out teams that cant make any money. If they cant make any money then get rid of them. Fold them or move them to a hockey driven market... Like Hamilton, Winnipeg, Quebec City and even Hartford, I bet Portland would go nuts for a team, they're small market but have a strong hockey fan base and would support a team like the Preds. It wouldnt take 5 years for Portland fans to slowely warm up to hockey, they would jump in and sell out right from the start. It was a joke watching Carolina go through the playoffs with all those empty seats. That was emberassing. When the time comes for Carolina to rebuild and it will, that place will be empty again. The emberassment of a league that lets a team leave Hartford with 15,000 average fans a game for Carolina and an average attendance of 9,000 a game for the first 2 years.

A) Carolina's attendance never averaged 9000 a game. Not even close.

B) Nashville averaged right around 15,000, last year.

C) Are the Blues suddenly an unviable team, because they're attendance has been in the low tens...and lower...several times this year, while they're in "rebuild" mode. NYI, NJD...and so on. It's not a Southern thing. It's an NHL thing in several American markets. Contract America, then? I guarantee you, you'd be seeing the same thing in a lot of the places you just mentioned.

 

[Weary]

A) Carolina's attendance never averaged 9000 a game. Not even close.

I think you overlooked the first year. Attendance that year was just over 9,000 per game. You are correct with regard to the second season--it wasn't even close. They were far short of averaging 9,000.

 

[jkrdevil]

I think you overlooked the first year. Attendance that year was just over 9,000 per game. You are correct with regard to the second season--it wasn't even close. They were far short of averaging 9,000.

I think the first two years was more of a product of them being in a temporary home, Greensboro.

 

[1971]

I think the first two years was more of a product of them being in a temporary home, Greensboro.

Whatever, the fact is Hartford didnt have an attendance problem, they had an owner problem and the problem was the owner was a scum bag.

 

[1971]

A) Carolina's attendance never averaged 9000 a game. Not even close.

B) Nashville averaged right around 15,000, last year.

C) Are the Blues suddenly an unviable team, because they're attendance has been in the low tens...and lower...several times this year, while they're in "rebuild" mode. NYI, NJD...and so on. It's not a Southern thing. It's an NHL thing in several American markets. Contract America, then? I guarantee you, you'd be seeing the same thing in a lot of the places you just mentioned.

The Blues have been in the league since the 60's and this is the first time in 40 years that the fans have stopped coming, St. Louis fans have been among the best fans for 40 years and they stopped coming because of what happend last year, they're more pissed off where as in Nashville and Carolina it's more of a "they dont like hockey" thing then a pissed off kinda thing. The Blackhawks fans dont go to their games for the same reason, they're pissed off at Bill Wirtz for 40 years of rebuilding and no TV games.

What about Minnesota? Why were the North Stars broken up into two teams with one going to San Jose and the other to Dallas? Only to have Bettman put an expansion team back a couple years later. The excuse for these owners moving the North Stars and Whalers were *lack of fan interest* How interested would you be in your favourite NHL team if you KNEW that the current owner was purposely running the team into the ground so that he would have an excuse to move the franchise to the hockey hot bed of the American South. It's the same thing with the Vancouver Grizzlies, we didn't go to their games, why the hell bother? he was going to move the team to Memphis from the instant he gained ownership and he just lied and lied and lied. vancouver sport fans arent stupid and saw through it.

Winnipeg and Quebec City at the time had to be moved because they couldnt compete with the American teams due to the low Canadian $$$ don't for a second think those teams had a problem with attendance.

 

[nomorekids]

and the fact that 11,000 a night were going to winnipeg games.

 

[Brent Burns Beard]

Does Al Strachan not realize that the point of revenue sharing is that not every market in the NHL has 8 million rabid hockey fans? Or does he just think that the leafs should get to build a powerhouse by default because they have the income to do so?...

a) terrible analogy.

b) toronto never was able to build a power house when the NHL was capless. their resources had zero impact on their ability to win cups. zero, zilch, nada.

 

[1971]

and the fact that 11,000 a night were going to winnipeg games.

89-90: 13,106.
90-91: 12,931.
91-92: 12,931.
92-93: 13,550.
93-94: 13,297.
94-95: 13,013.

Was only the last year they dropped 2,000 a game in average attendance.

 

[OG6ix]

89-90: 13,106.
90-91: 12,931.
91-92: 12,931.
92-93: 13,550.
93-94: 13,297.
94-95: 13,013.

Was only the last year they dropped 2,000 a game in average attendance.

Do you remember what the prices were back then and the Salary back then? If it couldn't work at that time, it certainly isn't going to work now.

 

[BlueAndWhite]

Well, believe it. Here's a link for the merchandise sales on NHL.com. http://www.hockeybuzz.com/blog.php?post_id=3561 (I know it's hockeybuzz, but it's cut and pasted from NHL.com) Sabres merchandise sales up nearly 1200% and 5 of the top 9 selling jerseys are Sabre players. As for getting jerseys in the Buffalo area, good luck. There are half hour waiting lines in the "Sabres Store" in HSBC after games and they can't keep merchandise on the shelves.

Those stats are for one month and from one source - NHL.com's online store.

I wonder if there's a source that has yearly stats ?