News Article: Will the Fans Come Back?

[rboomercat90]

So how come you're not mentioning Ottawa? They couldn't even sell out Game 7 of the ECF in the nation's capital, wherein ANY other Canadian market, it would've been sold out in five seconds.

How about the Islanders? They couldn't even draw flies during their four straight Cup years, and the only reason they're still around is due to an overbloated TV contract for a team with zilch brand awareness. Even the Devils, who celebrated their Cup wins in parking lots have more brand awareness than the Islanders.

So called "hockey markets" have had plenty of problems over the years, but yet nobody ever said aw shucks, hockey just won't work in Pittsburgh, or Chicago, or whereever else there was a problem.

What makes Nashville not a hockey market? What makes Vegas not one? What makes you the judge of how viable a market is or isn't, and by what data do you claim those aren't?

Is it jealousy? Are you bitter that those teams actually have owners who don't fanny about with an old boys club? Is that it? Are you ignoring how players, coaches, fans, and even posters on this very thread have all praised Nashville for being a great market, and how Vegas is really taking to the Golden Knights? Because that's what posts like yours seem to be all about: you're just jealous that those teams are actually doing something other than looking like a complete joke every season. Now if I'm wrong, then please correct me, because I don't know how else to take it.

Hell, if you want to get really into it, then how come we even bother having a team in Edmonton, hockey market or not? You said it yourself - NHLers don't want to come here. It's been said numerous times over by players and agents alike. They all hate this place, they all think it's some sort of Arctic hellhole, and they'd only come here at the tail-end of their careers, if ever. Hell, the Sharks were tweeting atone point about how horrible Winnipeg was, and they've only got a team again because it was a last minute call.

You have to be able to draft well, but you also need to be able to attract big name talent via free agency. We can't be the Spurs, who had a horseshoe up their ass and lucked into Robinson, then Duncan, then Kawhi, and had Parker and Ginobili as well; we were like that in the eighties, but once that team was broken up, the economic reality kicked us in the ass pretty hard (it didn't help when we goofed up like taking Kelly over Doan, among other gaffes). You have to do both in order to contend for a championship.

Problem is, what big name will come here, right? One poster here said even Vancouver couldn't get a big name to consider them, and if they can't draw folks, what makes us think we could?

It's the same problem in other sports: in the NBA, it's basically LA or bust - why do you think Kawhi signed with the Clippers, one of the most irrelevant teams in sports? It wasn't because the Clippers were this storied franchise. Hell, Marcus Morris spurned the Spurs, an actually storied franchise, for the Knicks simply because he could live it up in New York City, and he sure as hell didn't sign with them because he thought they would win anything in the near future. It's only a matter of time too before Giannis and Luka end up in LA and Boston, as the NBA is blatantly trying to resurrect the rivalry between the only two teams it has ever really cared about.

We, in contrast, are just like those Spurs: we too lucked into five championships, and ever since those responsible all left (and I've been hearing rumblings Popovich will retire after this season, with some fans in SA even hoping he does), we're just another one of those markets: one that may draft some really cool dude before he eventually bails. We're a feeder org: most teams outside LA, Chicago, Boston, NYC and the SFBA in pro sports in general are, let's be honest. That's why audiences are aging: young people see this for themselves and don't care. Would you care if your hometown team was guaranteed to be passed over by big name free agents because your city isn't flashy enough Would you play in Edmonton? In Winnipeg? Calgary? Probably not. You'd probably be asking your agent if the Kings or Bolts have any openings. If you're a millionaire athlete, why wouldn't you go to a city like LA or New York?

So why bother, right? Why even have a team here? If anyone worth a damn would prefer American cities, why try? Why not just send the Oilers on to Houston or Portland or wherever and wash our hands of all this?

The Oilers' problem is that the fans are burned out, both from being strung along since 1990 (2006 was a fluke run, though fun it was), and from the economy being in the dumps. It doesn't help when players and their agents consistently trash your hometown, it doesn't help when players would take less to stay around in their original (American, big city) teams (or, like Tavares, would rather go to a lolcow franchise like the Leafs; sure, Toronto is his hometown, but still, it hurts), it doesn't help when fellow fans would rather take potshots at American teams rather than the owners and the front offices of their own teams that have consistently failed to improve (and if you do that, you're consistently told you're not a real fan), it doesn't help when said owners force cities to build unnecessary arenas right as the sports bubble is about to burst (as one poster here said) due to audiences getting more and more older and more and more people, especially the young, stay home to watch the game (case in point: the CFL trying to build a new stadium in the Maritimes where the economy has been in the dumps for decades and despite more and more young people watching MLS - didn't they see how the Argo players got destroyed by Toronto FC players in that little spat years ago?), and it doesn't help when said owners didn't fire guys who talked about tiered fans or fired coaches over Skype.

The Oilers' problem is a mere symptom of the real problem, which is that pro sports is increasingly being gentrified: in European soccer, clubs like Bayern, Real and Barcelona are already considering splitting off to form their own league, and it'll probably happen within the next ten to twenty years, and then what? Who's going to watch who's left when you can watch the biggest and the best clubs every night? We see the same here: in the NBA, it's basically LA and Boston. Sure, the Warriors had a stretch, and so did the Bulls and the Spurs, but let's be real - LA and Boston is what the league wants, and if it means screwing over fans of do-nothing teams like the Kings and Hawks, so be it. MLB? The Yankees just spend three hundred twenty million on one guy (when you total how much he's making over the span of the contract). How can the others outside the (Red) Sox, Cubs, Dodgers, Giants and Phillies compete?

The fact that the White Sox can literally win a World Series only to be consistently forgotten ever since speaks volumes, wouldn't you agree? How is that even possible?

That is the real problem, overall. Audiences are aging across the board because young people increasingly see all this and think gee, why bother? They see players trashing their hometowns and they're like why bother? We have McDavid here, but can even he make fans overlook a decade plus of failure? How many potential fans have the Oilers lost over that span? Other posters have said that in their places of work, people just roll their eyes - the interest is gone. When I talk to the friends of my kids, I hear from them they never had an interest period.

Simply put, this isn't so much an Oilers' problem as it is a general one for sports: there's no real parity, the players are too chummy with one another (look at Qing James with his obvious collusion), only the big cities matter, the fans care more about rivalries than the players, and local media tends to turn inevitably into puppets for the team, so you get your intelligence insulted regularly. Hell, Len Rhodes literally fired Ed Hervey because winning "wasn't enough" in his eyes. How does that inspire confidence in potential fans? The CFL is already struggling when it comes to bringing in new fans, especially young people; this doesn't help.

Pardon if I'm rambling - I've been lurking on here for a while and felt compelled to speak up, so I apologize if my post seems scatterbrained or whatever.

It took some effort to read this because it was so long and you were rambling on, especially in the beginning, but I thought it was a great post. I hope others give it the time too. I feel the same way as you do on a lot of it. Professional sports has killed its golden goose and they’re just in the beginning of seeing the consequences of it now.

 

[DingDongCharlie]

Shorter version of identification with current player roster and how limited the connection is;

Players on the current team I care about at all;

McD, Drai, Nurse, Bear Gagner(yeah I'm strange)


Players that I try to care about but really don't give a toss about;

Larsson, Nuge, Klef, Russell, Smith, Koskinen.

Players that could literally drop off the Earth and I wouldn't remember any of them or care;

The rest, too many to bother to list. My give a **** so limited I can't even be bothered to type out the rest.

A good current drinking game is to see if you can name all the Oilers bottomsix players. Bonus drinks if you know any of their player numbers..

The team lacks a Ryan Smyth too. A player who bleeds Oilers blue. The team simply has no identity

 

[tardigrade81]

The team lacks a Ryan Smyth too. A player who bleeds Oilers blue. The team simply has no identity

I miss Smyth. Crazy how the Oilers finishing 8th that season is one of the most memorable for me. I wasn’t alive when Gretzky was here and in 1990 I would have been 3 lol. So I don’t remember those years.

 

[Todd Parchment]

If we make the playoffs I think they will be there but on the regular? I’m not sure.

 

[Hatrix]

The casino is also failing miserably:

Redirect Notice

 

[Oildrum]

The casino is also failing miserably:

Redirect Notice

I have a friend who's fairly high up at AGLC tell me that casino has been a failure since day one, it's always lost money. Nobody wants to go there if a game or concert isn't on.

Bums in the area, free parking is in the sketchy lot by the mustard seed, the downtown location in general. The other casinos are doing very well but that one in particular was a big miss.

 

[tardigrade81]

Fans should’ve come back last night. That was one entertaining game if I may say so myself. Makes it all that much better that we won too.

 

[Oildrum]

It does appear that the game next Friday is sold out (only resale tickets available). But that is a huge game, it's been circled on my calendar since the schedule came out.

The fact that non-resale tickets for an average game are $130-150 to sit in the upper bowl is crazy to me. That has nothing to do with the economy that's straight up robbery especially given how awful the upper bowl is (it's the nosebleed equivalent from Rexall). Mix that in with the chance the game is terrible and no wonder people are spending their money elsewhere.

Nothing will change though, I can't imagine prices ever coming down (IMO). They probably make more money running at 80% capacity at inflated prices (I'm sure they've done the analysis on price point vs attendance)

 

[tardigrade81]

It does appear that the game next Friday is sold out (only resale tickets available). But that is a huge game, it's been circled on my calendar since the schedule came out.

The fact that non-resale tickets for an average game are $130-150 to sit in the upper bowl is crazy to me. That has nothing to do with the economy that's straight up robbery especially given how awful the upper bowl is (it's the nosebleed equivalent from Rexall). Mix that in with the chance the game is terrible and no wonder people are spending their money elsewhere.

Nothing will change though, I can't imagine prices ever coming down (IMO). They probably make more money running at 80% capacity at inflated prices (I'm sure they've done the analysis on price point vs attendance)

Ya and with tv getting better and better each year it’s near impossible to keep games sold out. Just the nature of the beast with technology these days.

 

[Stoneman89]

Many of the games this time of year get sold out. You have the usual big draws (Montreal and Toronto) and then a bunch of other lesser ones that might be given as Christmas gifts, etc.

Where the big drop off will be, is when we get deep into January, and it's 30 below. Then we'll see how the tickets really sell, especially if the team struggles.

 

[Hatrix]

I have a friend who's fairly high up at AGLC tell me that casino has been a failure since day one, it's always lost money. Nobody wants to go there if a game or concert isn't on.

Bums in the area, free parking is in the sketchy lot by the mustard seed, the downtown location in general. The other casinos are doing very well but that one in particular was a big miss.

The old Baccarrat did well for a couple decades and was only a couple hundred feet away. The lack of parking and the downtown now being a congested shit hole is probably to blame. When you have so much competition and choice with this industry in Edmonton, why settle for such inconveniences that become a pain in the ass?

 

[Drivesaitl]

The old Baccarrat did well for a couple decades and was only a couple hundred feet away. The lack of parking and the downtown now being a congested **** hole is probably to blame. When you have so much competition and choice with this industry in Edmonton, why settle for such inconveniences that become a pain in the ass?

More to the point is evening street parking DT used to be free. Sundays as well. All free. Since the arena this has been changed and in general the parking is much steeper in price. Around the arena parking can be around 30 or more bucks and evening. Used to be anywhere from 5-10bucks.

But despite that gouging the City is seeing far less parking revenue then was forecast for the arena and the shorted revenue is resulting in arena levy being paid out of general revenue to make up the deficit.


What this means essentially is the city bet on people paying much more for parking and doing it more often and the public responded by not doing this and just staying away.

Can only comment on myself but I used to go DT on average once per week or so. Now I go DT about 10 times in a year. 20% as much.

 

[Hatrix]

More to the point is evening street parking DT used to be free. Sundays as well. All free. Since the arena this has been changed and in general the parking is much steeper in price. Around the arena parking can be around 30 or more bucks and evening. Used to be anywhere from 5-10bucks.

But despite that gouging the City is seeing far less parking revenue then was forecast for the arena and the shorted revenue is resulting in arena levy being paid out of general revenue to make up the deficit.


What this means essentially is the city bet on people paying much more for parking and doing it more often and the public responded by not doing this and just staying away.

Can only comment on myself but I used to go DT on average once per week or so. Now I go DT about 10 times in a year. 20% as much.

Can't say I blame anyone for this decision. This is Edmonton, not Vancouver. Paying for parking is a massive waste of money and when you can drive to the Yellowhead, Century or River Cree and have a better experience with free parking, why wouldn't you?

 

[Beerad]

Giving your money away in the casino is better than watching nhl hockey? To each their own I guess. Parking can be found under 10 bucks pretty close by, all you have to do is look a little.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Can't say I blame anyone for this decision. This is Edmonton, not Vancouver. Paying for parking is a massive waste of money and when you can drive to the Yellowhead, Century or River Cree and have a better experience with free parking, why wouldn't you?

Well that's exactly what I am suggesting. The city also has WEM, major power Centers all over the city for shopping, dining, etc. All with ample free parking.

The first thought I had when the COE was saying that increased parking revenue was going to help pay for some of the Arena front expenditure was good luck with that. People will vote not to park DT period, and not to go DT period.

The Edmonton DT experience isn't worth paying 10bucks for parking. Certainly not worth paying something like 30-35 buck gouging.

 

[Beerad]

Here are some options for the flames game coming up, lots of affordable parking options. I don’t see the need to reach like this, and to compare WEM is just a joke...

if you can’t afford to pay this park you have much bigger issues.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Here are some options for the flames game coming up, lots of affordable parking options. I don’t see the need to reach like this, and to compare WEM is just a joke...

if you can’t afford to pay this park you have much bigger issues.

Thank you for clarifying that there virtually no parking less than 10bucks pretty close to the arena as you had stated.

Why is comparing WEM a joke? MANY more people visit there than Rogers Place. Several times as many.

In anycase DT parking revenue is far less than it was projected to be. Obviously consumers have voted not to pay out as expected. For whatever reason.

 

[Beerad]

The one for $5 a block east doesn’t count or?

As for WEM, I typically avoid it at all costs. There’s nothing really there. The majority of people I talk to avoid it as well. I’ll drive the extra 15min to goto downtown before I’ll go there. To each their own though, if you enjoy walking around the mall then good for you.

 

[Drivesaitl]

The one for $5 a block east doesn’t count or?

As for WEM, I typically avoid it at all costs. There’s nothing really there. The majority of people I talk to avoid it as well. I’ll drive the extra 15min to goto downtown before I’ll go there. To each their own though, if you enjoy walking around the mall then good for you.

Its one parkade in the whole area. An Outlier instance. I kind of wonder why the pricing there is low, but its the only instance close by other than surface lots.

Theres very little in the DT worth going to. I go to the Citadel half a dozen times a year. Not much else. DT is basically almost closed for construction these past number of years and a headache trying to

get around and go much of anywhere in there.

The majority of people I talk to do not go to Rogers Place, rarely go DT, and have no intention to. Edmonton is a city defined by the burbs. Its where people live, shop, and play.

 

[Beerad]

Agreed it’s only 1 but I was just correcting your statement.

I typically park at the Macewan underground lot, it’s a “pricey” 10 bucks and a little further away but you can walk through the college which is nice.

*edit - actually looking now there’s also another affordable lot a little south of that parkade. If you’re ok walking 2-3 blocks you can pick from half a dozen.

 

[tardigrade81]

What’s astonishing is Cowboy fans still show up for Dallas games. Guess they like punishment lol

 

[Drivesaitl]

Agreed it’s only 1 but I was just correcting your statement.

I typically park at the Macewan underground lot, it’s a “pricey” 10 bucks and a little further away but you can walk through the college which is nice.

*edit - actually looking now there’s also another affordable lot a little south of that parkade. If you’re ok walking 2-3 blocks you can pick from half a dozen.

Its all good. thanks for giving the readers some suggestions. Gmac sounds like an option. I thought you had to be a student to park in there.

 

[Beerad]

No you can book it through the parking panda app, anyone can park there. The funds also go to the school then which I like supporting.

 

[rboomercat90]

More to the point is evening street parking DT used to be free. Sundays as well. All free. Since the arena this has been changed and in general the parking is much steeper in price. Around the arena parking can be around 30 or more bucks and evening. Used to be anywhere from 5-10bucks.

But despite that gouging the City is seeing far less parking revenue then was forecast for the arena and the shorted revenue is resulting in arena levy being paid out of general revenue to make up the deficit.


What this means essentially is the city bet on people paying much more for parking and doing it more often and the public responded by not doing this and just staying away.

Can only comment on myself but I used to go DT on average once per week or so. Now I go DT about 10 times in a year. 20% as much.

I remember parking costs being an issue for some of us during the arena debates and we were assured it wouldn’t be because only cheapskates would take something like that into consideration when deciding where they wanted to spend their entertainment dollars. Seems there are a lot of those cheapskates in Edmonton after all.

 

[I am the Liquor]

Giving your money away in the casino is better than watching nhl hockey? To each their own I guess. Parking can be found under 10 bucks pretty close by, all you have to do is look a little.

There is a small chance of winning at the casino...