Killion
Registered User
- Feb 19, 2010
- 36,763
- 3,217
All teams have down period(s), if you have to fear that the majority of your fan base will jump ship to some other team or pursuit when things are tough, you might wan to consider that your fan base was not really yours to begin with. Having fans of " winning" is not hard.
if your team sucks so long that it gets you to cut your nose to spite your face who comes out on top in this situation ? no one.
again its well within your perogative to spend money however you like, but I find this idea of taking teams that are struggling financially, to further cripple them in some sort of perverse enticement for them to spend more ( or more wisely) is just personally incomprehensible.
Yes all good points sandy, however, I think the premise of the point to which you responded needed a little tweaking. Most fans do understand that theres a drafting & building process involved, and all they really want to see is growth & development, that their owners & managers care, the team at least giving it every effort and giving the fans their monies worth. To be entertained. When instead they see what were supposedly building blocks kicked asunder, franchise players moved, listless performances at (particularily) home & on the road, the once bright light at the end of the tunnel ever dimming, in a newish market, thats fatal. The problem really isnt that places like Atlanta, Phoenix or Florida cant be successful (and some have been & still are) its that there doesnt seem to be enough really good owners & GM's to go around.
The Panthers & Lightning have finally addressed this with Yzerman & Tallon; Columbus with Davidson & so on, but when you get guys like Ellman/Moyes or ASG handing the keys to inexperienced and or just plain incompetent management, or owners like Barrie/Koules having financial meltdowns while simultaneously interfering with hockey operations, well, youve got yourselves a serious problem. It took Detroit over 15yrs to recover from the Darkness that was Ned Harkness and a dipsomaniac owner in Bruce Norris, and had Harold Ballard lived another 2 decades God only knows where the Leafs might be playing today. By the early to mid 80's you could walk right up to the Box Office at the Gardens and buy good seats at face value, or, wait until the game started & buy some tickets from a Scalper for less than face value.. Wirtz Sr. Lets say he was still walkin the planet. Would Chicago have won the Stanley Cup? Questionable. Highly debatable. Heck, even the Red Wings during their Salad Years in the 90's & 00's were offering "Student Packs" and beyond.... signing Amway as a "Presenting Sponsor", practically their very integrity in being associated with that company for lucre which apparently they desperately needed otherwise why do it? So the effort in putting together a winner isnt always enough but its absolutely critical, that your teams at least trying to win, breaking a sweat if you ever hope to win the hearts & minds of your market.