NHL Anti-Thread: Bad Business Decision Aggregator

[The_Admiral]

Someday someone will figure out how to make a dime owning the St. Louis Blues. I know we joke a lot about how teams "lose money" for appearances' sake, but those teams don't skip entire entry drafts because the team was technically out of business, or entertain moving to Saskatoon, or pawn off Peoria-based AHL teams to make payroll. It's the damnedest thing.

[bosrs1]

21 minutes ago, the admiral said:

Someday someone will figure out how to make a dime owning the St. Louis Blues. I know we joke a lot about how teams "lose money" for appearances' sake, but those teams don't skip entire entry drafts because the team was technically out of business, or entertain moving to Saskatoon, or pawn off Peoria-based AHL teams to make payroll. It's the damnedest thing.

 

Especially in a town where there is no competition during the winter, and only one baseball team for competition for the pro sports dollar.

 

 

[IceCap]

1 hour ago, the admiral said:

Someday someone will figure out how to make a dime owning the St. Louis Blues. I know we joke a lot about how teams "lose money" for appearances' sake, but those teams don't skip entire entry drafts because the team was technically out of business, or entertain moving to Saskatoon, or pawn off Peoria-based AHL teams to make payroll. It's the damnedest thing.

Attendance always seems steady or good. They're in the playoffs more often than not, which means more home games. 

How are they always teetering on the edge of financial ruin?

[dfwabel]

1 hour ago, Ice_Cap said:

Attendance always seems steady or good. They're in the playoffs more often than not, which means more home games. 

How are they always teetering on the edge of financial ruin?

It gotta go back to 2008 when SLU left, opened Chaifetz Arena and took those 18-22 home games with them. Reports were the Blues received 5% of ticket revenue plus whatever received from concessions.

 

 

[rams80]

Just now, dfwabel said:

It gotta go back to 2008 when SLU left, opened Chaifetz Arena and took those 18-22 home games with them. Reports were the Blues received 5% of ticket revenue plus whatever received from concessions.

 

 

 

That can't be it.  The team's been on the brink of financial catastrophe for far longer than that-this goes back to the Checkerdome days.

[bosrs1]

30 minutes ago, rams80 said:

 

That can't be it.  The team's been on the brink of financial catastrophe for far longer than that-this goes back to the Checkerdome days.

 

Shoddy ownership for part of the time seems to have been an issue.

[HedleyLamarr]

3 hours ago, the admiral said:

Someday someone will figure out how to make a dime owning the St. Louis Blues. I know we joke a lot about how teams "lose money" for appearances' sake, but those teams don't skip entire entry drafts because the team was technically out of business, or entertain moving to Saskatoon, or pawn off Peoria-based AHL teams to make payroll. It's the damnedest thing.

They should rename themselves the Ice Cardinals.....

[Bmac]

I mean, the Blues weren't even supposed to exist in the first place. St Louis only received an expansion team because the Blackhawks forced the league to do so, and they've never really been financially stable ever since. It's amazing they (and the NHL, for that matter) have lasted so long.

[BeerGuyJordan]

16 hours ago, Bmac said:

I mean, the Blues weren't even supposed to exist in the first place. St Louis only received an expansion team because the Blackhawks forced the league to do so, and they've never really been financially stable ever since. It's amazing they (and the NHL, for that matter) have lasted so long.

Yeah, Montreal and Toronto would have still blocked Vancouver, but if Wirtz wasn't trying to unload his St. Louis arena, it would have probably been Baltimore, as the sixth team.

[tigerslionspistonshabs]

Any truth to the Coyotes' brass visiting Seattle and Portland?

[BeerGuyJordan]

33 minutes ago, tigerslionspistonshabs said:

Any truth to the Coyotes' brass visiting Seattle and Portland?

I reached out to a contact in the organization, who asked that I keep their name out of it. Their answer:

 

"Less than the media is reporting, but certainly more than the Coyotes are claiming."

 

Not certain what that means, but they wouldn't say more.

[bosrs1]

1 hour ago, BeerGuyJordan said:

I reached out to a contact in the organization, who asked that I keep their name out of it. Their answer:

 

"Less than the media is reporting, but certainly more than the Coyotes are claiming."

 

Not certain what that means, but they wouldn't say more.

 

They're probably just doing some preliminary vetting in case they exhaust all options in Phoenix. I mean they've still got Scottsdale and downtown to work through. And in Seattle at least they've still got to lock their arena down be it renovated Key or the Sodo one. So we're not anywhere near the Mayflower truck phase yet.

[Bmac]

What's the deal with downtown Phoenix at this point? The Suns want nothing to do with them?

[Marcos Flamengo]

So what would happen if the NHL award a 32nd team in the West to Seattle?.

[kroywen]

53 minutes ago, Bmac said:

What's the deal with downtown Phoenix at this point? The Suns want nothing to do with them?

The Suns have a basketball-only arena, much like Barclays. The Coyotes did play there from 1996 to 2003, while securing an arena deal (and eventually constructing) for their current arena in Glendale. Much like the Isles at Barclays, it was a disaster:

 

 

For a team already struggling to draw people, with a dwindling fanbase, the last thing they need is to move into an arena that literally cannot fit a hockey rink.

[kiwi_canadian]

7 hours ago, Marcos Flamengo said:

So what would happen if the NHL award a 32nd team in the West to Seattle?.

From the way things are going, it looks like Seattle will be getting a relocation. I'm not a business major but it really baffles me how the league can allow a team to stay in a market where it continues to lose money and how the other member club owners aren't more pissed that they have to keep this club afloat. I read somewhere that this team has not made a cent since moving to Arizona and have been in the red for their entire existence. There must be some major conspiracy theory as to why they are still around and why Bettman continues to allow them to stay. Perhaps there was an agreement between the league and their current owners that they have to stick it out for a certain amount of years before they were allowed to look at relocation and we are now seeing that happen... Or this all goes to Portland and the NHL does award an expansion team to Seattle. Either way I think that we can move the Arizona Coyote from the threatened list to the endangered list.

[C's]

All Seattle cares about is the Seahawks. I think Seattle has too many people with very limited free time pouring 60-something hours a week into soul-sucking IT/software jobs for there to be much of a fanbase for teams playing more than once per week. The Mariners are the only other big-four team up there right now and, despite having a baller stadium, they can't even pull enough scraps to stay out of the bottom third in MLB attendance. People act like the Sonics were Seattle's Cleveland Browns when they moved but in reality they were one of the most forgettable, whatever franchises in the NBA and had a following to match. A Seattle NHL team would probably do better than Arizona/Florida/Vegas but not by a whole lot.

 

And that's if they put the arena downtown. If the arena goes up in Tukwila or whatever Glendale North they were throwing around last year before the bidding deadline, forget it.

[FiddySicks]

First off, seattle freaking LOVES the Sounders, so there's that. Second, have you ever actually been to Seattle? 

[The_Admiral]

Dreger did an AMA that kinda-sorta hinted that Quebec City isn't off the table for a Coyotes relocation. "But they didn't tour Quebec City!", some argue. Why would they? If that's what it came to, those dopes would have as much to do with owning the team as I would.

[bosrs1]

On February 11, 2017 at 8:12 AM, kroywen said:

The Suns have a basketball-only arena, much like Barclays. The Coyotes did play there from 1996 to 2003, while securing an arena deal (and eventually constructing) for their current arena in Glendale. Much like the Isles at Barclays, it was a disaster:

 

 

For a team already struggling to draw people, with a dwindling fanbase, the last thing they need is to move into an arena that literally cannot fit a hockey rink.

 

I don't think they'd consider moving into the current downtown arena. A rather they were considering a theoretical new one.