NHL Anti-Thread: Bad Business Decision Aggregator

[tigerslionspistonshabs]

Why don't they just relocate Vegas now and save themselves the trouble in 7 years.

 

Also- if anyone had to move east, wouldn't Nashville be the logical choice?

[BeerGuyJordan]

12 minutes ago, tigerslionspistonshabs said:

Also- if anyone had to move east, wouldn't Nashville be the logical choice?

They would be. It wouldn't be a horrible choice, as they'd actually save money on travel, overall.

 

Still, with most hockey games being played at 7, local time, the bulk of their away games suddenly being at 6 pm is less than ideal. Could it work, if it had to? Sure, but a central time zone team in the eastern conference isn't a great fit.

[tigerslionspistonshabs]

Yea, forgot about the time zone thing. But they are relatively close to a good chunk of Eastern teams- namely Columbus and Carolina, but TB, Detroit, Pittsburgh aren't too far.

[The_Admiral]

1 hour ago, tigerslionspistonshabs said:

Also- if anyone had to move east, wouldn't Nashville be the logical choice?

 

We could have saved a lot of headaches by flipping Nashville and Winnipeg as soon as the Thrashers moved. 

[goalieboy82]

so is Russia going to have a hockey team at the Olympics then. 

 

[The_Admiral]

Ovechkin is still going to desert the Capitals during the Olympic fortnight but with no team to play for he's just gonna hang around and chain-smoke.

[Corvus]

Going to be amusing to see how they spin giving Seattle less generous expansion draft terms than Vegas got.

[mcj882000]

I can't help but wonder if the NHL will ask for another $500M from Quebecor for a second expansion bid, and then hang 'em out to dry once again.

[Sodboy13]

A $10 million non-refundable deposit every three to five years oughta do the trick.

[Sport]

The Hurricanes are going to be sold to some a$$hole from Dallas who says he's not moving the team. https://www.thefourthperiod.com/dec-2017/hurricanes-close-to-being-sold/

 

Anthony Precourt bought the Columbus Crew with no intention of moving them.

 

 

22 hours ago, the admiral said:

 

We could have saved a lot of headaches by flipping Nashville and Winnipeg as soon as the Thrashers moved. 

:censored: that. Could've saved a lot of headaches by flipping Columbus and Winnipeg and telling Detroit to suck a fart and stay in the west.

 

 

[The_Admiral]

But Columbus wouldn't have fit in the NASCAR Division, may it rest in peace, as well as Nashville.

 

Anyway this Hurricanes deal sucks and it amazes me how they keep finding suckers to buy these failing teams whenever Canadian buyers come calling. 

[ChicagoOakland]

Damn, I was hoping Greenberg would buy the Canes. I've got a bad feeling about this, this move has incompetence written all over it.

(But when Karmanos is involved, what move doesn't?)

[The_Admiral]

The Carolina Hurricanes are almost always last in NHL attendance, and that’s (at least partly) by design

Quote

Distinguishing between paid tickets and complimentary tickets has been a crucial part of Waddell’s revision of the Hurricanes’ ticket strategy. Under previous management, Waddell said, there was a significant focus on giving away complimentary tickets as a way to fill the arena, aiding the team’s optics and giving them a more pronounced home-ice advantage.

 

In the four years since Waddell took over, things have been much different. The Canes have decreased their number of complimentary tickets from an average of 4,000 per game in 2014 to about 1,000 this season. The remaining comp tickets, Waddell said, largely consist of tickets the team is required to give players as part of the collective bargaining agreement and tickets for staff members.

 

Quote

The pre-Waddell group, under current Penguins general manager Jim Rutherford, may have believed it was better to have at least some people in seats at PNC than none. This, in theory, would at least generate some auxiliary revenue from parking, concessions, and merchandise sales. What the previous group failed to consider, Waddell believes, is the intangible effects that system had on the team’s most loyal fans.

 

“When I got here, that summer we were having a tough time renewing [season tickets],” Waddell said. “I called about 160 people about their reasons for not renewing, and the common theme was people sitting next to them for free and people sitting next to them with real cheap tickets.”

 

Genius team president Don Waddell is dynamically rethinking gate revenues: it's better not to have people at the games! The last block quote, Jesus Christ, he's been possessed by the ghost of Bill Wirtz! Come to think of it, that would explain the Thrashers trading the best player in their history for a pile of turds.

 

But seriously, I remember reading years ago about how Karmanos charged some of the most expensive ticket prices in the league in Greensboro to demonstrate to a new and fragile market how they weren't devaluing themselves just because they were in a new and fragile market. If you don't know how this went, well, it went exactly how you would think it went. Good to know they've gotten more sophisticated over the last 20 years, huh? I hate this team, I hate this league, these guys are all carnies and a lot of them aren't even particularly good at it.

[The_Admiral]

postscript: "yeah, our attendance is bad, we meant to do it that way, sorry you can't understand the larger plan" carries the smugness in defeat that you can only really get from these fcking nerds who like the Hurricanes. We've ripped on Coyotes/Panthers fans a lot for bad attendance but at least they have the good sense to agonize over the ramifications of poor attendance themselves.

[Sodboy13]

3 hours ago, the admiral said:

Genius team president Don Waddell is dynamically rethinking gate revenues: it's better not to have people at the games! The last block quote, Jesus Christ, he's been possessed by the ghost of Bill Wirtz! Come to think of it, that would explain the Thrashers trading the best player in their history for a pile of turds.

 

But seriously, I remember reading years ago about how Karmanos charged some of the most expensive ticket prices in the league in Greensboro to demonstrate to a new and fragile market how they weren't devaluing themselves just because they were in a new and fragile market. If you don't know how this went, well, it went exactly how you would think it went. Good to know they've gotten more sophisticated over the last 20 years, huh? I hate this team, I hate this league, these guys are all carnies and a lot of them aren't even particularly good at it.

 

The internet still pleasantly surprises me sometimes. "No way that rundown of the Hurricanes' early years I read 18 years ago is still online," I thought.

It's still online. Merry Christmas, @the admiral.

 

Here's a suuuuuuuper-fun excerpt from June of 1998:

Quote

Dean Jordan, the new president of the Canes' holding company, announces several policy changes for the coming season. The team will no longer release season ticket numbers and will not set goals for packages sold. As previously announced, the black curtains, lowered over the ends of the upper deck of the Greensboro Coliseum to cut capacity, will now block out the entire upper deck, cutting seating to 10-12,000; the new twist is that the curtains will not go back up, even if the team could sell more tickets. Jordan claims this is an operational decision; you can't provide quality service in the arena if you don't know whether the crowd will be 19,000 or fewer than 10,000. But most surprising to fans, Jordan says the team will no longer give away free tickets. In 1997-98, the team handed out free ducats as fast as they could print them; speculation ran that Peter Karmanos had changed the name of his company from Compuware to "Comp You"-ware. The rationale was that if they could expose people to the sport, they would eventually shell out money for tickets. But Jordan says it is better to have 5,000 paying spectators. "As far as I'm concerned, there will be zero tickets given away," he says. "At some point in time, you've got to start establishing value. We might as well start establishing it sooner than later." Which of course is what Jim Rutherford said in May, 1997, in announcing ticket prices and saying they would not discount their product.

 

[Still MIGHTY]

Jesus...

 

Carolina to Seattle, and Expansion to Quebec? Right? That's what we're going to do here?

[DustDevil61]

2 minutes ago, Still MIGHTY said:

Carolina to Seattle, and Expansion to Quebec? Right? That's what we're going to do here?

 

Oh, no, no, no...the league will do just about anything coming to keep the Canes in Carolina, short of prioritizing them staying over Arizona. And this coming from someone who considers himself a Canes fan (who will follow the franchise wherever they go).

[Sodboy13]

3 minutes ago, Still MIGHTY said:

Jesus...

 

Carolina to Seattle, and Expansion to Quebec? Right? That's what we're going to do here?

 

Carolina to Carolina and Expansion in Seattle. Gary's got Karmanos' back for eternity, even if he sells, and he's going to sucker Chris Hansen and whoever else out of $600 million.

[LMU]

I think Gary's probably blown so much money on Girls Gone Wild videos over the years that the thought of losing a Sun Belt market at or near a college town makes him dead inside.

[Sodboy13]

1 minute ago, LMU said:

I think Gary's probably blown so much money on Girls Gone Wild videos over the years that the thought of losing a Sun Belt market at or near a college town makes him dead inside.

 

Heh-heh, "research triangle."

 

Alleged new Hurricanes owner Thomas Dundon made the bulk of his fortune four weeks ago in a settlement as part of his severance for screwing up while overseeing a profoundly shady bank's U.S. subprime auto loan division. Seriously, read a little on what Santander's been doing in this country. Seems like a perfect fit for the Hurricanes.