BBTV

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What I don't get is that pro sports team owners aren't dummies. You don't get to the point where you're in position to own a pro team if you're an idiot (or just got a large inheritance.)

How do these guys not see how poorly the league is being run, and what a laughing stock it's become? I realize that they're businessmen, and technically some of these decisions have been "good for business" even if they've been bad for the league, I would have to think that enough of them are also fan enough to want to make the league better, even if it cuts in to profit margins a little bit.

What's Bettman's contract situation? At what point do they have to either renew it or wish him well in his future endeavors?

I think that the CBA is killing the league, even if it's helped the poor teams. Player salaries are forcing the teams to make decisions solely based on finances, rather than the greater good. They have to maximze revenue to continue to overpay these guys. NHL players want to get paid the same as athletes in other pro sports, but they have to realize that they're not in MLB, NFL, or NBA. $7M / year shouldn't be looked at as the going rate for "good athlete". It's the going rate for "good MLB player", etc. It doesn't matter if they train harder, play a harder sport, play more games, win more titles, etc - the league simply can't continue if these guys are getting these contracts.

That being said, go back to the old system, and stupid teams like the Flyers will continue to give out these deals just for reasons. Maybe the only way to proceed is to just start cutting losses, moving teams, forgoing expansion fees, etc., and if it drives revenue down, then that would be reflected in the salary cap and might reduce salaries that way. I don't know. I'm tired and need to take a dump and then a nap.

How goddam hard would it be to get the font right? It's not even close!

My mind is blown. I had no idea you could hang banners in that direction. Wow.

Sarcasm?

What I meant was of course I know that the laws of physics allow for banners to be hanged that way, but for some reason (probably because I'm so used to how the Flyers and Sixers do it) I never even thought of hanging them facing the sides instead of the ends.

Maybe it's just easier with the rafters to bunch them all at the ends, but it seems like they would be more visible the other way. Maybe you could do both, and then the Flyers wouln't have needed to go to a single division banner with multiple years added to it.

So, hyperbole? Yes. Sarcasm? No.

My mind is blown. I had no idea you could hang banners in that direction. Wow.

That Kingfish logo is fantastic. Great colors, too.

That logo and typeface is right up there with Bosak, Simon, and Radom, each of whom I have a tremendous amount of respect for.

Off topic, but three weeks ago, a Bulls ticket in the 17th row of the upper deck in the end zone was $186 face. I had to search it again 3 times I was in such disbelief. It was for a Sunday afternoon Heat game a few months from now. (In 2010 you could get 2-for-1 tix in the 2nd row of 300 for every game in January.) No idea if prices went down since "the sequel."

On topic: I said to myself in that moment, "That's worse than the Blackhawks." NHL can gouge with the best of them in prime markets. I used to joke that you couldn't get in the door for less than $100, but that's conservative now I'm sure.

$186 face value? Like the price the team charges at the box office? Near top row on an end? Do they do variable pricing or something? If so then it's understandable that there will be incredible demand for that one.

Speaking of former Jets,

That's what the flyers started doing - just tacking on years to a single Atlantic division banner. Guess with the new division name they'll have to start a new banner even tho there's space left on the current one..

Probably not going to have to worry about it for a long time though

Pittsburgh is a good example. In 2013, If it didn't have an NFL or an MLB team, it probably wouldn't be on anyone's radar to get one (it's right in the NHL wheelhouse though.) If the Pirates had moved after last season, then I'm sure Pittsburgh would be a candidate for the Rays or A's. Without the Pirates, I doubt they're in the discussion. Same could be said of several cities that have major league teams.

As a result of typing this post, I'm proposing that Oakland and Tampa Bay merge and become the RA's.

I did say that about Winnipeg, and so far have been wrong. I think it's fair to say that hockey and mlb are very different when it comes to revenue sources, and hockey in Canada... anywhere in Canada, is just different. They also had a top notch ownership group doing everything possible to make it work.

The only way a former team is relevant would be like a Cleveland Browns situation, where nobody doubts it would work, but political and ownership factors resulted in the team going. There were certainly those factors here too, but was Montreal ever really a success? Weren't they routinely near the bottom in revenue even before the loria / mlb fiasco? Not even taking in to account your reasons for it not working there (which I read a while ago and make a lot of sense) I think it's a non starter, unless a "true north"-esque group comes out of nowhere.

I don't understand why Montreal keeps being mentioned. Not just because it failed once (because as many have stated there were a Lot of factors in play there) but if it never had a ML team, NOBODY would me mentioning it now. It's just nostalgia and love if the old elb logo, IMO.

I vote for Portland, despite its small size, only because I'd like to see the beavers name in the major leagues.

Problem: The team plays in the Tampa Bay area, where everyone's already a fan of other teams, and only the Yankees seem to draw decent crowds.

Solution: Move the team to northern New Jersey where everyone's already a Yankees or Mets fan and where only the Yankees or Mets will draw decent crowds.

That's NHL levels of stupid.

I think a situation like this is more likely to work in the northeast as opposed to retiree land in the south. I just don't think there's a convenient / centralized / safe place for them to play.

Should we rename this topic, "NHL Merry-Go-Round?"

Just saying.

Who are you?

Oh it's not horrible at all at basketball. Besides the schools you mentioned, the Big 5 \ City 6 is a big deal locally as well. It's just that "amateur" basketball works well with modest fan bases that only have to fill field houses and the occasional game in a pro arena.

I only would consider the Northeast a "wasteland" for football. With the low number of D-1 football schools, along with the low talent level winds up with several top recruits heading to places like ND, Michigan, Ohio St. or in the SEC puts the schools there at a big disadvantage when it comes to recruiting, Rutgers is the only school that does relatively decent in recruiting. While Syracuse, BC, and UConn are left to rot in the rust.

When you say "talent level", I'm assuming you mean the college players, not the HS crop of recruits.

Several top recruits go to Penn State or Pitt, but I would not consider either of those "northeast" schools. And neither of them seems to be getting the same level of player they once did. There's certainly no problem with the quantity or talent level of HS players available.

Depends on your definition of "wasteland". For bigtime college football, yeah - the northeast is a pro region. A lot of that IMO has to do with the sheer number of ivy league and other top tier insitutions that don't play or or aren't D1, plus that there are so many transplants in Boston, NYC, Philadelphia, DC, etc. due to the economic conditions in those areas and the amount of jobs / good schools. It's just not as partisan as certain parts of the south, where everyone in a 100 mile radius of a SEC school is born there, grows up there, attends said school (or not even), and lives there as an adult. Obviously that's a dangerous generalization, but I'm exaggerating a little bit to make my point. It's different - not better or worse, just different.

Pro fandom is more regional and less partisan than college, since out of say 6M people in the Phila metro area, they may have gone to 000s of different colleges which dilutes the fan base of any of them, yet most of the non-transplants will follow the local pro team.

It could be argued that the same factors that make the northeast such a "wasteland" for big time college sports are the same factors that make it the best region for pro sports.

According to the Leafs website, you can purchase their "mini pack" which gets you 2 tickets to a TML game and 4 to a Marlies game for $266, so assuming that people only buy those for the TML games, it's $133 / ticket. Obviously these aren't season tickets, which require signing up on the waiting list for however long that takes.

But I think it's fair to say that pretty much no team can fairly be compared with Toronto in discussions like this. The Maple Leafs to Toronto just aren't the same as any other team to any other city. I won't go as far as to say they're an outlier in terms of moral support, but they have to be an outlier when it comes to actual financial support.

I just looked up MTL, which I figured would be the next closest thing, and you can still get 10 packs and 5 packs for around $50 / ticket. You can buy individual tickets for a lot of their games for as low as $34.

LOL yeah - that's the price of a beer at most places, not a ticket. Cheapest Flyers per-ticket price for a season ticket is $39, and you wouldn't want to be in those seats. Non-season ticket would be more. I'm sure that Toronto, NY, DET, are more, and most of the other "traditional" market teams are around the same.

I haven't seen a baseball season ticket for under $20 / game since the Phillies left the Vet after 2003. Stuff is just different in the south and west when it comes to pro sports.

That can't be for real. Right?

It's better that way. No need to have things moving or flashing at you all the time.

I've never understood having to pay for the "privilege" of parking your car at a place you intend to spend money at.

TANGENT WARNING:

It's the same way with the mall in downtown Sudbury - and I believe that the mall suffers because of this. Many more shoppers in Sudbury visit the larger mall in the north end of the city because they have free parking.

I understand the bit about paying a fee if you intend to park at the mall but shop somewhere else downtown, in a way, but the problem with downtown Sudbury is that finding parking downtown is a nightmare just about anywhere except for that mall. I usually go downtown by bus when I need to/want to, but the bus system in Sudbury is, well, that's for another discussion entirely...

And don't get me started on hospital parking fees. When you're going to see a potentially dying loved one, how is it fair to be charged a fee every time you have to park your vehicle? All they should do is give you a free parking sticker to hang on your car when you go to the front desk, which would authorize you to be there. If you don't have one because you didn't go in and get it while at the hospital, that should indicate that you are not intending on going into the hospital.

Maybe I look at it differently since I live in a city, but parking spots are valuable real estate that has more demand than supply. Also charging for parking encourages use of pt which benefits everybody.

I do get that the situation is different in the coyotes case, and in the west / southwest in general.

Also - are sports events really that cheap out there, $40 for a cardinals ticket? $5 for dbacks / suns?

I am not particularly well-versed in this area, but parking among land developers is generally considered a pretty big waste of land, particularly where land is valuable. In terms of land value in urban areas parking is one of the most under-priced services in America. I have yet to read the below book and have been meaning to...

But that lack of parking spots caused buy the value of the real estate just makes what few spots around very valuable.

I lease a spot now for around $300 / month. Deeded spots can range from 100k to 40k depending on location (but are usually tied to condo towers). When I give up my spot in a few days (since I'm moving) I'm pretty sure it will get taken within a day or two.

In Phila, the stadiums are kinda in the middle of nowhere, on huge lots of land without other businesses around other than a few warehouses and food distribution centers so I don't know how valuable that land really is, but still the demand / supply ratio calls for it to be priced what it is. PT is pretty easy to and from the games if you live in the city. It's still not bad from the burbs, but a lot of philly burbs people have no idea how to read a transit map or wont arrive to the game in anything other than their oversized gas guzzling Lexus tank.

Wait the royals had a chance to move to the NL and DECLINED? What the hell were they thinking??

I've never understood having to pay for the "privilege" of parking your car at a place you intend to spend money at.

TANGENT WARNING:

It's the same way with the mall in downtown Sudbury - and I believe that the mall suffers because of this. Many more shoppers in Sudbury visit the larger mall in the north end of the city because they have free parking.

I understand the bit about paying a fee if you intend to park at the mall but shop somewhere else downtown, in a way, but the problem with downtown Sudbury is that finding parking downtown is a nightmare just about anywhere except for that mall. I usually go downtown by bus when I need to/want to, but the bus system in Sudbury is, well, that's for another discussion entirely...

And don't get me started on hospital parking fees. When you're going to see a potentially dying loved one, how is it fair to be charged a fee every time you have to park your vehicle? All they should do is give you a free parking sticker to hang on your car when you go to the front desk, which would authorize you to be there. If you don't have one because you didn't go in and get it while at the hospital, that should indicate that you are not intending on going into the hospital.

Maybe I look at it differently since I live in a city, but parking spots are valuable real estate that has more demand than supply. Also charging for parking encourages use of pt which benefits everybody.

I do get that the situation is different in the coyotes case, and in the west / southwest in general.

Also - are sports events really that cheap out there, $40 for a cardinals ticket? $5 for dbacks / suns?

How about Buffalo? I've read an article a while ago that Buffalo was seeking an MLB team around 25 years ago, and they used the successes of the Bisons as proof. But MLB decided that they city was "too small of a market," and elected to give new franchises to Miami and Denver, instead (the eventual Marlins and Rockies).

Why can't Buffalo be an option for the Rays today? I don't exactly have detail on the Bisons today, but it would certainly help travel arrangements for the AL East teams.

Is this a serious post?

I swear, people just look at cities that have other major teams, and just automatically assume that they're big flourishing cities.

There are a lot of cities that if the leagues were starting up today, wouldn't have teams. Nothing against those cities, but the economic climate was different back in the day before some industries either left town or other things happened to cause them to lose population and affluence. Buffalo seems to do a fine job supporting the Bills and Sabers (at least when they're good) but there's no way it's a candidate for another team. If we were starting from scratch, the Bills probably wouldn't even be there.