NHL Anti-Thread: Bad Business Decision Aggregator

[BBTV]

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.

[Magnus]

$7? Something's wrong, there. Wolves tickets are $20, and they're major junior (and not the best team, at that).

Although the Wolves kind of have other problems....

[FGM13]

$7? Something's wrong, there. Wolves tickets are $20, and they're major junior (and not the best team, at that).

Although the Wolves kind of have other problems....

Oil Kings tickets are $12. And they're one of the top teams in the WHL!

[IceCap]

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.

And $50/$34 a ticket isn't $7 a ticket.

The "oh you can't compare Florida/*insert struggling sunbelt team* with the traditional teams" excuse is wearing thin.

At a certain point we need to discuss "successful markets" and "unsuccessful markets." Sooner or later the sunbelt teams deserve crap for not being comparable to the more traditional teams.

I'm not saying Florida has to sell tickets at Toronto or Montreal prices. I'm saying that $7 a ticket, twenty years in, is the sign of an unsuccessful market.

[The_Admiral]

As I said when I talked about television ratings a while back, the problem isn't that there's a gaping disparity between Toronto and Florida. The problem is that it's this gaping. And yet the league thinks it can have parity on the ice.

[Sodboy13]

It is a successful market, though, in that it does what the owners want it to do (line their pockets with arena revenue), and it provides benefit to the league owners collectively (by keeping player costs down).

You may not like it, I may not like it, but there really isn't any motivation to change from the current arrangement for those who could directly affect it.

[The_Admiral]

It's too bad, considering their prospect pool is really interesting, but because of the awful organization they're associated with, I can't wish them well. It's a lose-lose situation: either Huberdeau, Bjugstad, Barkov, et al finally make this an elite team but waste their elite talents on the soulless stucco strip malls and twelve-lane roads of the Miami suburbs, or something goes wrong in the organization like it always has and none of them reach their potential, which sucks in its own way.

[Gothamite]

It is a successful market, though, in that it does what the owners want it to do (line their pockets with arena revenue), and it provides benefit to the league owners collectively (by keeping player costs down).

Never let it be said that an unsuccessful market can't sometimes be very useful. That doesn't make it any less an unsuccessful market.

I can write off some stock losses on my taxes. That doesn't mean I deliberately look for stocks that are going to tank.

[Lee.]

Or maybe, just maybe, by pricing the tickets at $7 apiece PLUS free parking PLUS a free jersey, they're making themselves look like a piss-poor organization, and the rest of South Florida knows it. By pricing seats at least reasonably commensurate with what the Heat might charge (or at maybe a good fraction of what they charge), they might be able to create the illusion of demand, and start to draw the odd crowd here and there.

I dunno, just a thought.

[The_Admiral]

It's kind of funny how the Panthers can offend our sensibilities by ridiculously catering to South Florida's semi-idle rich with Club Red, and selling tickets for less than the price of lunch from Panera Bread.

The problem with trying to make the Panthers a hot destination is they chose to alienate themselves from the region's vector of tastemaking. People down there love to glom onto whatever is the next big thing, but location x3; the next big thing can never be hanging out at an outlet mall next to the Glades.

[Sodboy13]

It is a successful market, though, in that it does what the owners want it to do (line their pockets with arena revenue), and it provides benefit to the league owners collectively (by keeping player costs down).

Never let it be said that an unsuccessful market can't sometimes be very useful. That doesn't make it any less an unsuccessful market.

I can write off some stock losses on my taxes. That doesn't mean I deliberately look for stocks that are going to tank.

But you could always put your money into credit default swaps.

[dbadefense1990]

$150 for nosebleeds for Leafs games.

Have the people who actually do pay that much ever heard of "StubHub?"

[OMMF]

***

[The Giant Pacific Octopus]

Balsillie

Who's that?

[Sport]

http://www.cavemag.com/my-year-as-a-florida-panthers-season-ticket-holder/

Great story about a guy in Vancouver who became a Florida Panthers season ticket holder last season. Must read.

[Lee.]

I posted that before, it's a really good story.

[Magnus]

[The_Admiral]

From the press conference for the Panthers today,

Harvey Fialkov ‏@hfialkov 6m

Bettman assures Violas resources will eventually bring Panthers the Cup. He didnt say when #flapanthers

This troubles me. I know that it's just empty rah-rah crap, but I think it's poor form for a commissioner to get up on a stage and assure anyone that a team will win a championship. There's also the minor glitch of citing an owner's "resources" in the inevitability of success on the heels of a lockout and CBA that made it harder for owners to spend their way to success and out of failure, but that's just, like I said, a minor glitch. I'm more concerned with the impropriety of declaring the Stanley Cup an eventuality, especially when there's nothing eventual about it for even the very best of teams, and especially in a league where teams can be given de jure preferential treatment in terms of revenue sharing. I remember some guys in Winnipeg bought a hockey team and held a press conference. The only assurance Gary Bettman made that day was that if people didn't buy 13,000 tickets in a month, he'd take their team away.

[IceCap]

Gary Bettman's biases are becoming harder to ignore, and I'm finding that absolutely delightful.

[Gothamite]

True enough.

But I'd need to read the actual quote. It could have been something along the lines of "with your resources, and the great people you have, I'm convinced you'll be raising the Cup soon!" That could fit the tweet and still be reasonable on the Commissioner's part. Or he could have said exactly what we all first thought he said, which would have been outrageous.

It feels wrong to be giving Bettman the benefit of the doubt in any form, but I think we have to here.