Back In The Game?

[Breakwood]

I understand the NHL having the right to choose who owns a team, but I cannot fathom why you would reject, one of the richest men in the world from purchasing a team that is losing millions of dollars a year.

This personal vendetta that Bettman has for Balsilie is nothing more than an elementary school grudge, and in the end will end up hurting the rest of the league.

I'll put it in terms you understand. The precedent from letting Balsillie have his way would allow me (if I were also one of the richest men in the world) to buy the Maple Leafs or Canadiens and move them to Guadalajara, no questions asked, just for the heck of it. And there would be nothing the NHL could legally do about it.

I understand, and always have. The fact is for the past 5 years, the league has been stopping Balsilie from purchasing teams in financial trouble. Sure this attempt was through the back door, but his other attempts were by the book, and still for some reason Bettman has refused him

[Gothamite]

I think, by this point, that it's about ego. They don't like him in the way that the NBA doesn't like Mark Cuban, and damned if they'll let him into their little club.

there are many fans here that take their tikes to the game.

Not that many.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

While it is true that you should expect to build a fanbase over time, you also need to see some progress. A playoff team shouldn't be second from the bottom at the box office.

Attendance, no there has been no progress, but in the way things have been building there has been. I'm not disagreeing with you, but everyone forgets the younger generation and how they are building towards what will be a great fan base that will take time to build.

How much time do they need? Another thirteen years? And another thirteen after that?

Besides, some mythical potential future fanbase that they may or may not build isn't really the point. They have failed to build a current one, and can't go on losing tens of millions of dollars a year while they wait for the market to magically develop around them.

I wish we had reliable attendance stats for the first several years - ESPN's only go back to 2001. But over that span, even when the Coyotes made the playoffs they've been at the bottom of the box office charts.

The NHL itself publicly admits that the team may be forced to move. And you know how much that hurt them. The market just isn't there. Maybe someday it will be, but there's been ample opportunity over the last decade-plus for Phoenix to step up.

I understand that it really sucks for those Phoenix hockey fans there are to lose their team, but facts are what they are.

[HedleyLamarr]

For what it's worth, the Coyotes are still drawing more fans (at least, the attendance count the NHL uses) than Winnipeg did in their last 5 seasons of existance.

Winnipeg was drawing under 12,000 fans per game, and that was with no threat of the team moving.

[The_Admiral]

"Out of the way." Okay, I'm looking at Google Maps. Relative to other metropolitan areas with hockey teams, Greater Phoenix isn't even that big! It's just a little cluster of ring-road expressways and long straight Cartesian roads. Their arena, adjacent to the Cardinals' stadium which people sometimes manage to attend, is right off a goddamn expressway! There's an exit right there and everything! People talk about the Coyotes as playing "in the desert." To hear it from some people, the arena is actually located smack-dab in the middle of a freaking desert. It's not really that far from anything, especially in a new American city where there's no traditional "city center" as we know it like there is in a New York or Boston or Philadelphia or Washington. And besides, who doesn't have to go "out of the way" to go to a game, in any sport? Getting to a place where 20,000 other people are simultaneously trying to go is kinda not easy. Whether that means living in the city and dealing with trains, or driving in from the burbs, attending a sporting event isn't exactly like swinging through the bank. Look at Wrigley Field. Driving there is a pain in the ass because you have to find a parking space somewhere somehow without paying $100 for the privilege. Nonetheless, 41,000 people find a way to do it 81 times a year. Look at Gillette Stadium! Talk about "out of the way," it's in the middle of absolute butt:censored:ing nowhere because Kraft wouldn't or couldn't buy real estate closer to Boston, and yet those jerks manage to drive all the way from Boston and environs to that big inaccessible blotch of sprawl. I don't buy it with the Marlins, I don't buy it with the Coyotes, I don't buy it with anyone. "Out of the way" is never an excuse.

So you trust Google Maps instead of asking someone from Glendale who drives down to the area almost every week? I'm looking at this map and thinking how old is this? Everything that you say there is a desert, has a hotel, a spring training stadium, a high rise in construction, shops, restaurants. Doesn't even look like desert now. Dude this had to be taken a year ago. We weren't built in the late 1600's to 1700's and the Phoenix area is still growing, alot of cities here aren't even 100 years old and the oldest incorporated city is only 130 years old. Sorry Phoenix doesn't fit your mold, sorry you have to rely on a map that isn't even up to snuff.

READING IS A SKILL: the point I was making is that the arena is not, in fact, in the middle of a desert, and that complaining that it's somehow "out of the way," a common complaint since the Jobberena was built, is a pile of crap. It's not any harder for people to get to a game in Glendale than it is for people to get to a game in Philadelphia, Montreal, and so forth.

[rams80]

I understand the NHL having the right to choose who owns a team, but I cannot fathom why you would reject, one of the richest men in the world from purchasing a team that is losing millions of dollars a year.

This personal vendetta that Bettman has for Balsilie is nothing more than an elementary school grudge, and in the end will end up hurting the rest of the league.

I'll put it in terms you understand. The precedent from letting Balsillie have his way would allow me (if I were also one of the richest men in the world) to buy the Maple Leafs or Canadiens and move them to Guadalajara, no questions asked, just for the heck of it. And there would be nothing the NHL could legally do about it.

I understand, and always have. The fact is for the past 5 years, the league has been stopping Balsilie from purchasing teams in financial trouble. Sure this attempt was through the back door, but his other attempts were by the book, and still for some reason Bettman has refused him

Because he was going to move the team he bought, and literally any team he bought, to Hamilton with or without league approval. He would have moved Pittsburgh to Hamilton for crying out loud. How does that help the league? At a certain point, your franchise bylaws need to be observed, which Mark Cuban understands.

[SenatorJake]

I wish we had reliable attendance stats for the first several years - ESPN's only go back to 2001. But over that span, even when the Coyotes made the playoffs they've been at the bottom of the box office charts.

The NHL itself publicly admits that the team may be forced to move. And you know how much that hurt them. The market just isn't there. Maybe someday it will be, but there's been ample opportunity over the last decade-plus for Phoenix to step up.

I understand that it really sucks for those Phoenix hockey fans there are to lose their team, but facts are what they are.

Oh but we do. I posted this on page 20 of this discussion. God is this thread ever large!

Here are the average attendance records since Phoenix moved from Winnipeg:

'96-'97: 15 604

'97-'98: 15 405

'98-'99: 15 548

'99-'00: 14 991

'00-'01: 14 224

'01-'02: 13 161

'02-'03: 13 229

'03-'04: 15 469

'05-'06: 15 582

'06-'07: 14 988

'07-'08: 14 820

'08-'09: 14 875

Fact of the matter is that this team has always been on the lower rungs of the NHL attendance wise.

[BigMac12]

^^ As HedleyLamarr pointed out, those numbers are higher than Winnipeg, which averaged less than 12,000 for their last year.

[SenatorJake]

^^ As HedleyLamarr pointed out, those numbers are higher than Winnipeg, which averaged less than 12,000 for their last year.

Will Phoenix top 12 000 this year? We'll probably never know because many teams buy up their own tickets now and, as seen in many NHL rinks, announced attendance is usually utter BS.

[BigMac12]

^^ As HedleyLamarr pointed out, those numbers are higher than Winnipeg, which averaged less than 12,000 for their last year.

Will Phoenix top 12 000 this year?

Hopefully.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

By saying there are no fans in Phoenix, people are really saying that the paying customer base for Coyotes hockey relative to the size of the metro region is decidedly lower than the league average.

Actually, is that even true? I'd love to see a ratio of average attendance to metro population for the NHL and other sport.

So, I did this. I took NHL attendance from 2009 and compared it to metro population found on Wikipedia. It's sorted by city name, average NHL attendance, metro population, and attendance/metro populationX100 (to see what percentage of the metro population showed up for NHL games.

Interestingly enough, hockey is very healthy in Buffalo. What does any of this mean? Probably nothing.

Buffalo 18,531 1,124,309 1.65

Edmonton 16,839 1,034,945 1.63

Carolina 16,572 1,088,765 1.52

Nashville 15,010 1,550,733 0.97

San Jose 17,488 1,819,198 0.96

Vancouver 18,630 2,116,581 0.88

Columbus 15,543 1,773,120 0.88

Pittsburgh 16,975 2,351,192 0.72

St. Louis 18,554 2,816,710 0.66

Colorado 15,429 2,506,626 0.62

Tampa Bay 16,497 2,733,761 0.60

Montreal 21,273 3,635,571 0.59

Minnesota 18,568 3,229,878 0.57

Calgary 19,289 3,635,571 0.53

Ottawa 18,949 3,635,571 0.52

Detroit 19,865 4,425,110 0.45

Toronto 19,312 5,113,149 0.38

Boston 17,039 4,522,858 0.38

Phoenix 14,875 4,281,899 0.35

Washington 18,097 5,358,130 0.34

Philadelphia 19,545 5,838,471 0.33

Florida 15,621 5,414,772 0.29

Dallas 17,680 6,300,006 0.28

Atlanta 14,626 5,376,285 0.27

Chicago 22,247 9,569,624 0.23

Anaheim 16,990 12,872,808 0.13

Los Angeles 16,488 12,872,808 0.13

NY Rangers 18,172 19,006,798 0.10

New Jersey 15,790 19,006,798 0.08

NY Islanders 13,773 19,006,798 0.07

[Lee.]

Winnipeg 11,500 650,000 1.71

(using approximate 1993/94 numbers)

[Breakwood]

I understand the NHL having the right to choose who owns a team, but I cannot fathom why you would reject, one of the richest men in the world from purchasing a team that is losing millions of dollars a year.

This personal vendetta that Bettman has for Balsilie is nothing more than an elementary school grudge, and in the end will end up hurting the rest of the league.

I'll put it in terms you understand. The precedent from letting Balsillie have his way would allow me (if I were also one of the richest men in the world) to buy the Maple Leafs or Canadiens and move them to Guadalajara, no questions asked, just for the heck of it. And there would be nothing the NHL could legally do about it.

I understand, and always have. The fact is for the past 5 years, the league has been stopping Balsilie from purchasing teams in financial trouble. Sure this attempt was through the back door, but his other attempts were by the book, and still for some reason Bettman has refused him

Because he was going to move the team he bought, and literally any team he bought, to Hamilton with or without league approval. He would have moved Pittsburgh to Hamilton for crying out loud. How does that help the league? At a certain point, your franchise bylaws need to be observed, which Mark Cuban understands.

A team in Hamilton would make more money than a team in Pittsburgh. Tickets, Merchandise, Sponsorship and TV rights for a hockey team in Hamilton would make more than in Pittsburgh. If this was any other sport then, obviously Pittsburgh would be a better location, but for hockey, Hamilton would win hands down.

Now this isn't to say that Pittsburgh is a bad market. Hamilton is just that good of a market. Hamilton would become the defacto "non-leaf GTA team". From experience, between 1/4 and 1/2 of the GTA and southern Ontario do not like the Leafs. Those people are prime targets for a Hamilton franchise. Assuming, 1/3 of the GTA are not Leaf fans, that makes approx. 1.5 million people who the Hamilton franchise would target. That is similar to the 2 million people that the Penguins target in the Pittsburgh metro area. Now lets add in another 1 to 1.5 million people in the rest of Southern Ontario, and we have 2.5 to 3 million people.

Generally speaking these people's favourite sport is hockey, as opposed to the people who in Pittsburgh who are more likely to be football or baseball fans. So that's 1 million people more that the Hamilton franchise has to draw over Pittsburgh, in a hockey hotbed.

I find it hard to argue that Hamilton having a team over Pittsburgh would hurt the league.

[The_Admiral]

So, I did this. I took NHL attendance from 2009 and compared it to metro population found on Wikipedia. It's sorted by city name, average NHL attendance, metro population, and attendance/metro populationX100 (to see what percentage of the metro population showed up for NHL games.

Interesting way to show how well small-market teams are doing, but I think this belies the strength of the big cities as you get to the bottom, because no matter how big NY/Chicago/Philly are, you can only fit so many people into a hockey rink. Which numbers are you using for these? You have San Jose as being relatively small, when they should actually be credited with the entire San Francisco Bay Area CSA.

[rams80]

I understand the NHL having the right to choose who owns a team, but I cannot fathom why you would reject, one of the richest men in the world from purchasing a team that is losing millions of dollars a year.

This personal vendetta that Bettman has for Balsilie is nothing more than an elementary school grudge, and in the end will end up hurting the rest of the league.

I'll put it in terms you understand. The precedent from letting Balsillie have his way would allow me (if I were also one of the richest men in the world) to buy the Maple Leafs or Canadiens and move them to Guadalajara, no questions asked, just for the heck of it. And there would be nothing the NHL could legally do about it.

I understand, and always have. The fact is for the past 5 years, the league has been stopping Balsilie from purchasing teams in financial trouble. Sure this attempt was through the back door, but his other attempts were by the book, and still for some reason Bettman has refused him

Because he was going to move the team he bought, and literally any team he bought, to Hamilton with or without league approval. He would have moved Pittsburgh to Hamilton for crying out loud. How does that help the league? At a certain point, your franchise bylaws need to be observed, which Mark Cuban understands.

A team in Hamilton would make more money than a team in Pittsburgh. Tickets, Merchandise, Sponsorship and TV rights for a hockey team in Hamilton would make more than in Pittsburgh. If this was any other sport then, obviously Pittsburgh would be a better location, but for hockey, Hamilton would win hands down.

Now this isn't to say that Pittsburgh is a bad market. Hamilton is just that good of a market. Hamilton would become the defacto "non-leaf GTA team". From experience, between 1/4 and 1/2 of the GTA and southern Ontario do not like the Leafs. Those people are prime targets for a Hamilton franchise. Assuming, 1/3 of the GTA are not Leaf fans, that makes approx. 1.5 million people who the Hamilton franchise would target. That is similar to the 2 million people that the Penguins target in the Pittsburgh metro area. Now lets add in another 1 to 1.5 million people in the rest of Southern Ontario, and we have 2.5 to 3 million people.

Generally speaking these people's favourite sport is hockey, as opposed to the people who in Pittsburgh who are more likely to be football or baseball fans. So that's 1 million people more that the Hamilton franchise has to draw over Pittsburgh, in a hockey hotbed.

I find it hard to argue that Hamilton having a team over Pittsburgh would hurt the league.

When Pittsburgh is the best market in the United States, yes, leaving said market would hurt the league far more than giving Leaf fans more opportunities to see the Leafs or Leaf antifans a more local option.

/The fact a Hamilton team also shoots the Sabres in the face (which is currently a good US market) also needs to be considered.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

So, I did this. I took NHL attendance from 2009 and compared it to metro population found on Wikipedia. It's sorted by city name, average NHL attendance, metro population, and attendance/metro populationX100 (to see what percentage of the metro population showed up for NHL games.

Interesting way to show how well small-market teams are doing, but I think this belies the strength of the big cities as you get to the bottom, because no matter how big NY/Chicago/Philly are, you can only fit so many people into a hockey rink. Which numbers are you using for these? You have San Jose as being relatively small, when they should actually be credited with the entire San Francisco Bay Area CSA.

.

I used Wikipedia's largest metropolitan areas page, and did a simple Ctrl+F for each city. As I recall, they gave San Jose its own entry, even though I was fully expecting to see it listed alongside the Bay Area cities.

But inasmuch my lil' stats project tells us anything, it doesn't really tell us much at all. You're right to point out that New York and Los Angeles can't fairly be compared to Buffalo or Edmonton. And if average attendance to market size ratios were indicative of anything, they'd probably be a more common statistic.

However, more than one percent of a region's population showing up to every hockey game? That's kind of neat.

[STL FANATIC]

Besides, some mythical potential future fanbase that they may or may not build isn't really the point. They have failed to build a current one, and can't go on losing tens of millions of dollars a year while they wait for the market to magically develop around them.

Perhaps you wouldn't, but the NHL owners believe they CAN wait for that fanbase. And it's their call.

You don't move into a new market like that and expect it to not take a couple generations. People often say the NHL is being short-sighted, but it seems clear to me they've actually made long-term decisions and are sticking to them.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

A couple of generations? They'd willingly wait 20-40 years to turn a profit?

This is hockey, not tech patents. That doesn't make any kind sense to me.

[-kj]

They see a higher ceiling in a market the size of Phoenix, as opposed to a much smaller market like Hamilton or Winnipeg.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

They see a higher ceiling in a market the size of Phoenix, as opposed to a much smaller market like Hamilton or Winnipeg.

Oh, I understand that, and if it was working, I would totally be on their side. But look at this (from Wikipedia):

The team had lost an estimated $200 million since 2001 and in recent years posted heavy losses, including $41.6 million in 2006-07, $37.3 million during the 2007-08 season, and $54 million in 2008-09.

Does the NHL really want to commit to $30 million+ loses for presumably the next five years, if not longer? When is enough money lost to give up any hope on turning it around? $500 million? $1 billion? Just on the off chance that Phoenix turns around, decides the Coyotes brand isn't completely worthless, and decides to enjoy hockey? At that point, how much money will the team need to generate, and for how long, to make all of this worth it?

I'd really like to know what the NHL considers to be a winning scenario here. And I don't say this as someone who hates Phoenix -- I own a Coyotes jersey (!). I'm just flabbergasted that the NHL is so determined to remain in Phoenix despite tons of great reasons not to (including a couple hundred million from a guy in Canada).

[STL FANATIC]

A couple of generations? They'd willingly wait 20-40 years to turn a profit?

This is hockey, not tech patents. That doesn't make any kind sense to me.

If you build it the right way, you give it about 15, up to 20. (I didn't mean two full generations, but enough time that kids watching the team in the early days are old enough to buy some tickets.)

Nashville is a good example of this, I think. I know there's plenty here who think they should be in Hamilton, but they've done things right, and in another 5 or so years I think we'll seem them doing well in most aspects off the ice and in 10 years I think they'll be in great shape.

Phoenix has been set back by terrible ownership operating on a terrible business plan. So unfortunately they're going to take longer. They need to be built the right way, and if so, the potential of the market will be realized. In the process, it's up to the NHL owners whether they think losing money over that time is worth it. So far, they've decided it is.

If you want to knock the NHL, don't knock them for sticking in Phoenix. Knock them for not ensuring better ownership existed in Phoenix up to this point. And if they don't get the team running properly from here on out, knock them for not doing what it takes to realize the potential they want.

But being willing to incur losses to build a successful market isn't in and of itself a dumb thing. They just need to be sure they're actually building the market instead of consistently operating a hapless franchise in the market. That's more or less what's happened for the first 12(?) years, unfortunately.