St. Louis Blues for Sale

[The_Admiral]

I don't think St. Louis is that inherently challenging. It's a medium-sized midwestern town with a solid bedrock of middle-class people who have roots in the area, and sometimes water freezes nearby. That, to me, is a green light for NHL hockey. The challenge will be getting them to meet bona fide NHL price points after years of discounts in a market where sports dollars go first and foremost to that one baseball team. How they finish out the year will go a long way in determining how much Stillman can hike ticket prices, but even if they should win the Cup (ugh), the Blues will continue to struggle with not being the Cardinals in a market where it is highly advisable that you be the Cardinals. Still pulling for them. Good folks, Blues fans.

I don't think the AHL team is exactly showing a profit, at least if the amount of people I see in the arena when I went to games is any indication.

How would you feel about a relocation of the Rivermen to St. Charles? Possible? Viable? Advisable? It seems like a good idea at first for the purpose of cheap shuttling, but I'd be afraid of cannibalizing the market, which probably isn't big enough for an NHL/AHL combo.

[rams80]

How would you feel about a relocation of the Rivermen to St. Charles? Possible? Viable? Advisable? It seems like a good idea at first for the purpose of cheap shuttling, but I'd be afraid of cannibalizing the market, which probably isn't big enough for an NHL/AHL combo.

Speaking as a native Peorian, that's been our nightmare scenario for the last 5-6 years. I guess Family Arena in St. Charles is possible, but the fact that it hasn't yet indicates the Blues don't consider it advisable or viable. Family Arena has killed a hockey, basketball, indoor soccer, and indoor football team and been empty for the last two years, so St. Charles just may not be viable for minor league sports.

Honestly, the Blues have had ample reason and ability to make such a move for awhile; the fact they haven't indicates they might see issues with St. Charles and/or they see a need to keep some sort of Central Illinois presence to "show the flag" against the Blackhawks if nothing else.

[The_Admiral]

The Blackhawks aren't doing nearly enough to capture outlying areas and make themselves a fully regional team.

Case in point: just like the other Chicago teams, the Blackhawks have telecasts on WGN. However, while the Cubs/Bulls/Sox have their games aired nationally on both WGNs (9 and America), the Hawks are only on channel 9. I'm guessing this has something to do with Gary Bettman being a doodoohead and trying to further protect failing southern markets from the superstation. Anyway, the unintended consequence here is that not all cable systems in areas overlapping Comcast Sportsnet's reach--downstate, South Bend, Rockford, Quad Cities--carry the local feed of WGN, rather WGN America, so most weekend games are blacked out there, which means the Hawks have essentially re-Wirtzed their television contract. Why not work out some deal to syndicate the WGN package to local UHFs in their satellite markets, the way the Cubs have their stupid channel 26 package syndicated to similar markets? While they're at it, get that slate on in Milwaukee and Madison, too.

I guess what I'm saying is don't let the Blues control downstate.

Oddly enough, Canada gets the local version of WGN on their cable systems rather than the superstation, so the Hawks are available in Toronto but not South Bend. Brilliant.

[STL FANATIC]

While (assuming I'm successful in returning there sooner than later), it'd be cool to go just a little ways and see the up-and-comers play in St. Charles, I'm inclined to keep the team in Peoria. One, that team (albeit in a few different leagues and iterations) has tremendous history in that market. Perhaps they'd come back under new ownership and be affiliated with someone else, but even the affiliation with the Blues has been a long-time thing. It's not as much about establishing a fan base in that region of Illinois (although, that's not a bad benefit if it works), it's just about me saying it's close enough to St. Louis to make logistics easy and the history there is cool, so why mess with it?

As far as the Blues themselves go, they do rather well at the gate as far as tickets sold (and fans in attendance). But their tickets are pretty darn cheap. The Blues were one of the teams most devastated by the lockout. Not only did casual fans slide away from hockey as they did in most American markets due to the lockout, but the team went up for sale and the previous owner cut the budget way down thinking that would best help his cause. So when the NHL and the Blues did come back, the Blues were the worst team in the league (after having a 25-ish year run of playoffs in the seasons prior). And since then, they've made the playoffs once and it took a miracle run. And then they got swept. And then they underachieved in back-to-back years following to kill any momentum they had established. The die-hard fans (and there's a big chunk of those) never left, of course, but the casual fans were a little slow to spend their money to go see games for a team that wasn't very good.

I've said before that St. Louis doesn't demand a winner, it demands effort, competitiveness, and an occasional winner. The Blues finally seem to be back on that track. Make the playoffs this year. Win some games if not a series or two (or more). And then come back and start playing strong hockey again next season, and the fans will not only come to games, but they'll start to pay money that becomes more comparable to other teams in the league.

As a niche sport in a mid-sized market where a bigger team is dominant, the Blues may always be on the cusp of struggling financially (I think many teams in the NHL do), but when the team is playing playoff hockey (and that just means being 16th best in the league), I think their situation becomes pretty stable.

[dfwabel]

Also keep in mind that the Blues/arena lost a sub-tenant in SLU in 2008. That's 15+ less dates of revenue and while SLU today is not the SLU when the arena opened in terms of conference and talent, it is still lost revenue.