Islanders, Nassau County announce lease agreement

[FiddySicks]

Florida, Phoenix, The Islanders, and even Nashville and Dallas seem like likely suspects to go IF contraction was to happen, but Colombus? I know they're second fiddle to a college team, but are their attendance numbers really that bad?

[The_Admiral]

Their attendance is as about as good as it can be given the terrible product the team has put out. It's the dual arena thing that's going to screw the Blue Jackets. Nationwide is tired of losing money on the arena it owns. Columbus was a bad idea anyway without the "build an arena while Ohio State builds a virtually identical arena" problem.

[IceCap]

Okay, five. Sorry, I don't follow the NHL all that closely.

That's a huge number, though. Any others?

That's it, that we know of. Just a few months before the Coyotes fiasco started Bettman came out and said that every NHL team was on solid financial footing. Then the Coyotes filed for bankruptcy and it was reviled that Bettman had orchestrated a scheme to lend the then owner money under the table so he could meet payroll for the majority of the past season.

He knowingly lied once. So it wouldn't surprise me if more then just the five teams we know about were struggling financially.

[TheOldRoman]

It's not that anyone would know or care about the Coyotes for the sake of the Coyotes. It would be the news that the NHL, faced with numerous failures in a bad economy, will be the first league since, well, the NHL in 1978, to fold a team. And not just one, but two teams. Just like how notwithstanding the terrible financial dilemmas beneath the surface, the NHL had to suffer the ignominy of being the only major sports league to cancel an entire season. The ill will from that took years to shake off. I'm still not sure it's all gone. They're all too proud to admit such a grand-scale failure if they can help it, which they can, because there will always be delusional or stupid city governments that will bend over backward for sports.

For the time being, but unless the NBA player decide to grab their ankles sometime before February, the NHL will have company.

[ElwoodCuse]

Coyotes to Kansas City.

If Kansas City really wants a franchise, they have a very good opportunity to show it.

Preseason games are a scam in every single sport and the fact that people are loathe to spend money on them unless absolutely forced to (NFL STHs, cough cough) means absolutely nothing in terms of "will this market support a franchise"

also contraction LOL

[Gothamite]

I'm not saying that Kansas City's continued failure to sell tickets to exhibition games will rule them out as a potential relocation option.

What I am saying is that a good showing in KC could go a long way towards putting them back in the relocation conversation. It's their opportunity to either seize or squander again.

[tp49]

AEG isn't just going to put any NHL team into Kansas City. My impression is that they would prefer to put an NBA team there first over an NHL team. However, it has to make business sense for AEG to do this as the arena is profitable already without any professional team just on concerts and other events and while having the additional forty one dates a year filled isn't a bad thing AEG is looking for a truly good fit for the city and their pocketbook. If any team is going to move into the Sprint Center it would be NBA and probably from what is out there the Hornets.

[Gothamite]

I know that KC hasn't shown any interest in hockey; is there a reason to believe that they'd support a basketball team?

[BrySmalls]

AEG isn't just going to put any NHL team into Kansas City. My impression is that they would prefer to put an NBA team there first over an NHL team. However, it has to make business sense for AEG to do this as the arena is profitable already without any professional team just on concerts and other events and while having the additional forty one dates a year filled isn't a bad thing AEG is looking for a truly good fit for the city and their pocketbook. If any team is going to move into the Sprint Center it would be NBA and probably from what is out there the Hornets.

I thought that AEG will be abandoning the "put an NBA/NHL team in Kansas City" shtick due to recent news in their quest for an NFL team in Los Angeles.

Also, here is an article that brings this acknowledgment to light.

[Sport]

Florida, Phoenix, The Islanders, and even Nashville and Dallas seem like likely suspects to go IF contraction was to happen, but Colombus? I know they're second fiddle to a college team, but are their attendance numbers really that bad?

Given what we've been forced to support in a city that has never experienced a winning team or a deep playoff run or even a playoff victory, I'd say the Blue Jackets attendance is commendable. If we make the playoffs two years in a row like the Coyotes and attendance is still down then it'd be a fair assessment, but in rare cases when the team's been hot, the building has been packed and alive. I still believe in this city as a market.

Fan support will not be what dooms this team. Not owning their building (so they have to give up profits on concessions/parking and pay a ridiculous lease) and having to compete for events with Value City Arena (OSU's barn. I say barn because it has aged horribly while Nationwide Arena is still gorgeous.) will be what dooms this team. Those however are not unsolvable problems and the McConnell family is prepared to lose money for the time being.

[IceCap]

Coyotes to Kansas City.

If Kansas City really wants a franchise, they have a very good opportunity to show it.

Preseason games are a scam in every single sport and the fact that people are loathe to spend money on them unless absolutely forced to (NFL STHs, cough cough) means absolutely nothing in terms of "will this market support a franchise"

also contraction LOL

A market doesn't seem ideal if the few times they get NHL hockey they only manage to fill half of the arena. Maybe the market just doesn't have any real interest in the product. The pre-season games that the NHL held in Winnipeg over the past 15 years always sold out.

Kansas City's use to the NHL ended when Mario got a new rink out of the city of Pittsburgh.

[The_Admiral]

So how can we measure Kansas City's ability to support the NHL?

We can't use preseason attendance because no one can be expected to go to crappy preseason games. We can't use the failure of the Scouts because that was 35 years ago. We can't use ratings for Blues telecasts because it can be argued that Kansas City has an inferiority complex with St. Louis (yikes) and as such they will not support St. Louis sports teams and besides they might not get all or any Blues games on their feed of Fox Sports Midwest anyway. We can't use the fact that nobody has expressed a desire to own an NHL team in Kansas City because that doesn't reflect the will of the people. We can't use the fact that the mayor of the city which owns the arena hasn't expressed an interest in luring an NBA/NHL anchor tenant to an arena that's doing well without one because that doesn't reflect the will of the people either.

I guess the only way we can truly know is to sell them an expansion team, use that money to report profits for other teams, and then tell everyone to wait twenty years until little kids grow up to buy season tickets of their own, and then and only then can we make a judgment.

Oh wait, it's not 1998 anymore!

[IceCap]

I guess the only way we can truly know is to sell them an expansion team, use that money to report profits for other teams, and then tell everyone to wait twenty years until little kids grow up to buy season tickets of their own, and then and only then can we make a judgment.

And 20 years later, when the team's lost hundreds of millions of dollars and has little to no fan support people will beg for "just five or ten more years" to turn things around.

[Gothamite]

They don't even have a minor league team to show support for.

Which is why Kansas City would be well advised to treat those exhibition games as auditions.

[Viper]

I guess the only way we can truly know is to sell them an expansion team, use that money to report profits for other teams, and then tell everyone to wait twenty years until little kids grow up to buy season tickets of their own, and then and only then can we make a judgment.

And 20 years later, when the team's lost hundreds of millions of dollars and has little to no fan support people will beg for "just five or ten more years" to turn things around.

Of course, by that standard we still don't know whether Atlanta is a viable NHL market, despite two teams having failed there, since they both flew the coop well short of the 20-year mark.

[IceCap]

I guess the only way we can truly know is to sell them an expansion team, use that money to report profits for other teams, and then tell everyone to wait twenty years until little kids grow up to buy season tickets of their own, and then and only then can we make a judgment.

And 20 years later, when the team's lost hundreds of millions of dollars and has little to no fan support people will beg for "just five or ten more years" to turn things around.

Of course, by that standard we still don't know whether Atlanta is a viable NHL market, despite two teams having failed there, since they both flew the coop well short of the 20-year mark.

If Gary didn't have to send the Thrashers north to save the Coyotes they would have stuck around well past the point they should have moved too That's just how the NHL rolls.

[Waffles]

Report: Brooklyn arena execs meet NHL officials

The possibility of the Islanders staying on Long Island, just much closer to the city, is growing.

Katie Strang of Newsday reported on Friday that NHL officials met with Barclays Center developer Bruce Ratner and CEO Brett Yormark. Both men are not only involved with the arena being built in Brooklyn, but are also involved with the New Jersey Nets organization. It's not reported what the discussion concerned, but the logical assumption concerned hockey in Brooklyn and the Islanders.

Perhaps the first place that popped up as a future home of the Islanders after their arena vote on August 1 was met with a resounding no was Brooklyn. Considering there is a state of the art arena that is going up, the fit seemed natural. The Islanders wouldn't have to go but a few miles down the road instead of relocating to Canada or west of the Mississippi.

But the elephant in the room has been the size of the Barclays Center. It will be a great fit for the NBA's Nets, but the number of adequate seats for hockey is an issue.

Here is what Yormark said in an email to Newsday soon after the August 1 vote.

"The Barclays Center will have an ice rink that can support professional hockey. Due to the venue's design, the capacity for hockey would be a few thousand seats less than for basketball. While we hope to explore hockey opportunities in the future, our primary focus at the moment is to build the best sports and entertainment venue in the world."

Specifically, the arena would figure to host a little more than 14,000 for hockey. That would make it easily the smallest venue in the NHL, lower than the MTS Centre in Winnipeg. But that isn't a deal-breaker.

"We have no set seating capacity or requirements established," a league spokesperson told Newsday.

This is pretty much good news any way you slice it unless you are in Quebec City keeping your fingers crossed. I've said all along that after the rejection of the vote, Brooklyn would be the next best alternative to staying in Nassau County. The concerns about the size of the arena for hockey are justified, but I feel could be mitigated with the location of the arena. Demand would likely increase for tickets with the location closer to the city and the prices would certainly rise. All in all, the numbers could come out to around the same or better. That's before you consider the lease situation.

Another nugget dug up among all this - the Islanders have a very lucrative TV contract in the New York area through the 2030-2031 season that will pay as much as $36M/year by the end. Obviously, they'd lose that deal if they left, and would be hard-pressed to match it anywhere else.

[IceCap]

And a well-promoted Islanders team could carve out a profitable niche in Brooklyn, even with the reduced seating capacity.

[tp49]

Something will most likely be worked out in Nassau County though I wouldn't mind if the Isles went to Brooklyn either. One thing to consider is for all the hype over the arena vote, the vote was not binding. The county does not need to conduct a vote to float the bonds if they so choose to do so. Most likely there will be a deal where Wang will be forced to pay a share of the costs for the new arena in order to get one built at the current site.

Also, as I've said prior if Wang had removed his head from his rectum years ago and just built the arena instead of the Lighthouse mess he wanted then the building would have been open by now. More and more I keep thinking Sanjay must have been the brains behind the business.

[ldswoosh33]

Islanders should try to stay on the Isle