The Viability of Florida Cities as Sports Markets

[The_Admiral]

As for the Hurricanes? Well I decided I'd actually see where they stood in terms of attendance. They're in 25th place in a league of 30 teams.

They've averaged 15,000 per game up to this point in the season.

Ah, the magic of tickets-distributed tabulation! If there are 15,000 people at a Hurricanes game, there are 60,000 people at a Habs game.

[TheOldRoman]

Off topic for a bit, but has there been anything recent about the Jets looking at adding seats? I know it was talked about adding seats to the arena before they got the team, but I thought afterwards they said there was no room for it.

[The_Admiral]

As far as I know, they're perfectly happy with the current arrangement.

I just want to add that the American Airlines Arena looks really cool and it's a shame the Panthers didn't get in on it.

I just find the whole Everglades/outlet mall milieu so loathsome.

[dbadefense1990]

As far as I know, they're perfectly happy with the current arrangement.

I just want to add that the American Airlines Arena looks really cool and it's a shame the Panthers didn't get in on it.

I just find the whole Everglades/outlet mall milieu so loathsome.

It's actually appropriate for the city of Miami to house its glitzy, most glamorous team in an arena and a location appealing to upper-class yuppies. The Dolphins are housed in a crapshack of a stadium in the middle of the city, the Marlins are in their own dumpster-fire of a situation and the Panthers are relegated to playing games through the realms of obscurity outside the city.

[BBTV]

"Relegated"? Didn't they intentionally select that location?

[TheOldRoman]

It's actually appropriate for the city of Miami to house its glitzy, most glamorous team in an arena and a location appealing to upper-class yuppies. The Dolphins are housed in a crapshack of a stadium in the middle of the city, the Marlins are in their own dumpster-fire of a situation and the Panthers are relegated to playing games through the realms of obscurity outside the city.

Do you look up facts and say the opposite, actively trying to be wrong? The Dolphins don't play in the middle of the city. They don't even play in Miami. Also, you raged against the upper class, but you forgot to blame hipsters for this somehow.

[The_Admiral]

Hipsters and yuppies are asymptotically converging, actually. Praisèd be the bohemian bourgeoisie!

[Kramerica Industries]

Calling the location of BankAtlantic Center BB&T Center an Everglades/outlet mall thing just reminds me that it's been several years since I last trekked south on I-75 through the Everglades and past the arena. The last time I remember seeing it was in the middle of night back in, like, June of 2004. I was still a teen back then. Jeez. Time flies.

[TheOldRoman]

Hipsters and yuppies are asymptotically converging, actually. Praisèd be the bohemian bourgeoisie!

Maybe, but their perceived group politics are on opposite ends of the political spectrum. But to dbad, yuppies are the evil capitalists who oppress him economically, while hipsters are the evil cool kids who opress him socially, to the best of my understanding.

[The_Admiral]

The way civilization abruptly abuts a vast expanse of uninhabitable swampland is definitely one of the creepier aspects of South Florida. If I knew there was a humongous den of feral Burmese pythons on the other side of an expressway, I'd get nutty, too. That's not the sort of thing you ever want to reckon with, to say nothing of the fact that your body could be dumped in the glades and they'd never find you.

Hipsters and yuppies are asymptotically converging, actually. Praisèd be the bohemian bourgeoisie!

Maybe, but their perceived group politics are on opposite ends of the political spectrum.

I disagree. With the Republican Party the endangered species it is now, today's yuppies tend to favor the brand of velvet-covered neoliberalism characterized by Rahm "Mayor 1%" Emanuel, where gay rights are great, but enriching private-equity firms with tax money is even greater.

[Cosmic]

Hipsters and yuppies are asymptotically converging, actually. Praisèd be the bohemian bourgeoisie!

What you call asymp... something, I call Pop-Tarting: so hot, they're cool.

[Brian in Boston]

Yes, Hartford lies between New York and Boston, but that's not really the handicap you think it would be when you consider just how provincial hockey fandom often is.

Yes, hockey fandom can be quite "provincial", which is why a Hartford-based NHL franchise would find it nigh on impossible to draw any fans from amongst the exceedingly deep-pocketed populace of Fairfield County, Connecticut. The population of that region of the State of Connecticut is economically and culturally aligned with the New York City Metro Area to the point of being NYC's "Sixth Borough". That isn't going to change for a Hartford-based NHL franchise. Meaning that said Hartford-based NHL franchise immediately becomes the very definition of a small-market sports team, struggling with all of the ills afflicting such outfits.

If the choices are "team in suburban North Carolina" or "team that helps saturate a region that's traditionally a hockey hotbed" I'm inclined to lean towards the latter.

Having been raised in Greater Hartford, I can assure you that the market does not qualify as a "hockey hotbed". While the New England Region as a whole is mad about the sport, Hartford's previous NHL franchise diddn't have any luck regularly drawing fans from Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont; there's no reason to believe that it would do so if given a second chance. With the exception of nights on which they were hosting the Bruins, Hartford's previous NHL franchise didn't successfully draw fans from the Eastern 2/3 of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts; there's no reason to believe that would change. Hartford's previous NHL franchise didn't pull-in regular crowds from Rhode Island; that's not going to change. Best case scenario is that a new Hartford-based NHL franchise - like the original team that called the city home - would attempt to regularly draw crowds from Hartford County, portions of Tolland, Litchfield, and Middlesex Counties in Connecticut, and Hamden and Hampshire Counties in Massachusetts. Support for the team from Fairfield County and Southwestern New Haven County, Connecticut would be all but non-existent. Support from New London and Windham Counties in Connecticut, as well as Franklin and Berkshire Counties in Massachusetts would be spotty, at best.

My family was there as season ticket-holders for the WHA and NHL's first go-around in Hartford. Aside from a relatively small group of die-hards - a constituency that is rapidly aging, if not dead - the original Whalers didn't have nearly the hold on the hearts and minds of Connecticut residents that people seem to think they did. If the Whalers had consistently fired the imaginations of residents throughout Connecticut to the level that revisionist hockey historians claim, there would have been no shortage of potential, deep-pocketed owners ready to step-up and reap the rewards of satiating the hunger of said fans in a "hockey hotbed".

You once said that the NHL's a business, not a charity. You were right.

Thank you.

So at what point do they do the prudent thing and cut their loses in these markets?

The NHL is more than welcome to do so. That said, the "prudent thing" would not be to "cut their loses [sic]" in current flawed markets in order to set-up shop in markets that have already proven themselves flawed. Hartford is a market that has previously proven itself to be flawed. To move an NHL team that is currently located in a problem market to Hartford is an "out of the frying pan, into the fire" move. The NHL wouldn't be solving a problem, it would simply be relocating a problem.

Now why this comparison to Winnipeg?

Yes, I'm wondering that myself. You know, given that aside from small market size and the fact that both cities played host to WHA franchises that were absorbed into the NHL and subsequently relocated, Winnipeg and Hartford aren't all that similar as hockey markets.

Like Hartford, Winnipeg isn't a huge market.

Of course, the difference is that Metropolitan Winnipeg's 730,018 residents are culturally and economically on an island unto themselves. They aren't sandwiched in between two much larger metropolitan areas that culturally and economically exert influence upon them. By contrast, the 1,214,400 people that call Greater Hartford home are buffeted by cultural and economic forces emanating from the much larger New York and Boston Metro Areas. Said influences most definitely include sports fandom.

Like Winnipeg people say the Hartford market's already spoken for, and that a team there wouldn't add to the NHL's consumer base. "Going back to Canada wouldn't be in the NHL's best interests, everyone watches anyway" sounds very similar to "they all watch anyway, they're all Rangers and Bruins fans."

There are significant differences between the Winnipeg and Hartford markets when it comes to their consumption of ice hockey.

First and foremost, Winnipeg is located in Canada, a country where the sport of ice hockey's cultural significance borders on being a secular religion. Are you going to argue that ice hockey's hold on Greater Hartford - indeed, the State of Connecticut in its entirety - approaches the cultural penetration that the sport enjoys in Winnipeg and Manitoba?

Further, Greater Winnipeg ice hockey fans are located 390 air miles (a 465-mile drive) from the next-nearest NHL fix, the Minnesota Wild in St. Paul, Minnesota. Winnipeggers are located 747 air miles (825 driving miles) from the Calgary Flames, 742 air miles (811 driving miles) from the Edmonton Oilers, 718 air miles (864 driving miles) from the Chicago Blackhawks, 852 air miles (1,149 driving miles) from the Detroit Red Wings, and 942 air miles (1,387 driving miles) from the Toronto Maple Leafs. Contrast this with the fact that those Greater Hartford ice hockey fans who do exist are just 93 air miles (102 driving miles) from taking-in a Boston Bruins game, 100 air miles (117 driving miles) from the New York Rangers, and 105 air miles (127 driving miles) from the New Jersey Devils.

In other words, residents of Greater Winnipeg, as well as Manitoba as a whole, are culturally - as Canadians - far more likely to be rabid consumers of professional hockey than residents of Greater Hartford and Connecticut as a whole. What's more, given the fact that the nearest NHL franchises to Greater Winnipeg are located more than three times the distance from the Manitoba capital than Boston and New York's NHL franchises are from Greater Hartford, it stands to reason that a Winnipeg-based NHL franchise would be vastly more successful at drawing and sustaining fan interest and support than a Hartford-based NHL team would be.

Bottom line, aside from the aforementioned WHA/NHL lineage, Winnipeg and Hartford as pro ice hockey markets have about as much in common as an apple and a carburetor.

As a hypothetical though?

Bettman-and-Company believed that NHL franchises located in Sunbelt markets could hypothetically be successful, thus hypothetically increasing the league's footprint, thus hypothetically strengthening the NHL's position on the sports landscape. Their hypotheticals didn't pan-out.

You hypothetically believe that by relocating a struggling NHL franchise from a Sunbelt market to an undersized, so-called "traditional hockey market" that has already failed, that you'll hypothetically strengthen the NHL's position on the sports landscape.

[The_Admiral]

[IceCap]

Hartford is a market that has previously proven itself to be flawed.

I could have sworn you said something similar regarding Winnipeg a few years back. Of course now it seems obvious Winnipeg would succeed if given a second shot at the NHL because "hockey's a religion in Canada," but I'm pretty sure that was the reasoning you gave as to why the NHL would never return in the Jets' case. Your track record regarding predicting what the NHL will or won't do and what markets will or won't work isn't the best.

Bettman-and-Company believed that NHL franchises located in Sunbelt markets could hypothetically be successful, thus hypothetically increasing the league's footprint, thus hypothetically strengthening the NHL's position on the sports landscape. Their hypotheticals didn't pan-out.

No, it didn't. So why is the league still in these failed markets?

We've looked at Carolina's support, or lack thereof. If returning the team to Hartford isn't an option what course of action would you like to see? Contraction, as much as it would help this league, is a PR nightmare. So what do you do with the Hurricanes? They're not succeeding in their current market place, drawing less then Winnipeg despite having a larger arena. Moving back to Hartford is, according to you, not a solution. So what say you? Seattle? Quebec?

You hypothetically believe that by relocating a struggling NHL franchise from a Sunbelt market to an undersized, so-called "traditional hockey market" that has already failed, that you'll hypothetically strengthen the NHL's position on the sports landscape.

Winnipeg already failed. The Twin Cities already failed. "Already failed" does not mean it will not succeed if given a second chance. Winnipeg and the Twin Cities proved the opposite can be true. So let's lay off the "already failed" talk. The "city X already lost a team, why do they get another?" argument should have been shot through the heart two years ago.

Yes, relocating a struggling Sunbelt team would be in the NHL's best interests. The Thrashers-to-Winnipeg move proved just how much money can be made by migrating back north.

Now the failure of the "grow the game" plan in some Sunbelt markets becomes more apparent with each passing season. So again I ask, why is the league still pissing millions of dollars away in these markets?

As for Hartford? Like it or not the sport of hockey will always be regional to one degree or another. While it can, and does, work in some Sunbelt locations it's always going to be a sport that's more popular in Canada, the American mid-west, and the American North East then it is elsewhere. These areas represent the NHL's base. Saturating that base seems more sound to me then an ill-conceived foray in the Sunbelt. Is it Hartford-or-bust at this point? Far from it. I'd consider teams in Quebec City and Seattle (provided they get an arena built) before considering Hartford. What is apparent, however, is that the league is failing in some of its current locations. Leaving those locations would be in the NHL's best interests.

[Funky Bunky]

Slightly OT, but I always find it funny when people mention Anaheim as part of the sunbelt, but leave out Los Angeles. Obviously Anaheim was a part of the 90s "Sunbelt" expansion, but LA is a part of the Sunbelt too.

carry on....

[Evil G]

Slightly OT, but I always find it funny when people mention Anaheim as part of the sunbelt, but leave out Los Angeles. Obviously Anaheim was a part of the 90s "Sunbelt" expansion, but LA is a part of the Sunbelt too.

carry on....

Agreed. If a market is doing better than Winnipeg, it shouldn't be mentioned as a possible team for relocation.

[The_Admiral]

So why is the league still in these failed markets?

Suppression of league revenue vis-a-vis team revenue in large markets. #bettmanomics

I always find it funny when people mention Anaheim as part of the sunbelt, but leave out Los Angeles.

Because like you said, people use "sunbelt" as a metonym for "1990s NHL expansion." Besides, it's a virtual consensus that being in Los Angeles is necessary and smart. Being in Los Angeles and its suburbs, less necessary, less smart, especially when the second team was established so as to keep the first team solvent. #bettmanomics

If a market is doing better than Winnipeg, it shouldn't be mentioned as a possible team for relocation.

Well, Forbes seems to think the Jets are ahead of the Ducks in value, revenue, and profit.

Now I'm fisking.

[The_Admiral]

Last note on the Hartford thing because we're getting really far from America's Wang here: there's a lot of really good stuff here both anecdotal and empirical about why Connecticut wasn't that great the first time around and wouldn't be great the second time around, and I accept all of it, but all I'm trying to get here in a simple "yes you're right" or a "no you're wrong" is, and I'll even put it in Whalers colors and link it to Brass Bonanza,

RALEIGH
ISN'T
BETTER.

That's all I want! Just tell me that it is better, God knows how, or that it's worse, and I will be happy! or at least as happy as I'm ever capable of being! I've never said they should move back tomorrow, or that they'd be a Mapleleafian license to print money. All I've ever maintained is that this isn't better.

[Evil G]

If a market is doing better than Winnipeg, it shouldn't be mentioned as a possible team for relocation.

Well, Forbes seems to think the Jets are ahead of the Ducks in value, revenue, and profit.

Now I'm fisking.

I meant more attendance-wise but whatever.

[See Red]

If a market is doing better than Winnipeg, it shouldn't be mentioned as a possible team for relocation.

Well, Forbes seems to think the Jets are ahead of the Ducks in value, revenue, and profit.

Now I'm fisking.

I meant more attendance-wise but whatever.

Winnipeg's home attendance is 100% capacity, so yeah, Anaheim's might be higher but would it be if their arena didn't hold more?