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To: Alberta's Child

The idea that the teams you mention have fan bases that will put up with losing is being torpedoed this season. Already hockey headlines are noticing that we had a day where NONE of the Canadian teams sold out except for the Leafs. The Leafs lost their sellout streak the season before Matthews was drafted. The Rangers are having troubles selling out and the Leafs ticket market is soft even though they are still selling at face value. Detroit, Philly and Montreal are all mentioned in sports business columns for having ticket selling problems.

The teams listed for relocation is a laughable especially because the author thinks most of them should be relocated to Canada. Nashville is solid both in ownership and fanbase. Columbus isn’t going anywhere soon. The Devils , Carolina and Arizona have new ownership and/or arena deals. I think Arizona is the weakest team and would make a good relocation target for Houston but that won’t happen until the new owner explores his options.


31 posted on 11/07/2019 6:54:38 PM PST by Varda
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To: Varda
I suspect in most of those cases the teams have simply priced themselves out of the market for most fans. Madison Square Garden is notoriously expensive; the worst seat in the place costs more than $100 for a single-game ticket.

Montreal and Toronto have similar problems, and Montreal has the extra difficulty in selling out games because they designed the Bell Centre with more than 21,000 seats -- the largest hockey-oriented arena in the world (I believe). Toronto went through a period a few years ago where the fans staged a mini-revolt similar to what happened in Chicago when that team was awful in the early 2000s.

You won't find a bigger hockey fan anywhere than me, but even I haven't paid my way into a New Jersey game in years. These new arena deals destroy the market for ordinary fans. I was perfectly content to watch games at the Meadowlands where they had very few suites but could pack 19,000+ fans into the place pretty regularly when their ticket prices were reasonable. It's no coincidence that the team hasn't won a Stanley Cup since they left that arena!

34 posted on 11/07/2019 7:17:07 PM PST by Alberta's Child ("In the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey.")
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To: Varda
There's also a distinction in attendance figures between paid attendance and actual attendance. According to these figures, only seven NHL teams are selling fewer than 90% of the tickets for their games so far this season.

ESPN: NHL Attendance Figures (2019-20)

35 posted on 11/07/2019 7:23:50 PM PST by Alberta's Child ("In the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey.")
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