OT: NHL expanding by 4 teams!?

[Husky25]

Winnipeg got away with $200M arena because the Thrashers were evicted out of Atlanta and had no where else to turn; it was Winnipeg or contract the league to 29 which was never on the table.

Our new arena will be $350-400M.

So in other words, it's in Canada.

 

[gioff23]

No, they don't. Ever heard of variable pricing? Apparently not, Google it.

get it, you believe the NHL may come back. I dont.
I took your advice and googled it, thanks for that. I added Bruins to the search and guess what I found

Boston Bruins Season Ticket Waiting List
Bruins season tickets are sold out, but you can score priority access to seats when they become available by joining the Boston Bruins Season Ticket Waiting List and placing a $100 deposit per seat (maximum of 4). A Bruins Ticket Representative will contact you on a first-come, first-served basis as seats become available.

but, yeah, I am sure they could sell more if they only had the Whalers

 

[TheDoggPound]

get it, you believe the NHL may come back. I dont.
I took your advice and googled it, thanks for that. I added Bruins to the search and guess what I found

Boston Bruins Season Ticket Waiting List
Bruins season tickets are sold out, but you can score priority access to seats when they become available by joining the Boston Bruins Season Ticket Waiting List and placing a $100 deposit per seat (maximum of 4). A Bruins Ticket Representative will contact you on a first-come, first-served basis as seats become available.

but, yeah, I am sure they could sell more if they only had the Whalers

Are you really this dense? lol. Not once did I mention ST's, the Bruins sell individual game tickets as well and yes, those have variable pricing depending on the level of opponent. It's ok to be wrong Gioff.

And I never said they'd sell more tickets.... I said the tickets they sell would be more expensive if they were playing the Whalers, which is true.

 

[TheDoggPound]

And you seriously think WNBA, AA baseball and whatever else will take precedence over a BIG4 Sports team? I don't even know what to say to that.

 

[Husky25]

And BC is just 1 vote in the ACC.

Teams don't vary cost of a ticket by day, opponent, etc. They set a cost/game. The ticket brokers are the ones that take the optionality on per game tickets. The Bruins charge the same price ever day, no matter who's coming.

Costs don't vary too much, but pricing very much does. A given seat for a home game vs. the hated Canadiens cost more (sometimes significantly more) at the box office than the same seat vs. the Blue Jackets.

 

[gioff23]

You believe the NHL is coming back; the Bruins will draw better and more $$ w/the Whalers and I am dense.

I hate to continue, simply outta fear we may end up morphing this in to a disucssion about Santa Claus, Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy. I love your fantasy world, stay there.

Pass the bowl, and enjoy the return of the NHL to Hartford.

 

[TheDoggPound]

You believe the NHL is coming back; the Bruins will draw better and more w/the Whalers and I am dense.

I hate to continue, simply outta fear we may end up morphing this in to a disucssion about Santa Claus, Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy. I love your fantasy world, stay there.

Pass the bowl, and enjoy the return of the NHL to Hartford.

Once again, I NEVER SAID THE BRUINS WOULD SELL MORE TICKETS, I SAID THE TICKETS THEY SELL WOULD BE HIGHER PRICED. geez.

 

[Husky25]

You believe the NHL is coming back; the Bruins will draw better and more w/the Whalers and I am dense.

I hate to continue, simply outta fear we may end up morphing this in to a disucssion about Santa Claus, Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy. I love your fantasy world, stay there.

Pass the bowl, and enjoy the return of the NHL to Hartford.

The Bruins cannot possibly draw any better. They were 100% sold out for each of their 41 regular season home games. They were 99.1% sold out overall.

 

[TheDoggPound]

The Bruins cannot possibly draw any better. They were 100% sold out for each of their 41 regular season home games. They were 99.1% sold out overall.

Straw man from him. I never said that, just look at the posts I made.

 

[TheDoggPound]

The fact that Gioff views the WNBA and AA baseball as barriers to an NHL team's success in the marketplace invalidates anything he says on this subject.

 

[John]

The fact that Gioff views the WNBA and AA baseball as barriers to an NHL team's success in the marketplace invalidates anything he says on this subject.

he forgot the Globetrotters and Disney on Ice.

 

[Husky25]

The fact that Gioff views the WNBA and AA baseball as barriers to an NHL team's success in the marketplace invalidates anything he says on this subject.

While there may be some overlap (and by some, I mean so little it is statistically insignificant), I will guarantee that the WNBA and NHL are not going after the same target market.

 

[TheDoggPound]

And he so eloquently glossed over the fact that CT has grown by over 325,000 since 1997 which I attempted to point out but to no avail. I guess 325,000 is somehow insignificant in his mind. Even if 1% of those 325,000 are Whalers fans that 3,250 new paying customers that never existed when the team was here.

 

[Vowelguy]

And he so eloquently glossed over the fact that CT has grown by over 325,000 since 1997 which I attempted to point out but to no avail. I guess 325,000 is somehow insignificant in his mind. Even if 1% of those 325,000 are Whalers fans that 3,250 new paying customers that never existed when the team was here.

You're assuming that the team has lost no fans in this time.
People grew up on the Whalers because it was the only game in town. But since the 90s, it has been superseded by UConn MCBB, and will now face competition from UConn Hockey.
Not to mention that the population has aged significantly since then. That's true somewhat everywhere (baby boom), but moreso in Northern states.

The corporate community is also not what it was in the 70s.

 

[TheDoggPound]

You're assuming that the team has lost no fans in this time.
People grew up on the Whalers because it was the only game in town. But since the 90s, it has been superseded by UConn MCBB, and will now face competition from UConn Hockey.
Not to mention that the population has aged significantly since then. That's true somewhat everywhere (baby boom), but moreso in Northern states.

The corporate community is also not what it was in the 70s.

It has been superseded because they're not around. Look I'm the biggest UConn fan there is but it's college at the end of the day (nothing wrong with that obviously, I love it), but a pro team should be #1 if only because it's a major boon for the region. And let's not fool ourselves, Hartford county sport fans employ a professional sports 1st mentality.

Once UConn Hockey moves to Storrs permanently they're going to be supported in large part by the students living on campus. I don't really see how that would hurt an NHL team's bottom line losing the college student demographic but even so wouldn't all this hockey going on just go to prove CT is a good hockey market? I would think so.

 

[Vowelguy]

And he so eloquently glossed over the fact that CT has grown by over 325,000 since 1997 which I attempted to point out but to no avail. I guess 325,000 is somehow insignificant in his mind. Even if 1% of those 325,000 are Whalers fans that 3,250 new paying customers that never existed when the team was here.

Not sure where you got 325k from either.
1997 Pop: 3.35 million
2013 Pop: 3.60 million
=> Net = 250k.

And nearly 1/3 of that (78k) is in Fairfield County. I can't imagine there's huge Whaler support all the way down there.

 

[TheDoggPound]

http://www.ct.gov/ecd/lib/ecd/dph-population/dph_pop_1997.pdf

1997 population: 3,269,858
2013 population: 3,574,097


That's an increase of 304,239 + the 2014 increase which is about an additional 5,000 more. So we're at 310,000. By 2017 it will be over 325,000.

 

[TheDoggPound]

Not sure how I got an additional 15k, my mistake.

 

[Vowelguy]

http://www.ct.gov/ecd/lib/ecd/dph-population/dph_pop_1997.pdf

1997 population: 3,269,858
2013 population: 3,574,097

That's an increase of 304,239 + the 2014 increase which is about an additional 5,000 more. So we're at 310,000. By 2017 it will be over 325,000.

That's the initial 1997 value. It has since been revised up since then. I cited the official numbers from the Census bureau.

The change is 250k.

 

[TheDoggPound]

Post a link if you would sir, I'd like to see for myself.

 

[Vowelguy]

Post a link if you would sir, I'd like to see for myself.

The numbers are so integral to my job that we have them on an internal system at my fingertips.
I don't have a website link, but it'd be somewhere at www.census.gov.

Trust me, I know what I'm doing.

 

[TheDoggPound]

Columbus and Carolina identified as 2 other possible relocation candidates per Ken Campbell of THN.

 

[gioff23]

And he so eloquently glossed over the fact that CT has grown by over 325,000 since 1997 which I attempted to point out but to no avail. I guess 325,000 is somehow insignificant in his mind. Even if 1% of those 325,000 are Whalers fans that 3,250 new paying customers that never existed when the team was here.

Look if the Whale return I will be one of the first to buy season tix. BUT they aint coming back, period. When the NHL says expand by 4 and you're not even in the dialog, to say you're off the radar is a bit of an understatement. Its akin to Memphis making the argument for inclusion in the P5 - hey, we have to be right behind UConn, Cincy, BYU, UCF, Boise, SDSU and USF - we just gotta be!

My point on the other events was that when the Whale were a local success there was virtually no other game in town. There was no competition for discretionary dollars. Families only have so much money to spend on sports and entertainment. And a family just might consist of both males and females - and if the latter want to spend money on a women's BB game, that is money that the family could have otherwise spent on a hockey game. There are simply other options and less disposable income today. You can't possibly believe we have a local appetite for 40K to attend CFB games (and anyone w/hopes of P5 inclusion will tell you we need to expand to 50K), 12-15K for both BB teams, 5K for UConn hockey, and 7-10K for minor league BB. Not one of those teams sells out today, and you believe there are 20K folks lining up just hoping they get a chance to put down 4K on a season ticket, minimum (not counting parking and concessions) to see the Whalers?

Some might remember that the Whalers could not give tix away in the 90s. I worked across the street from the CC and could scalp excellent seats for a good opponent night of the game for less than face value. My company even had a plan that if you bought a season tix package, they'd matich it, for free. And still the place could not sell out. Sure 13k diehards went a night, but 13K is minor leagues. If they could sell out the old building they might still be here.

I love your optimism in thinking that we are Plan E for the NHL, post-expansion. I simply don't share it. The ship has sailed. Move on.

 

[TheDoggPound]

No one is mistaking themselves into thinking we're an expansion market, we're not. We're a relocation market. I'll have to keep reiterating.

20k don't need to buy season tickets this isn't football (Winnipeg sold 11,000), UConn isn't drawing 12-15k for basketball, more like 10k and 7-10k aren't going to watch baseball either it's more like 5k on average.

Those 90's Whalers posted a .345 winning % from 90-97. And still 13k+ showed up as you say yourself. How's that bad? When they left there was 11,000 ST holders which was at the top of the league. And wasn't CT undergoing a local recession at the time?

Whatever the case, Bettman himself said fans were not the issue with the market, he also said had the salary cap existed in 1995-97 neither one of the Whalers, Nordiques or Jets would have moved. The business model back then for smaller markets was simply unsustainable, that's no longer the case in today's NHL.

They will be back. I don't know if it's going to be 2 or 3 or 5 years from now but they will be.

 

[UConn4ever]

F the NHL Toronto will have two teams and we still get the bone