Thursday, April 28, 2011

A Quick Shot of Logic

A quick perusal of Wikipedia reveals the following:


Metropolitan Area Population
(Not to be confused
Metropolit area)


Winnipeg, Manitoba 694 668

Hamilton, Ontario 692,911

Quebec City, Quebec 715,515

Atlanta, Georgia 5,290,078

Phoenix, Arizona 4,192,887

Kansas City, Missouri 2.2 million

Las Vegas, Nevada 1,951,269

Seattle, Washington 3,407,848

Hartford, Connecticut 1,188,241

Yes, there is a built-in immediate fan base in all Canadian cities for hockey. However, why would any profit-driven organization EVER move a franchise out of a city with 4+ million people to a city with only 16% of that population?

It is the difference between having an immediate and steady but perpetually small cash flow and having a small initial flow with enormous future potential.

Of course Gary Bettman and the NHL are fighting like hell to keep hockey in Atlanta and Phoenix and aren't jumping at the chance to return to Winnipeg or Quebec City.

7 comments:

Brad said...

Mexico city has 8 million people plus. Should we move a team there? No the reason is a logical one - if only a small percentage of that total population actually cares you make less money.

So you could have a team in Winnipeg and probably have more people caring than if it was in Phoenix or Atlanta.

Razor Catch Prey said...

For the first three years or so you would sell more tickets in a Canadian market. But you have a low ceiling there. You need a full 5% of the population to shell out for each game for a sellout.

However, if you grow the fan base correctly (as has not been done here as of yet) and ice a winning team, you have a much, much larger potential fan base in one of the US cities.

Say your child shows a lot of potential as an athlete at a young age. Do you keep that child in the lower recreational leagues so that he is always the best on his team and gets attention but doesn't challenge himself to excel, or do you put him in the higher leagues where he will have to strive to be noticed, but if he does he can become an elite professional some day?

The NHL can be big fish in little ponds and never grow their fan base or TV audience, or they can suffer several years of losses in large cities and eventually grow huge followings both in the arenas and on TV.

A2B said...

Also, if Im not mistaking if 15% of Atlanta is interested in hocky that is equal to 100% of winnepeg being interested in hockey... So basically your telling a PROFIT DRIVEN company this "I got a great idea, lets move an NHL team from a market where we have less than 10% exposed to a market where at 100% exposed is less than where we started. Its Brilliant!" God all the Canucks in Manitoba neeed to go find a new Carribou to mate with or something because this whole relocation to the middle of bumble-junk Canada is starting to get annoying.

Brad said...

And yet Atlanta has had 10+ years to "grow the fanbase" and Phoenix has had 15 years and those 2 teams are 27th and 29th in Attendance respectively. Both well under the max capacity of the Winnipeg arena. -http://espn.go.com/nhl/attendance

These numbers I would assume are on team provided numbers, which we all know are complete crap.

So it comes down to, how many more years do we wait for the fanbase to come around in Atlanta where they have already had an NHL relocate due to sagging ticket sales (see. Flames, Atlanta) and how long do we wait for Phoenix to somehow make people other than 5000 Arizona citizens and maybe 5000 vacationing Canadians care about the Coyotes?

Winnipeg lost the Jets originially due to a terrible exchange rate and rising salaries for players.

With the Canadian Dollar at or above par for the US Dollar the exchange issue is moot right now, doesn't appear it would dive back to its 70cent level of the 90s for quite some time and now with the salary cap we can be assured of salary levels.

The choice is clear, teams like Atlanta, Phoenix, Florida, and any other team that is a consistent loser needs to either find a way to make people care or find a new home.

A2B said...

How about get an owner who cares and can ice a winning product to get people to come. The Jets left winnipeg because they were broke and couldn't afford to run the team anymore.

Don't sit here and say we don't like hockey when 50-60% of Atlanta is people from the North who moved here when Atlanta was given the grant to build Hartsfield.

Also, the Canandian dollar is only strong because we had to mortgage ourselves to bail out theiving banks, so when we start paying off debt your dollar will be weaker again... Just wait, Canada lives off America so as we go you will come with US, err sorry us.

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