Seattle Getting Closer?

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Seattle Getting Closer?

Post by Meds »

Looks like the odds of the NHL landing in Seattle might be improving.

And go figure, a Vancouver based ownership group is involved.

http://www.thescore.com/nhl/news/554793
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Re: Seattle Getting Closer?

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Re: Seattle Getting Closer?

Post by Zedlee »

I'd love to see a Seatlle team in the NHL; would make a good regional rival for our Canucks and make for some fun road trips for fans.

Can't help but wonder though, if there is enough fan support. After football, baseball, college sports, soccer and maybe basketball would there be enough fan $ to support a hockey team?
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Re: Seattle Getting Closer?

Post by Hockey Widow »

Zedlee wrote:I'd love to see a Seatlle team in the NHL; would make a good regional rival for our Canucks and make for some fun road trips for fans.

Can't help but wonder though, if there is enough fan support. After football, baseball, college sports, soccer and maybe basketball would there be enough fan $ to support a hockey team?
The fans just need a hero to cheer for. So let there be an expansion draft, wide open. Let them pick PK Suban, Ward, E Kane, Simmonds, and whoever else.....
The fans will then show up.
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Re: Seattle Getting Closer?

Post by Topper »

Hockey Widow wrote:
Zedlee wrote:I'd love to see a Seatlle team in the NHL; would make a good regional rival for our Canucks and make for some fun road trips for fans.

Can't help but wonder though, if there is enough fan support. After football, baseball, college sports, soccer and maybe basketball would there be enough fan $ to support a hockey team?
The fans just need a hero to cheer for. So let there be an expansion draft, wide open. Let them pick PK Suban, Ward, E Kane, Simmonds, and whoever else.....
The fans will then show up.
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Re: Seattle Getting Closer?

Post by Meds »

angelicajack74 wrote:Hey Mëds, I'm unable to check link posted by you. Its not working yet, Check it again Else its due to my internet connection.
Works just fine. The Score is a fickle site though I've found.

Wouldn't worry about it though, that is over a month old now, and Bettman has denied that the NHL is close to expanding.
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Re: Seattle Getting Closer?

Post by herb »

Big problems in Florida to start the season. Just over 11,000 fans for their home opener (on a Saturday no less) and barely over 7,000 in attendance for last night's game against Ottawa. 7,000! That's like WHL attendance territory.

https://twitter.com/GMillerTSN/status/5 ... 20/photo/1

There's no way they can survive like this.
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Re: Seattle Getting Closer?

Post by donlever »

No longer giving away free tickets causing drop in attendance.

Bobby Lu be a happy dude to get moved to Seattle....eh?!

A Monday night game between the Florida Panthers and Ottawa Senators in Florida drew just over 7,000 ticket sales — a franchise low for Florida.

The Florida Panthers have never exactly been a hotbed of hockey love, but one never thought attendance to Panthers games would sink this low. Now that the team is no longer offering free tickets though, it appears the bottom line is sinking. The team reported an attendance figure drastically lower than anything in Panthers history on Monday when they hosted the Ottawa Senators at BB&T Center in South Florida.
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Re: Seattle Getting Closer?

Post by Jovocop »

herb wrote:Big problems in Florida to start the season. Just over 11,000 fans for their home opener (on a Saturday no less) and barely over 7,000 in attendance for last night's game against Ottawa. 7,000! That's like WHL attendance territory.

https://twitter.com/GMillerTSN/status/5 ... 20/photo/1

There's no way they can survive like this.
Disgusting. The Panthers now have their No. 1 goalie back but still could not fill the rink. To be fair, it could happen to the Canucks if they had the results like the Panthers in the last decade. The Canucks missed the playoffs the first time in the last 6 years. All of a sudden, Aquilini and Linden had to give out free beers to get the fans back into the rink. Unfortunately, the only NHL team that can still do well financially without winning is the leaves... :(
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Re: Seattle Getting Closer?

Post by herb »

donlever wrote:No longer giving away free tickets causing drop in attendance.

Bobby Lu be a happy dude to get moved to Seattle....eh?!
[/i][/b]
Yeah, the not giving out free tickets thing has certainly had an affect, but even a lot of the paid tickets are too cheap for the team to survive. They sill have to generate somewhere north of $65M to just cover player salaries. That's going to be hard to do with $15 tickets. "Expensive" tickets are only like $70.
Jovocop wrote:To be fair, it could happen to the Canucks if they had the results like the Panthers in the last decade. The Canucks missed the playoffs the first time in the last 6 years. All of a sudden, Aquilini and Linden had to give out free beers to get the fans back into the rink. Unfortunately, the only NHL team that can still do well financially without winning is the leaves... :(
It could probably happen just about anywhere. Could you imagine the Canucks only making the playoffs four times in 20 years? Tampa Bay ain't that far from Sunrise. The difference is one team has always sucked and the other one has consistently been pretty good.

Thing is, in Vancouver there may be some lean years but as soon as the team gets remotely competitive again the stadium is basically an automatic sellout at very high ticket prices. I'm not sure you can say the same thing for Arizona or Florida.
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Re: Seattle Getting Closer?

Post by mr perfect »

Jovocop wrote:
herb wrote:Big problems in Florida to start the season. Just over 11,000 fans for their home opener (on a Saturday no less) and barely over 7,000 in attendance for last night's game against Ottawa. 7,000! That's like WHL attendance territory.

https://twitter.com/GMillerTSN/status/5 ... 20/photo/1

There's no way they can survive like this.
Disgusting. The Panthers now have their No. 1 goalie back but still could not fill the rink. To be fair, it could happen to the Canucks if they had the results like the Panthers in the last decade. The Canucks missed the playoffs the first time in the last 6 years. All of a sudden, Aquilini and Linden had to give out free beers to get the fans back into the rink. Unfortunately, the only NHL team that can still do well financially without winning is the leaves... :(
Jovo - Take a look at where the Panthers play hockey. It`s in a suburb called Sunrise. If you look at Google Earth you`ll see that across the tolled highway next to the BB&T Centre is the Everglades. Of course there`s a large shopping centre in the other direction but other than that the rink is in an out of the way spot in the middle of nowhere and I`ll bet there`s no form of transit other than buses to get there. Just like the Coyotes in Glendale, a nice suburb but way off to the west of downtown Phoenix on the edge of the desert so that in the middle of rush hour in a metro area of 5 million people, no hockey fans getting off work at 5 PM is going to go home, get the family and drive across the valley trying to get to a 7 PM game. It would be like the Aquillinis building a new rink in Lions Bay. These markets won`t survive if owners keep building rinks as a part of a commercial real estate development on the fringes of metro areas. This falls on the shoulders of one Gary Bettman and NHL board of governors not doing due diligence on the prospective owners who are real estate speculators (see Ellman, Steve) and giving them franchises in sensitive markets. Which is why I refuse to attend Canucks games or buy any NHL merchandise because when I do so, the teams in shitty markets get a piece of the action and after three lockouts with one full season lost, I`m not putting any money in a business that disrespects me as much as the NHL does.
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Re: Seattle Getting Closer?

Post by Topper »

Folks who may attend a Panther's game do not take public transit.

Once again, southern expansion was pre Gary Bettman.
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Re: Seattle Getting Closer?

Post by Kowch »

mr perfect wrote:
Jovocop wrote:
herb wrote:Big problems in Florida to start the season. Just over 11,000 fans for their home opener (on a Saturday no less) and barely over 7,000 in attendance for last night's game against Ottawa. 7,000! That's like WHL attendance territory.

https://twitter.com/GMillerTSN/status/5 ... 20/photo/1

There's no way they can survive like this.
Disgusting. The Panthers now have their No. 1 goalie back but still could not fill the rink. To be fair, it could happen to the Canucks if they had the results like the Panthers in the last decade. The Canucks missed the playoffs the first time in the last 6 years. All of a sudden, Aquilini and Linden had to give out free beers to get the fans back into the rink. Unfortunately, the only NHL team that can still do well financially without winning is the leaves... :(
Jovo - Take a look at where the Panthers play hockey. It`s in a suburb called Sunrise. If you look at Google Earth you`ll see that across the tolled highway next to the BB&T Centre is the Everglades. Of course there`s a large shopping centre in the other direction but other than that the rink is in an out of the way spot in the middle of nowhere and I`ll bet there`s no form of transit other than buses to get there.
As the resident Canucks fan who actually lives in Florida and actually goes to Panthers games, allow me to clarify:

The BB&T Center is across the street from the largest outlet mall in the state (called Sawgrass Mills Mall). It's actually a convenient location as it intersects I-595, I-75 and the Sawgrass Expressway (which for those of us that live north of there is easy to get to from the Turnpike).

Sunrise is also located close to more the more affluent neighborhoods of Weston and Pembroke Pines and is not that far from a few ice facilities where people play hockey (the biggest namely Pines Ice Arena).

People have 0 problem getting to the mall because there are a myriad of easy routes to get there, and as I mentioned, the arena is literally right there.
Just like the Coyotes in Glendale, a nice suburb but way off to the west of downtown Phoenix on the edge of the desert so that in the middle of rush hour in a metro area of 5 million people, no hockey fans getting off work at 5 PM is going to go home, get the family and drive across the valley trying to get to a 7 PM game.
What about the people in Abbotsford that want to get to a game downtown? Same thing.
It would be like the Aquillinis building a new rink in Lions Bay. These markets won`t survive if owners keep building rinks as a part of a commercial real estate development on the fringes of metro areas.
Ever look where Dolphins stadium is down here? That's really in the middle of nowhere with only the Turnpike as an easy alternative to get there.
This falls on the shoulders of one Gary Bettman and NHL board of governors not doing due diligence on the prospective owners who are real estate speculators (see Ellman, Steve) and giving them franchises in sensitive markets. Which is why I refuse to attend Canucks games or buy any NHL merchandise because when I do so, the teams in shitty markets get a piece of the action and after three lockouts with one full season lost, I`m not putting any money in a business that disrespects me as much as the NHL does.
Then why follow the team at all?

The real reason attendance is shit here is a little more nuanced than you'd think and it sucks hearing all these theories of why hockey isn't doing well down here from people who have never been here or been to games here. I lived in Atlanta when the Thrashers were there and they, and more importantly the fans that actually went to the games, got the raw deal there. The same is going to happen here. Hell, I know people back home in Vancouver that gave up their season tickets (after waiting years to get them) this season because they think we're going to tank.

Florida sports fans are, if nothing, fickle. The Dolphins have problems drawing, the Marlins suck and can't draw, even after getting a new, paid for by everyone but the owner, stadium which is right in downtown Miami. The Heat (sans LeBron) are going to have problems with attendance soon if they get off to a rough start. The Panthers have been on the fringe (at best) after having such a lousy record for so long.

You also have the added issue of most people here not being from here. So they carry their home team with them. There's tons of people here from up north that will go to a leaves, Habs, Wings, Rangers, Islanders, Devils etc game no problem, but there's been no great reasons to be Panthers fans in the last decade.

You still have this issue in Vancouver with Leaf games being overrun by Leaf fans.

Add to this the rumor that the team is going to move despite having a new ownership group (finally) that is willing to spend and try to turn things around (something Atlanta never had). Start winning, and the fans will come.
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Re: Seattle Getting Closer?

Post by mr perfect »

Topper wrote:Folks who may attend a Panther's game do not take public transit.

Once again, southern expansion was pre Gary Bettman.
Yet people in other hockey markets do take public (rapid) transit. Might there be a problem with Joe and Jane Average checking out an NHL game in FLA?

Bettman was not in on the Tampa/Ottawa expansion but he definitely in on the Anaheim/Florida expansions. And he was definitely in on the original Jets moving to Phoenix, as well as being in along with the BOG in the sale of the Panthers and Coyotes owners where the teams were part of or wholly of commercial development. This situation belongs squarely around his neck.
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Re: Seattle Getting Closer?

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Kowch: The shopping mall is a retail outlet in a suburb. How many corporate/high end jobs does this supply? Aren't outlet malls generally only busy on weekends when people aren't working?

It's nice that some high end neighbourhoods are close by. What's their population base? Can they alone support an NHL team? Sounds similar to being located in Lions Bay or West Vancouver. In a large metro area how long would it take for some one from South Beach on a Tuesday night to get to a Panthers game?

Your argument about Abbotsford is a non starter. Abbotsford is about 100,000 people and the Canucks aren't based there, which is not the equivalent of Glendale hosting the Coyotes and people from Phoenix/Scottsdale having to travel on a week night in rush hour traffic in a population twice the size of metro Vancouver. No, the equivalent would be the Canucks in Abbotsford and fans having to come from Vancouver, North Van, West Van, Burnaby out to Abby. The Canucks where they are now don't need Abbotsford to make it.

You're trying to compare the NHL with 41 home games on varying nights of the week to the NFL with 8 home games primarily played on Sunday afternoons? With the tradition of people being at the parks most of the day with tailgate parties? Get real.

I still follow the Canucks while waiting for the day the Jacobses, the Sniders, the Wirtzes and other tight fisted owners who propped up Alan Eagleson and control the lying little commissioner to no longer own an NHL team and we can see Bettman's ass hit the door on the way out. I don't know what your definition of a fan is nor do I care.

In short, Bettman was hired to be the first commissioner of the NHL with his mandate being getting a hard salary cap and a national American TV deal. In order to appease broadcast companies, the NHL had to put teams in southern belt cities because that's where population growth is and TV views from there make or break ratings. Yes, the Panthers not winning is part of the reason they have poor attendance but putting a team in a non traditional market is risky at best and due diligence is needed to ensure the product takes root. It would have been nice for Bettman to have had as much scrutiny with past development owners in both Phoenix and Miami as he did with Jim Balsillie, don't you think? After all isn't that what NHL owners are paying him to do?
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