Is Vancouver Ready ?

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MarkMM
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Re: Is Vancouver Ready ?

Post by MarkMM »

trouble wrote:
I'm 100% with you on this, but they are enough homes for these teams that it'll be a while before Vancouver gets a look at for a second team in this market. Bummer that Hamilton lies within the 50 miles of Toronto, but that's still way more plausible than Vancouver, and there's still Winnipeg, Quebec, Kansas, Las Vegas, Oklahoma, Houston, Seattle, Portland and Hartford that'll likely get a look before Surrey.
I look at those places you talk about and go wow besides Winterpeg and Quebec which neither really have a big enough place to play the rest look like more problems for the NHL
Depends on the management. Take Phoenix as an example. The killer in Phoenix isn't so much that it's a bad location, it's the fact that the team isn't in Phoenix! It's in Glendale, a suburb of Phoenix, it's like locating the Vancouver Canucks in Surrey, in a market where the fans are lukewarm to begin with, to make them drive out to the suburbs on a weekday evening to watch a hockey game was assinine. On top of that, the arena lease deal itself was terrible, with no parking ticket revenue sharing and little in the way of subsidies needed for a team like Phoenix.

Nashville, on the other hand, shows how it can be done. While I at first thought JB was screwed, I'll grudgingly admit that Bettman had a case to keep the team there, they do crack the 14,000 fans consistently without huge concessions to the fans, they have a good degree of corporate support, they're the 27th largest cable TV market in the US, headquarters of major US industries (not only music, but healthcare) and the team is investing heavily in minor hockey programs for kids, hoping to grow a generation of fans. Despite the fraud of Boots and the tax problems of Freeman (related to him covering Boots), Nashville's got a solid ownership team with an Alberta billionaire waiting to join them. I think in a few years time they'll be a strong franchise, on and off the ice.

People laughed at the idea of hockey in California or Dallas, and though they've had ups and downs, they've established hockey as a respected presence there, so let's not just look at the dot on the city and assume we can judge their viability for a hockey franchise. It's in the details of how they plan on running the franchise and building the fan base that counts.
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Re: Is Vancouver Ready ?

Post by LotusBlossom »

MarkMM wrote:
trouble wrote:
I'm 100% with you on this, but they are enough homes for these teams that it'll be a while before Vancouver gets a look at for a second team in this market. Bummer that Hamilton lies within the 50 miles of Toronto, but that's still way more plausible than Vancouver, and there's still Winnipeg, Quebec, Kansas, Las Vegas, Oklahoma, Houston, Seattle, Portland and Hartford that'll likely get a look before Surrey.
I look at those places you talk about and go wow besides Winterpeg and Quebec which neither really have a big enough place to play the rest look like more problems for the NHL
Depends on the management. Take Phoenix as an example. The killer in Phoenix isn't so much that it's a bad location, it's the fact that the team isn't in Phoenix! It's in Glendale, a suburb of Phoenix, it's like locating the Vancouver Canucks in Surrey, in a market where the fans are lukewarm to begin with, to make them drive out to the suburbs on a weekday evening to watch a hockey game was assinine. On top of that, the arena lease deal itself was terrible, with no parking ticket revenue sharing and little in the way of subsidies needed for a team like Phoenix.

Nashville, on the other hand, shows how it can be done. While I at first thought JB was screwed, I'll grudgingly admit that Bettman had a case to keep the team there, they do crack the 14,000 fans consistently without huge concessions to the fans, they have a good degree of corporate support, they're the 27th largest cable TV market in the US, headquarters of major US industries (not only music, but healthcare) and the team is investing heavily in minor hockey programs for kids, hoping to grow a generation of fans. Despite the fraud of Boots and the tax problems of Freeman (related to him covering Boots), Nashville's got a solid ownership team with an Alberta billionaire waiting to join them. I think in a few years time they'll be a strong franchise, on and off the ice.

People laughed at the idea of hockey in California or Dallas, and though they've had ups and downs, they've established hockey as a respected presence there, so let's not just look at the dot on the city and assume we can judge their viability for a hockey franchise. It's in the details of how they plan on running the franchise and building the fan base that counts.
Not that I think there will or should be a team in Surrey, the whole Glendale thing is rather amusing. It's really not that far away from Phoenix itself and do we forget the Arizona Cardinals of the NFL also play in Glendale at the University of Phoenix Stadium?

Glendale is a nice community, and actually quite a bit nicer than Phoenix itself. The problem really with the team being there are:

1) They had a losing team for so many years, the opportunities to recruit new fans were being wasted
2) They Coyotes have the Cardinals, NCAA football and basketball to vie for in terms or patronage

Just came from there so I do find it amusing. Great place to visit if you're into RnR and golf and tennis.
parfois, je veux juste laisser tinber un coude volant sur le monde
MarkMM
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Re: Is Vancouver Ready ?

Post by MarkMM »

LotusBlossom wrote: Not that I think there will or should be a team in Surrey, the whole Glendale thing is rather amusing. It's really not that far away from Phoenix itself and do we forget the Arizona Cardinals of the NFL also play in Glendale at the University of Phoenix Stadium?

Glendale is a nice community, and actually quite a bit nicer than Phoenix itself. The problem really with the team being there are:

1) They had a losing team for so many years, the opportunities to recruit new fans were being wasted
2) They Coyotes have the Cardinals, NCAA football and basketball to vie for in terms or patronage

Just came from there so I do find it amusing. Great place to visit if you're into RnR and golf and tennis.
Haha, I wasn't knocking Glendale as a community, I was pointing out that when you are bringing a new sport to Phoenix, any barrier to watching the game will kill you. Sure, they'll go to watch the Cardinals, football or basketball in Glendale, because Phoenix fans are fans of baseball, football and basketball...hockey? Only if it's convenient, and on the fan forums Phoenix fans have lamented that it's hard to get corporate buyers to buy tickets to head out to the game afterwards if they have to trek out to Glendale to do it. If it was a more "conventional" or "mainstream" sport they'd do it, but for hockey, it had better be convenient.

The reasoning around the Glendale arena, though, is that Glendale is a growing community and they plan to build it as the sports centre, which makes sense, if you had the time, which Phoenix does not have and certainly without the kinds of community subsidies that Nashville gets (something like $6.8 - 8.8 million/year, depending on how much non-hockey events they book in their arena).
Mark
MarkMM
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Re: Is Vancouver Ready ?

Post by MarkMM »

Good article here that mentions the Glendale location issue:

The Globe & Mail reported this month that an unnamed investment banker pegged the Coyotes value at $50 million in the current economic and financing environment, noting that the Phoenix market has been rattled by the recession and that fans have complained of the team’s location in the western suburbs.

and...

“Why would anyone savvy enough to make enough money to buy a NHL team buy one with the Coyotes’ economics,” asked one attorney familiar with Coyotes Chapter 11 case, who asked not be identified. “Even when the team is winning, there isn’t a large enough audience here willing to pay enough for tickets and travel on weekdays across town to Glendale to make it profitable.”

http://phoenix.bizjournals.com/phoenix/ ... ily12.html
Mark
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